Maverick MPs on the move
Labour MP Trevor Mallard has mellowed and now he has set his sights on becoming the next Speaker as part of a transformation from pugilist to peacemaker, writes
And his many years as bovverboy, paradoxically, are perhaps good training for being tough on all sides.
Trevor Mallard was always a scrapper. He’s one of the very few MPs to get involved in a fist-fight in Parliament. Now in his sunset years he seeks respectability. The man who has been thrown out of the House more than any other MP wants to be Speaker under the next Labour government.
Poachers do, of course, make effective gamekeepers, because their knowledge of the rules is so vivid. It’s as though it was branded on their skin.
Mallard has also surprised the world by deciding to retire as MP for Hutt South. Mr Wainuiomata is stepping down after 23 years in the post, the end of an era.
But here too, there is a hard logic to the move. Mallard’s seat has become highly marginal. By switching to the list, he might avoid humiliation.
And Speakers, it should be remembered, are often MPs near retirement. Sometimes they are lacklustre ministers whom the party wants to park somewhere (National’s David Carter; Labour’s Margaret Wilson).
In this case the ageing MP – first elected to Parliament in 1984 – offers a number of advantages to his party. He has the specialist skills for the job and he wants it (unlike Carter). Andrew Little has said Mallard will be Speaker in the next Labour government.
Otherwise Mallard might just be another obstacle to the rejuvenation that the party desperately needs.
Mallard has never been a policy wonk, so he can’t help with bold new ideas. And elderly attack dogs are a mixed blessing for parties trying to reinvent themselves. Voters remember the blood.
Finally, respectability might suit the man. He is now remarried, to political journalist Jane Clifton, and seems to be mellowing.
Mallard’s nadir, and the incident for which he is probably best known, was his dust-up with National MP Tau Henare in October 2007. The fist-fight in the lobby next to the debating chamber also showed the terrible dangers of attack-dog politics.
Mallard was reportedly infuriated when Henare referred in the chamber to the new woman in his life (he had separated from his wife of 33 years months earlier).
But Henare had taunted him because Mallard had previously baited his leader, Don Brash, about Brash’s alleged affair with a businesswoman. So this was a brutal case of political tit-for-tat, where one personal attack spawned another.
Labour leader Helen Clark was displeased by Mallard’s fight with Henare and noted that her government supported the ‘‘It’s not OK’’ anti-violence campaign.
Mallard, who had always been a loyal Clark supporter, apologised. Later, in a private prosecution brought by crusading accountant Graham McCready, Mallard pleaded guilty to a charge of fighting in a public place.
Though this brought lasting shame upon the politician, he has continued as a political bruiser.
In May 2013, he compared the Speaker, David Carter, to a ‘‘Mafia don running his @NZNational Party protection racket’’. In March that year, Mallard was ejected from Parliament after he said the Speaker had double standards.
Last year he was listed as the most-ejected MP, having been thrown out of the debating chamber nine times in six years (Winston Peters was second on six).
So it might seems strange that he is quitting his Hutt South seat because he wants to be Speaker and doesn’t think he can be an electorate MP at the same time. It was ‘‘hard to be an effective electorate MP and chair the House in an unbiased manner’’, Mallard said.
‘‘... it is really hard to be one minute asking a minister to do something for your electorate and the next minute being strict and making sure they are following the rules of the House.’’
Prime Minister John Key dismisses this, saying Mallard was ‘‘waving the white flag’’ because National MP Chris Bishop was extremely active in his electorate.
Bishop, a former tobacco lobbyist, is certainly a threat to Mallard. In 2014 he cut Mallard’s electoral majority to 709 votes, compared with 4825 in 2011. Boundary changes have made it a more National-leaning seat. National’s party vote in 2014 was 17,648, nearly 7000 more than Labour.
Mallard, of course, has a sizeable personal vote after serving so long in the electorate. But he clearly risks losing the seat next time. So some think he is jumping before being pushed.
However, if he is to be Speaker, he can’t continue being a political attack dog. As Assistant Speaker since 2014, he is only halfway to the job as Parliament’s referee.
He has proven he has the skills. Like other poachers-turned-gamekeepers, he can be a stickler for the rules. And his many years as bovver-boy, paradoxically, are perhaps good training for being tough on all sides, including his own. He has the hide for the job.
It’s also true that his political brutishness expressed only part of his personality. Before he became a politician, Mallard was an accountant and then a secondary school teacher; his personal manner tends to be respectable rather than brutish, contrary to what his public image might suggest.
He might be attracted by the idea of a respectable job before retiring.
He denies that his explosions are real outburst of anger.
‘‘There’s no doubt that there’s a degree of posturing that goes on in Parliament and I’m not immune from it,’’ he once said.
‘‘But there are very, very few people who know when I have seriously lost my temper.’’
That’s a relief.