KEY POINTS:
The same question just kept on coming. The Prime Minister just kept on ignoring it.
No way was Helen Clark going to admit to journalists yesterday that Labour's jettisoning of its majority in the shape of Taito Phillip Field meant the Greens were now Parliament's power-brokers.
That was not because she believes they don't have more leverage.
Her phone call to Jeanette Fitzsimons on Tuesday afternoon seeking confirmation that the Greens would continue to abstain on confidence motions was evidence of the slight power shift.
But public admission that the Greens have more influence could risk putting the noses of her two existing support partners, NZ First and United Future, out of joint. Worse, it could hint of instability.
The perception that Helen Clark was trying to project was "business as usual".
In that vein, it seemed no accident that Michael Cullen should suddenly announce the date of this year's Budget.
The new dynamics in the minority Government had National leader John Key referring in Parliament to "the coalition of the unwilling", while his deputy, Bill English, spoke of Labour now having to grapple with the "toxic trio" of NZ First, United Future and the Greens.
But with there being no semblance of any constitutional crisis, their cries failed to reverberate to much effect.
If anything, there was a sense of relief in Labour's ranks as the party swiftly ejected Mr Field from its caucus and had him reallocated to a new seat at the very back of the parliamentary chamber.
Not that he showed up to hear National exploit what still remained of Labour's embarrassment.
Mr Key ran through the gamut of ultimately contradictory statements that the Prime Minister had made about Mr Field since questions were first raised about his handling of immigration applications just before the 2005 election.
She had gone from initially saying the only thing Mr Field was guilty of was helping someone, to finally describing his behaviour as unacceptable, unethical and immoral.
Her response was that Labour had been clear all along that Mr Field's behaviour had been unacceptable. She did not mention the immoral and unethical bits.
This half-answer was the cue for her front-bench colleague Phil Goff to pull out a copy of Nicky Hager's The Hollow Men, which he read during his summer holiday.
Suddenly, it felt as if Parliament had time-warped back into the middle of last year and the summer holiday had never happened.
But with the Field saga running out of steam, Mr Key was keen to shift the focus to the Prime Minister's grand plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
He wanted to know how the measures she announced on Tuesday would go anywhere towards meeting her goal of carbon neutrality, given they would cut New Zealand's emissions of 75 million tonnes by a mere million tonnes.
She struggled for a convincing reply, in the end giving the honest one.
"We have to take the steps towards sustainability.
"We have outlined where they are. The National Party has not got a clue."
Yesterday was a swings and roundabouts kind of day for the Prime Minister and her colleagues.
Labour may be ridding itself of one problem.
Helen Clark will have her fingers crossed that in doing so the party is not creating an even bigger, more destabilising one.
