Audrey Young: The Labour leadership tease

John Key seems to be channelling Helen Clark's spirit as he tackles Labour head on. Photo / Dean Purcell

We are fast approaching the last question time for the 2009 Parliament but it will be hard to match yesterday's.

That felt like the finale because it was the last clash between Labour leader Phil Goff and Prime Minister John Key.

It was notable for a couple of things.

First, Key was more prepared than he usually is and had a whole lot of set-up lines to attack Goff with.

Key looked more like Helen Clark who used to come to the House armed to the nines with files and post-it-notes for ready access to that piece of information intended to disarm her aggressor.

Second, National was officially primed to rark up the whole issue of Shane Jones as a potential contender for the Labour leadership. The tease came from Key himself, and the backbencher who cat-called when Jones came into the House and applauded when he asked a question.

This sort of teasing happens frequently across the House.

National's main target this year has been David Cunliffe, who is said to fancy himself and Ruth Dyson as a potential leadership team.

It has now switched to Jones.

The hook for the latest tease was that Jones had taken issue over the flying of the tino rangatiratanga flag with the New Zealand flag on Waitangi Day while Goff had supported it.

Goff must have been mortified outside his caucus room when virtually all the media corps speaking to him before caucus abandoned his stand-up to go talk to Jones three metres away (David Cunliffe had come out of the caucus and leaned against the wall watching both).

The difference with the teasing over Jones, however, is that it feels less like a joke.

Cunliffe is struggling to win the confidence of his colleagues in his performance as Labour's finance spokesman.

It is hard to see how that would endear him to any claim as an alternative.

The other reason it feels less like a joke is because the atmospherics have changed in the Labour Party since Goff's Palmerston North speech on racial division.

The criticism Goff faced in the caucus about it has broken his sense of invincibility.

As Jane Clifton's column in this week's Listener puts it: "The tacit caucus promise to Helen Clark that Goff would be given a long run while various leadership candidates incubated is now toast."

Jones is not ready for the leadership.

But that is not to say that Jones - probably with benchmate David Parker - would not be in the running if things turned really sour for Goff.

Under Labour's own rules, the leadership must be voted on at its first caucus of the middle year - late in January.

There is no suggestion he will be challenged but it is unfortunate for him that he ends this year and starts next year with a focus on his leadership.