KEY POINTS:
The National Party is questioning the ability of Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor to continue in his job amid widespread expectation that he will soon be stripped of the portfolio.
Mr O'Connor arrived home yesterday to face annoyed colleagues and senior ministers after his ill-judged decision to take a suspended prison officer with him to the parliamentary rugby world cup in France.
While Mr O'Connor avoided a grilling in Parliament because he had other engagements, he is likely to be given a hard time when he does return to question time - and so, too, is the Prime Minister.
It was revealed yesterday that Mr O'Connor sent a text message to Prime Minister Helen Clark from the transit lounge in Hong Kong airport on Monday night to offer his resignation as minister.
The text was sent around 10pm New Zealand time, midway through his journey home from France.
Helen Clark replied with her own text message declining the offer.
She said yesterday she opted to text rather than call because it was late and she thought by the time she dealt with the message Mr O'Connor may have already been on a plane to Auckland.
"He is a decent person, that was the decent thing to do, but I didn't accept it," the Prime Minister said of Mr O'Connor's message. "As I said yesterday I will be addressing all these issues at a later point."
Mr O'Connor's future will be decided in a Cabinet reshuffle set to take place before the end of next month. He is expected to lose the corrections portfolio and there are even doubts about his ability to carry on in the Cabinet after a series of problems under his watch.
In the meantime, the National Party is labelling him a "lame duck" Corrections Minister, and the Prime Minister is being accused of political expediency for not removing him from the portfolio immediately.
"We're not arguing it would be a capital offence, but this comes on the end of a whole lot of other errors," party leader John Key said of the rugby furore. "This wasn't a random act he hadn't thought through, he actually had a meeting about this and was briefed on it and had an opportunity to consider and discuss the ramifications."
The spectacle of the Corrections Minister playing rugby and socialising with a suspended prison officer is being criticised because an investigation into problems at Rimutaka Prison - where the officer is employed - is continuing.
National's corrections spokesman, Simon Power, yesterday questioned what message it sent to that inquiry.
Mr O'Connor conceded that the decision to take Jim Morgan to France was a misjudgment and he had made it alone. It has emerged that the suspended man's wife, who works in Mr O'Connor's office and manages the rugby team, asked the minister whether it was appropriate to take Mr Morgan on the trip.
Helen Clark fired a shot back at National over its attacks, saying the Opposition had "very short memories" because a lot of "absolutely horrific" things had happened in the corrections portfolio before and could happen under any watch.
