Week in politics

It's welfare reform, Jim, but not as we know it. National's first substantial foray into territory from which it fled in undignified retreat in the Ruth Richardson-Jenny Shipley era is very cautious, very measured and very unthreatening - deliberately so.

Mission impossible? The green light may have been given for a long-awaited parliamentary inquiry into the price of milk, but the approval may have come too late for the commerce select committee to come up with any findings before the election.

The Labour Party does not have very much cause to feel grateful for anything right now. But it should get down on bended knees and thank the Almighty that hardly anybody would have been watching Parliament late on Wednesday afternoon.

To brand a political opponent as destructive and duplicitous is a bit rich when you subsequently pilfer a couple of his party's key policy planks without even a word of acknowledgement.

So begins the new season of that political sport known as "the tacit nod" - the hints of varying hues of subtlety which political leaders give their followers to vote a certain way to either decrease their opponents' chances or increase those of their allies.

Chalk this one up as something of a triumph for Phil Goff. So far, at least.

Phil Goff is not just risk averse. He is risk-phobic.

National's first move towards gutting state housing?

It may not be the done thing to go into bat for Gerry Brownlee. But a lot of the stick he has been getting as Earthquake Recovery minister has not been warranted.

Election? What election?