It would have been naive in the extreme to have expected any mention in yesterday's Speech from the Throne of the revelations contained in Nicky Hager's book, Dirty Politics.
The prime task of that speech - delivered by the Governor-General on the first day proper of the new post-election Parliament - is to lay out the Government's broad legislative and policy programme for the next three years. It is broad-brush. It is always devoid of detail on how any of the initiatives in the "shopping list" of policies will actually work.
Above all, the speech is always relentlessly positive. There is no room for listing political embarrassments - such as the exposure by Hager during the run-up to last month's election of National's covert dirty-tricks campaign.
National is hardly keen to resurrect the matter. The Prime Minister's success in shooting the messenger to kill the message, National's subsequent stunning victory at the ballot box, and the thrashing handed to Labour and that party's post-election meltdown have pushed the contents of Dirty Politics well out of the political limelight.
The rotten smell lingers, however. And National should think seriously about acknowledging it is badly tainted and do something which shows it is genuinely cleaning up its act.
