Key’s last victory lap elicits laughs aplenty

OPINION: And with a single guffaw, he was free. John Key’s final parliamentary question time as prime minister yesterday was everything he could have hoped for – his every answer able to be turned into dad joke at the Opposition’s expense.

He joked happily enough about how quickly superfluity had dawned, but must have been touched that, by way of granting him a last victory lap, all parties in Parliament laughed freely at his oneliners – just this once.

His best straight-man was Green coleader James Shaw, who started a string of questions by asking, was Key able to point out which one the surprise National leadership contender Jonathan Coleman actually was?

Key hammed cheerful vagueness. ‘‘I’m pretty sure he’s somewhere over there. Given he’s been in quite a number of my cabinets and I’m awake for most of them.’’

Shaw also theorised that national productivity was so low ‘‘because every working-age New Zealander has been bored to death listening to (leadership contender) Bill English’’.

‘‘If that’s his test,’’ Key chortled, ‘‘I should introduce (Shaw) to some of his own colleagues. Man, they’re not exactly people I wanna socialise with when I leave Parliament, lemme give you a clue!’’

NZ First, which had been holding up score cards to mark the occasion, and giving out only 1s and 2s, enthusiastically awarded that prime ministerial zinger a 21.

It was House leader Gerry Brownlee who fed Key his last cue: ‘‘In his long and successful tenure as prime minister, does he recall a day when the Greens have put more effort into their questions?’’

‘‘No,’’ Key said, gurgling with appreciative laughter. ‘‘Good to see they’re getting the hang of it, cos they’re gonna be asking questions for a very long time.’’

After years of Government torture about their leadership ructions, Labour MPs can finally return fire. Finance spokesman Grant Robertson had a ball: ‘‘There are two JCs in this contest,’’ he said, referencing Coleman and Judith Collins. ‘‘One JC thinks he walks on water, and the other thinks the original JC was a weak, socialist hippy.’’

Remarking on Collins’ assertion that she ‘‘doesn’t bear grudges’’, he said: ‘‘Rather, she embraces them, keeps [them] in a locked, dark cupboard, nurtures them into full-blown feuds and releases [them] to (Whale Oil blogger) Cameron Slater for safe keeping.’’

There’s an awful lot more of this to come. But from next week, the Government’s newest backbencher, one John Key, merely the member for Helensville, will only have to sit through it if the whips are mean enough to roster him on House duty.