Many happy returns...

IF LANCE Armstrong is looking for redemption he should move in to New Zealand politics – where no-one gets properly sacked and comebacks are easy.

Hekia Parata aside, take Nick Smith. Last March he resigned for abusing his ministerial powers to help a friend advance her ACC claim. Pretty cut and dried. A man with almost a quarter of a century in politics, seven of them as a minister, should have exercised better judgment. But from the moment he stood in Parliament and said: ‘‘I have breached the good standards that should apply to ministers’’ we knew he’d be back.

The resignation was a sham – a cynical trick designed to take the heat off. There was no downsizing the mortgage in the Smith household. Key was keeping his cabinet seat warm and his $260,000 salary on ice until it was safe to bring him back. No matter that a great deal of his work in the ACC portfolio has been unpicked after the mass privacy scandal last year. He oversaw what current minister Judith Collins has labelled a ‘‘culture of fear’’.

In environment, he overruled officials and signed off a $180,000 payment to a consultant friend. But Smith’s blue-green credentials will help when environmentalists get up in arms as Resource Management Act reforms progress this year.

If love means second chances, then Key must adore his errant ministers. Parata spectacularly failed her 90-day trial, but she’s hanging on. Not to kick a man when he’s down – but Phil Heatley was dumped only after he was brought in from the cold a month after it was found he misused his ministerial credit card to the tune of $1402.

Speaking of taxpayer-funded largesse, David Shearer is havering on his own reshuffle, to see what the auditor-general has to say about Shane Jones’s role in the citizenship application of Chinese businessman Bill Liu.

When those allegations resurfaced last year, Jones was well along the path of redemption after the unfortunate episode where he racked up hotel porn flicks on expenses. If the AG’s report comes up clean, it’s likely Shearer will make room for him on the front bench. I had long conversations this past week trying to understand what he brings to the party. It appears to amount to: blokes like him and Labour is a currently a bit testosterone light.

In the real world, barring an ERA ruling, few return to their jobs after a sacking. In politics, you bide your time until it’s time to give a suitably contrite interview with a media outlet. Parliament is an especially forgiving place if you have something to offer. And although the spotlight is harsh in the 24-hour media age, we move onto the next scandal rather quickly. A little chutzpah helps: Jones negotiated his shame with aplomb, and Smith ballsily shed his sack-cloth and declared he was tired of Purdah.

Nevertheless, don’t hold your breath for Brendan Horan’s return to the merciful bosom of Winston Peters.