By AUDREY YOUNG
The political art of Parliament's question time is how to suggest that the other lot put pebbles in Ready Teddy's horseshoes or let down Sarah Ulmer's tyres.
And as the television cameras began live broadcasts of question time yesterday, Commerce Minister Paul Swain did his best to mix Olympic sports with politics.
Still charged with energy after meeting billionaire Bill Gates in Melbourne last week, Mr e-Swain mounted his high horse in one leap to castigate the National Opposition:
"At a time when New Zealanders are getting behind their Olympic team to support their team in Australia, the National Party continue to run the country down and I say it's time to get in behind the country, Mr Speaker.
"It's time to get in behind the country."
He resisted saying it a third time, or "Hi yo, Silver." But it was a silver-medal winning answer to a dime-a-dozen question from Lockwood Smith about economic uncertainty.
Question time is about MPs making the other side look bad. It's a bonus if their own lot look virtuous - it's usually an unintended consequence if a question gets answered.
Live question time on Sky and the internet seems unlikely to change that.
After three days' dress-rehearsal last week, it began in earnest yesterday.
MPs were conspicuously better disciplined and more good-humoured than usual, but they weren't any more "live."
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters continued his habit of "resting his eyes" during boring questions - he insists it is not sleep - and Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia continued his habit of yawning.
It was a showcase day, with most of the stars getting an outing, including the newer ones: National's Katherine Rich, the Greens' Nandor Tanczos and Act's Whosey-face, the one whose name Speaker Jonathan Hunt regularly forgets, the one with the glasses, the one who sits next to Muriel Thingey, the one who used to be a hotshot lawyer, the one who some fancy as the next leader ... Stephen Franks.
But the standout performance came from Trevor Mallard, the Education and Sport Minister who has just returned from visiting the Olympics. And he proved what a political athlete he is becoming.
In the absence of Finance Minister Michael Cullen in Europe and Prime Minister Helen Clark opening a bottling plant in Paeroa, Mr Mallard not only held the fort for both of them, he launched an assault on National leader Jenny Shipley over Maori issues, the rise of heir apparent Bill English and the fact that she backed the exclusion of kura kaupapa teachers from teacher registration laws.
He may be the Government's bluntest instrument but you could pin a medal on Mr Mallard and call him Labour's Ian Thorpe.
Live question time: let the tart games begin
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