The Government's much lauded, but also criticised, emissions trading scheme legislation should pass into law today, leaving Prime Minister Helen Clark with no further excuse to delay naming an election date, except she does not have to yet.
The longer she delays setting the day, the closer the opinion polls might put her Labour Party to National.
National has dominated polling results for more than 12 months, with some polls indicating that the party could govern alone.
But as recently as last week, polls indicated Labour is not out of the running by any means yet.
Miss Clark is due to visit Dunedin on Thursday and it would have had some irony if she had named the date and one of her first official election campaign visits was to a city where one of her loyal MPs is contemplating his future.
When the election date is known, retiring MPs will get their chance to give their valedictory speeches.
For Dunedin, the interest will be on whether Dunedin South MP David Benson-Pope will take that opportunity.
Ostracised National Party MP Brian Connell chose to leave Parliament on August 31 without making a farewell speech.
His comment - that if you cannot say anything good about something, then do not say anything - could be adopted by the Dunedin South MP.
Mr Benson-Pope was replaced as the party's candidate by public relations consultant Clare Curran.
Former Dunedin South and St Kilda MP Michael Cullen was in the city on Sunday to launch Ms Curran's campaign.
While both spoke highly of Mr Benson-Pope, it must be on their minds whether the MP will not go quietly into the night and instead stand, perhaps as an Independent Labour candidate.
Ms Curran tells anyone who will listen that Mr Benson-Pope is more interested in the mayoralty of Dunedin than remaining in Parliament.
But the local government elections are two years away and Mr Benson-Pope has to fill in his time somehow before then.
If a National-led government takes power after the election, any hope he might have of a lucrative official appointment will disappear.
A clique of Labour MPs seems to think Mr Benson-Pope may stand.
He continually avoids answering any questions, direct or otherwise, about his plans but he does make a point of urging people to cast their party vote for Labour.
A pointer to his future might lie in the McBride St window of his office.
It says: Dunedin South Office, David Benson-Pope.
The word "electorate" has been blacked out and all Labour Party logos have been removed.
Ostensibly, this is to comply with the Electoral Finance Act.
National list MP Katherine Rich has no such decisions to make.
She leaves Parliament by choice and will no doubt make a passionate speech.
The timing of her farewell speech is causing some problems for her family, with a family member phoning the Otago Daily Times to see if the newspaper could provide some more information that he believed Mrs Rich was keeping to herself.
The call was based on information in a report from Parliament that said valedictory speeches were due this week, but that report was based on the sitting calendar of Parliament which showed that after this week, only September 23 was set aside as a sitting day.
MPs, the media, thousands of Wellington bureaucrats, and perhaps some members of the public, will be watching today's proceedings in Parliament to see if this changes.
Political editor Dene Mackenzie is in Wellington this week.
