Good caucus sends Labour raucous

You can always tell when a party has had a good caucus meeting. Labour had a good one yesterday.

Discipline in the House is a little sharper, it operates more collegially, it objects more strongly, it scoffs more theatrically, it tries a little harder.

That was clear on the Labour side even before question time began. Clerk of the House Mary Harris listed two petitions that had been presented.

There was customary silence for the first, one in the name of Green MP Sue Kedgley and 15,000-odd others on healthy eating policy for schools.

The second, in the name of Labour MP Sue Moroney and 15,000 or so others, called on the Government to reverse its decision to scrap pay investigations for school support staff, and a bit more too, but that was inaudible because the Labour caucus had burst into short sustained applause - Beijing style.

Labour is buoyed by the Roy Morgan poll on Friday showing a five-point drop for National and a four-point rise for Labour.

It is also pleased as punch that Trevor Mallard and Pete Hodgson are keeping the acid on the Bill English ministerial housing issue.

Especially since OIA papers revealed such detail as his wife asking for another $20 a week for three hours of cleaning - instead of two - of their family home.

In the present tight times, an apparently modest request by a wealthy household for $20 of taxpayer-funded cleaning looks greedy and extravagant.

English's own script is simple - his instructions-to-self will be to say as little as possible.

Explaining is losing, to quote the maxim of his own leader, John Key, who is in New York. Even saying "it was within the rules" is saying too much on this sensitive issue.

English went off script in the first few seconds of his first question yesterday, goaded by a Mallard reference to the house in Messines Rd.

"This is the bit where Trevor yells for the TV camera," said English.

English's bite was enough to ensure that Mallard, who sits within whispering distance of Speaker Lockwood Smith, kept up the taunts through most of the four questions English answered.

The Speaker himself was not having the sharpest of days - he forgot the name of the former chief Government whip and now Internal Affairs Minister, Nathan Guy, who rose to answer a question.

Environment Minister Nick Smith made the most impact on National's benches, issuing a set of figures on the costs of the emissions trading scheme, suggesting National's proposed scheme would cost the taxpayer less between 2013 and 2018 than Labour's.

But the English baiting became too much for Speaker when the whole caucus joined Mallard in a chorus of scoffery when English accused Labour of making "extravagant claims" over something.

It could have been anything. It happened to be over the emissions trading scheme but it could have been the price of bread, the colour of grass or the time of day.

"Extravagant claims!" An echo reverberated around Labour's benches.

English was Acting Prime Minister yesterday so he had plenty of questions to answer.

But he does not answer for the PM on issues relating to his housing.

Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee answered on that.

He conceded that a Ministerial Services email suggesting that the Prime Minister himself had approved the criteria for the English house lease arrangement were not correct.

English attempted to inject a sense of reality in response to a stream of Opposition complaints about where the Government cuts of impacted.

He reminded the House that New Zealand was borrowing $400 million a week to continue with a whole range of public services.

"Eventually that tap will have to be turned down and the money will have to be repaid with interest," he said.

That got a real rise out of Labour.