KEY POINTS:
When Phil Heatley first raised Housing New Zealand's use of Tongariro Lodge for a staff conference venue, I had some sympathy for the minister, Maryan Street, for several reasons.
Having been a frequent user of hotels in my own job, I did not think that $250 a day for accommodation and three meals was excessive. Not cheap, but not exhorbitant.
Secondly, having been the Herald's social welfare and housing reporter after National's 1990-91 benefit cuts, and during the phase in of market rents and the sell-down of 13,000 units of housing stock, it is still hard to hear National MPs like Heatley and social welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins advocating for the poor.
I know that Heatley works his housing beat very conscientiously and that he was nowhere near those policies but it is still hard to hear him wail about waiting lists and people living in squalor without a sense of "pinch-me-am-I-hearing-right?'
Then there is the "luxury' lodge itself, a term Heatley repeatedly used but not, in my search, a term the Lodge itself uses.
From the pictures I saw it looked thoroughly comfortable and picturesque, lovely, homely, but luxury? Sorry, Tongariro Lodge, no.
Having done the obligatory Google search on the lodge for my news story, I had cause to pause when I saw that "Zane Grey made it famous, the Queen Mother stalked trout in it, Jimmy Carter found solitude beside it. '
However , that turned out to be a description of the Tongariro River, not the Tongariro Lodge.
Another factor in my sympathy is the respect I have for the job Street is doing as a new minister. She is a conviction politician who knows what she wants and knows, or thought she knew, how to get there with the least resistance.
But my sympathy for her faded somewhat when I heard, before yesterday's humiliating correction in the House by Helen Clark over Street's misjudgment, that Clark herself had advised Street before Question Time on Tuesday not to defend the use of Tongariro Lodge - and yet she did the opposite.
I can think of three options: either Clark exaggerated the advice she gave Street; or Street ignored Clark's advice because she thought she could beat Heatley; or Street did not have the political dexterity under the pressure of the House to follow that advice.
As it turns out, Clark was right. Street should not have defended the corporation. It is not Street's - or my - idea of what was a good deal or what constitutes luxury that matters but what the person in the street or the state house thinks.
It is a classic case of perception being more important than reality.
I see that Tane on The Standard had a change of heart over the Housing New Zealand conference issue as well but in reverse order. He had initial concerns, then thought it might not have been such a bad deal when a friend supplied him with competitive figures.
Street was an outside chance as a deputy leader and perfect complement to Phil Goff in a leadership team if Labour loses the next election. The odds on that got longer this week (Street, not a loss).
There will be a few on the right of the Labour caucus who won't be too unhappy that Street's charmed run as a new minister has ended.
