KEY POINTS:
Whether it was poor judgment or simply bad advice, Damien O'Connor got it all wrong in Parliament yesterday.
The Corrections Minister could have used the snap debate on his department's monitoring of Graeme Burton's parole to offer a belated apology of some kind to the killer's victims and their families.
But instead of an apology, Mr O'Connor told the House he felt like "almost apologising" to the family of Karl Kuchenbecker, the Wainuiomata father-of-two killed by Burton, because the National Party had dragged them into the debate for "cheap politicking".
Quite what was going through his mind was not clear. The Prime Minister describes the MP as a "humane and compassionate man". While it might be her way of saying he is too nice for the Corrections portfolio, it is an accurate assessment.
Whatever, those qualities temporarily deserted the minister yesterday.
He should have left the politics to his deputy leader, Michael Cullen, who tellingly spoke first in the snap debate, forcing Mr O'Connor to wait his turn and sit through speech after speech criticising Corrections and the universally discredited claim by its chief executive that the monitoring of Burton's parole had been "well managed".
It could not have been pleasant listening to MP after MP declaring that your credibility has been destroyed and no one, including the Prime Minister, has confidence in you or your department as it lurches from crisis to crisis. To that degree, Mr O'Connor certainly did some penance yesterday.
That no apology was forthcoming was not a total surprise. Dr Cullen had earlier flagged Labour's intention to get off the back foot, both attacking and agreeing with National on lapses by Corrections and the Parole Board.
Unlike Dr Cullen and the Prime Minister, Mr O'Connor has been reluctant to slam his officials, even though they have made his life even more difficult by declaring Burton's parole well managed.
When he spoke, he finally acknowledged that had not been the case. But he preferred to stick to his refrain that his job was to ensure the department learned from its mistakes and such a tragedy never happened again. He also had an answer to demands that he resign in the wake of the deaths of Mr Kuchenbecker and North Shore teenager Liam Ashley.
In what amounts to a rewrite of the concept of individual ministerial responsibility, Mr O'Connor claimed accountability for what had happened rested in him making the commitment to make sure those deaths could never happen again.
That poses a big question, however. If there is no sanction on ministers to perform - and ministerial responsibility is already a pretty weak one - there is no incentive on ministers to ensure their officials do fix things beyond the risk of further political embarrassment if they do not.
It was the unlikely figure of New Zealand First's Peter Brown, not always Parliament's most incisive speaker, who slashed Mr O'Connor's argument to pieces.
Mr Brown noted National had constantly asked Mr O'Connor if he had confidence in his department. The minister's answer was always the same: "Yes, but there is always room for improvement." Unfortunately - Mr Brown observed - the lack of any improvement had now resulted in people dying.
And that sums up a portfolio that has become a nagging headache for Labour: the more Mr O'Connor talks of fixing things, the less convincing he sounds.
