KEY POINTS:
When Trevor Mallard taunted Don Brash about Diane Foreman, Brash should have taken him outside and biffed him, then he might still be in Parliament, leading his party to victory. I reckon conservative supporters would have cheered if, taking his cue from Kenny Rogers' Coward of the County ballad, Brash had said "this one's for Diane" and flattened Mallard with a left hook, showing he was no wimp when it came to defending a woman's honour.
There was no need for Helen Clark to sack Mallard from Cabinet. His transgression wasn't on a par with those which brought about David Benson-Pope and Lianne Dalziel's fall from honour. Mallard didn't lie or mislead anyone. In an age when no one is ever to blame for anything, he should be congratulated for admitting he stuffed up. Tau Henare hasn't the cojones to do that - and he started it. Why should the Prime Minister sack Mallard, when Henare gets home free?
We can't have MPs punching each other but who knows what really happened. Henare twice told TV3 he was "tapped", but Rodney Hide, who will complain to police if the Speaker rejects his complaint to the Privileges Committee, told National Radio Mallard "hit Tau Henare in the head repeatedly". Both MPs can't be right, unless one man's tap is another's assault.
Labour's on the way out anyway - Trevor's temper was hardly the tipping point - and sending him to the Privileges Committee is just a joke. The public think being an MP is in itself a breach of privilege, the way they waste taxpayers' money.
I don't know why I stick up for Mallard. He was often horrible to me when I was in Parliament, in the debating chamber and in his personal emails. When I was Act spokeswoman for education, every time I sent an Official Information Act request to his office, he would write demanding I pay around $800. When I asked where this money would go - his office, himself, or the ministry - he replied it was to "offset the costs of your ongoing stupidity".
Nice one, Trev.
But neither of us took it personally, and in private moments he could be a sweetie. For some reason he admired my powder-blue pointy-toed shoes and my new haircut when I finally gave up trying to survive in the windy capital with long hair sticking to my lipstick - a most dreadful feeling.
Mallard is now my local MP and, though I disagree with his political philosophy, he's a good local representative, something others overlook in their condemnation. He's always available to sort out disputes, attend minor and boring local functions; he's energetic, enthusiastic and committed to the good people in the Hutt.
I don't think many people realise the pressure MPs come under at the best of times. Marriages break up every day, but most couples at least have privacy. If it happens in Parliament, not only are you coping with feelings of failure, loss, grief, anger, confusion, and guilt, you have to put up with munters from the press gallery passing judgment, in quite nasty tones, on your life story. You worry about your kids reading this crap - will their love be as unconditional as yours for them? Will your friends desert you when you need them most?
Then you have jealous colleagues feeding gossip to reporters - I felt like pulling out a Kalashnikov and letting rip. All Mallard did was fail to take a deep breath, count to 10 and walk away. Pretty understandable; he's only a human being, unlike those perfect MPs who, as fictional British Minister for Social Affairs Hugh Abbott would say, are "born at 55 with no past and no genitals".
Two thousand years before Abbott's character was created for the BBC, Roman dramatist and philosopher Seneca, in his account of Oedipus, wrote: "If I were allowed to change fate according to my will, I would move my sails with a gentle zephyr, so that the spars would not be strained to breaking point by strong winds. A calm breeze would ripple softly along the sides of my rocking ship."
More than his apology and acceptance of anger management lessons, Mallard's bravest statement, and the reason he deserved to stay in Cabinet, was his admission of regret.
Most people backed into a corner try and brazen their way out, but anyone who says they have no regrets is a liar, or a fool, or both.
Given the chance, who of us would not choose a different path at some point in our past?
Only those, I suspect, who've never really lived.