Labour's 'bouncer' leads on points

Trevor Mallard pleaded guilty to a fighting charge after a private prosecution following an incident with National MP Tau Henare. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The brows of National MPs' furrow in frustration. The Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, shakes his head in annoyance. He and his colleagues on the Government benches look skywards for help, their sighs a collective prayer which groans "please, not again".

It goes unanswered. There is to be no salvation. Labour's Trevor Mallard has risen to his feet to make yet another point of order - his fifth in almost as many minutes.

Reinstated on Labour's front bench last week, the long-serving Hutt South MP, former Cabinet minister and current education spokesman is certainly making his presence felt in Parliament once more - but not in the manner expected.

The departure of Michael Cullen has seen Mallard adopt the former's role of some kind of kaumatua figure whose opinion is sought and given when the House gets itself into procedural tangles.

It is a role which also involves pointing out breaches of House rules on the part of opponents, while ensuring his own party's rights are not infringed.

It is an essential role. Every party in Parliament needs someone with the combination of experience and knowledge of standing orders and Speaker's rulings who can intervene to help, protect and often rescue colleagues when the going gets rough in the chamber.

Normally this is the task of the Shadow Leader of the House who usually sits on the front bench. However, Darren Hughes, who has that job, is on Labour's second bench and is still adjusting to the role. Being Labour's "bouncer" has fallen to Mallard. He has taken to it with alacrity - some would say too much.

Yesterday he raised no less than 10 points of order during two questions and continued in that vein during the following general debate.

Mallard's reincarnation from pugilist to policeman is taking some getting used to. No misdemeanour is too small to go unremarked upon. He sits like a coiled spring, jumping to his feet to point out some transgression of House rules to the Speaker - and sometimes some perceived transgression by Lockwood Smith himself.

Mallard is perfectly within his rights to operate in this fashion. But, at times, it reeks of the parliamentary equivalent of the school prefect striding the playground telling pupils to pull up their socks. It can get a bit tedious.

He is also in danger of alienating a Speaker who has gone out of his way to make life easier for the Opposition like none other in living memory.

Meanwhile, Mallard's opponents are also clearly finding it hard to stomach having to listen to lectures on House decorum from someone who not that long ago indulged in fisticuffs in the lobbies.

Yesterday Brownlee got one back on Mallard. The National MP noted that Mallard was taking a position in an argument over the wording of a particular question from Labour leader Phil Goff which ran counter to the one he had taken when in Government.

There was also some gloating on the Government benches when Goff claimed National's Mt Albert candidate, Melissa Lee, had misused NZ On Air money to produce party political advertisements during last year's election. Bill English pointedly observed that the alleged events had actually occurred under Mallard's watch as Minister of Broadcasting.

But Mallard has a thick hide. Such arrows fail to penetrate. National MPs know they will have to just grin and bear it. For Mallard will be back trying to get under their skins when the House sits today. And the next day it sits. And the next ...