Labour Party MPs had more of a bounce in their step yesterday as they started to believe the balance of public opinion was about to shift towards them following some wins by Finance Minister Michael Cullen against National Party leader John Key.
The MPs, some of whom face losing their places in Parliament given current polling, looked more confident about their futures as the last session before the November 8 election grinds to a halt this week.
Mr Key was forced to make a statement rejecting he used his parliamentary position to gain any benefit from owning Tranz Rail shares or intended to mislead anyone.
In his statement, Mr Key laid out the details of the shareholding which showed he had never personally owned shares in Tranz Rail.
His family trust did and the trust first purchased those shares before he entered Parliament.
That was not good enough for Dr Cullen, who maintained that Mr Key was required by the standing orders at the time to declare his conflict of interest in Tranz Rail at any point when his role as an MP conflicted with his role as a shareholder.
"But Mr Key already knew that.
When speaking in the debate on the pecuniary interests legislation he raised the issue of Tranz Rail as what appeared to be a hypothetical, but what we now know was an attack of guilty conscience."
In one eight-week period, Mr Key asked written and oral questions in Parliament, lodged an Official information Act (OIA) request to Dr Cullen, bought 50,000 shares in his own name, met Rail America, complained to the Ombudsman about his OIA and then sold his personal holdings, nearly doubling his money in the process.
Mr Key was speaking out through his newsletter, he was taking meetings with bidders for the rail system and trying to get Dr Cullen to release commercial information to him, the Fin-ance Minister said.
"No aspect of Mr Key's story can now be trusted. He has lied in July to reporters and the public and he did it again last night. He needs to produce any correspondence he had with his broker during 2002 and 2003 at the very least.
"And he also needs to give us the real story about why he sold the shares. He should tell the truth now to save himself at least some embarrassment when the real story emerges."
Mr Key said his broker managed the details of the trust's portfolio, reporting to a solicitor acting as an independent trustee, and was able to act without reference to him personally.
In early June 2003, he saw that Tranz Rail was going to be a political issue and instructed that the shares be sold.
The parcel as a whole was sold at a loss.
"My recollection is that I instructed the sale prior to the June 11 select committee meeting. Nevertheless, I now believe I should have instructed their sale earlier."
The election is still a long way away, politically speaking, and National will bounce back.
But instead of being on top of its game, the political arm of the party has been forced to sit in the House and watch the Govern-ment score points from its leader.
It is guaranteed Labour will continue what Mr Key is calling a "smear attack" on him.
It started in earnest last week and will continue unabated until the election.
The success of the campaign will be whether Labour can create feelings of doubt in the mind of voters about Mr Key's honesty and ability to manage the economy on their behalf, rather than the behalf of big business.
Political Editor Dene Mackenzie is in Wellington this week.
