John Armstrong: Brownlee stews after Mallard hijacking

Gerry Brownlee lost control of the House. File photo / Mark Mitchell

There he sat, stewing furiously in silence, a look as black as thunder enveloping his face; the very picture of a smouldering Mount Vesuvius ready to erupt at any moment in a lather, if not lava of frustration and indignation over what was happening.

But for one thing. Gerry Brownlee had to control himself in Parliament yesterday if only to avoid Labour making him even more of a laughing stock than he had already become.

As Leader of the House - the Cabinet minister responsible for managing Parliament's business - Brownlee had to take responsibility for what was by parliamentary standards a procedural blunder of staggering proportions.

It was surely worse than Brownlee's worst nightmares. Trevor Mallard, someone to whom National concedes nothing, had hijacked the House.

Mallard cleverly tricked National MPs into not objecting to leave for a
motion congratulating Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce for getting his degree some two decades ago.

National MPs seemingly assumed Mallard was just continuing the fun earlier during question-time when Joyce had tabled his academic record from his days at Massey University.

The upshot of the failure to block the motion was a Labour filibuster which chewed up more than half-an-hour of valuable parliamentary time which would otherwise been devoted to debating Government legislation.

Brownlee had lost control of the House – a major political crime and huge loss of face for a Leader of the House. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Such Opposition coups are rare events. Labour MPs sat back beaming like Cheshire cats on laughing gas as Mallard and then Darren Hughes, Labour's resident witty person, mercilessly lampooned Joyce.

One of Brownlee's great virtues is an ability to laugh at his own expense. He had done so earlier in the afternoon in his capacity of Energy minister. Labour's Jacinda Ardern had asked him whether National backbencher Nikki Kaye had talked to him about her objections to him permitting mining on Great Barrier Island which is part of Kaye's Auckland Central electorate.

"I have had extensive discussions with the member for Auckland Central, and the result of those is clear for everyone to see," Brownlee replied.

In other words, he had failed to change her mind.

However, when Ardern, who will be Labour's candidate in Auckland Central next year, accused Kaye of grandstanding, Brownlee quickly turned the tables.

When it came to grandstanding, he could remember Labour MPs last year "going back to their roots" by visiting their party's birthplace, none other than the West Coast mining township of Blackball.

Perhaps the resulting cheers from colleagues were still ringing in Brownlee's ears when Mallard sought leave to put his motion congratulating Joyce.

Maybe Brownlee misheard and thought Mallard was putting a non-debatable motion to the House. Whatever, Brownlee should have smelt a big fat rat. He didn't. In a flash, Mallard had taken the call.

Nothing could be done to stop him. National MPs had to just grin and bear it.

Such is Brownlee's temperament that a grin at his predicament flickered briefly. But it could not compete with the dark mood of the Leader of the House.

When Speaker Lockwood Smith blocked his attempt to wind up the debate and instead called on Hughes to speak, Brownlee picked up his papers and headed for the exit.

"It's a good speech, Gerry. It's worth staying for," Hughes promised.

Under normal circumstances, Brownlee would have stuck around and enjoyed it.

But not yesterday.