Mike's Minute: The BSA legislation should have been delivered sooner

If I was generous, I would let him off, given he has got more portfolios than anyone. 

But Paul Goldsmith has delivered to Parliament the bit of legislation that will finally finish off the Broadcasting Standards Authority. 

He did it with a flourish of slightly embarrassing bonhomie. 

He saw its delivery as being the delivery of a promise, the promise being we would get legislation in the house before the election. 

Technically he is correct. More realistically it means nothing, given Parliament is finished today and the legislation goes nowhere. 

Under a different set of circumstances, at a different time, in a different election campaign, this sort of thing might have mattered. 

The same way the Waitangi Tribunal review, that will go nowhere, would have mattered. Or the MAPAS medical school review, that will go nowhere, would have mattered. 

Saying stuff and delivering on it should matter and this Government's weakness has been talking up big games all over town and not quite getting them across the line. 

In reality though, it won't matter because in the grand scheme of things these issues are not a play for the majority of voters this time around. 

This time around it's merely about the hole the Government has been digging us out of. 

Did they do enough? Is the Labour damage repaired enough for you to believe that the current collective should be allowed to carry on? 

That is the beginning, middle, and end of it. 

Whether we have a BSA will not shift one vote, not even mine, and I'm one of the more exercised on the issue. 

The same way they changed the law on earthquake prone buildings, the removal of the BSA won't change the world. But the world will make more sense without it. 

It was irrelevant, wasteful and didn’t change a thing. No one was better because of it and all it did was eat up hours and dollars of broadcasters' time, filing reports from bored agitators who wanted to cause trouble. 

If Goldsmith had been more efficient and actually done it properly, it would have been a nice, term one parting gift. 

As it stands, it's at least something to look forward to next year.