KEY POINTS:
Hallelujah. Some much-needed political management. Helen Clark's announcement tonight that Auditor-General Kevin Brady will look at the shambles surrounding former Immigration head Mary Anne Thompson, her Pacific division, the decision-making at the Department of Labour, its interactions with the State Services, and anything else he wants was the right one.
It may be stretching his traditional brief. But it is warranted.
And some much needed acknowledgement that the cabinet confidence has been "somewhat shattered" by recent events.
Clark didn't actually specify who or what (she didn't specify the Immigration Service as TV3 claimed tonight) but it is a safe bet she was meaning the whole shooting match.
According to Clark, the idea to bring in Brady was actually Clayton Cosgrove's, Immigration Minister, who stood perfectly still by her during her entire post-cabinet press conference like a carved temple dog.
If that is the case, it was a good call. Sure Cosgrove may have wanted to limit the effects of another going over in the House this week, that he and his predecessor David Cunliffe got. But after a round of the RSAs and shopping malls in Waimakariri at the weekend he would have been in no doubt how bad it all looks.
Clark's less than subtle implication is that the public and the Government could not be certain they would have confidence in an inquiry run by the Immigration Service or the State Services Commission.
The value of internal inquiries has been undermined not least by the blancmange offered up by the Labour Department and State Services Commission themselves on other matters (the "Lying in Unison" white wash, the Madeleine Setchell-Clare Curran employment affairs).
The integrity of independent inquiries have undermined after the stone-walling that Noel Ingram QC faced when he tried to get to the truth of the Phillip Field-Thai tiling fiasco - and on very narrow terms of reference set by the Government.
He had no power to compel people to speak to him let alone speak the truth to him, nor did he have powers to seize documents.
A commission of inquiry is able to do that, but for the Thompson-Immigration scandal, that would have been out of the question in election year. The process is too public.
The Auditor-General has the same powers of compulsion but tends to work under the radar.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the conviction of the former auditor-general Jeff Chapman for fraud also gives the AG's office first hand experience of how shattering a deception can be in terms of personal trust but more importantly its destructive effect on public confidence.
Ironically, the fact that the present AG has been the subject of so much Labour resentment since his finding in 2006 that it unlawfully spend $800,000 in the 2005 campaign, increases his credibility and value of independence to Labour in this instance.
I see that Gerry Brownlee is saying the AG inquiry is Clark's way of isolating her ministers. It needn't be. And it should not be. Brady must be free to explore what the former ministers knew and when about the malfunctioning Pacific division and Thompson, not just from Cosgrove and Cunliffe but from Paul Swain as well, who is thought to have had major concerns.
Brownlee has raised some issues that the AG could probe.
One of the more fascinating aspects of the final report ( I wouldn't expect it to be completed in the life-time of this Parliament) will be what concerns former State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham had about Thompson's claimed PhD and who he shared those concerns with and if not, why not.
Clark was missed by her colleagues last week when this awful Thompson story broke.
Michael Cullen was forced to handle it, adding to the pressure in what must have been one of the worst weeks he has ever had in a while.
His long-serving private secretary Kim McKenzie departed suddenly, apparently after a dispute of some sort - unrelated to the Budget. (He said today that she had not been sacked and was on leave and did not know if she was returning).
His traditional pre-Budget speech to the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association drew a pitiful audience of 36.
Clark noted on Newstalk ZB this morning that the person organising it should have been shot given the fact that she had given a speech there only two weeks previously to a packed audience - wherein may lie the reason.
Little wonder that Cullen's office is quick to say that his post-Budget speech on Friday to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce is a sell-out - sorry, is sold out - with 85 acceptances for tickets at $60 a head.
It won't be hard for him to have a better week this week.
