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John Key talks about the Kim Dotcom saga. - Source: ONE News -
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The Prime Minister looks to have escaped relatively unscathed from his embarrassing Kim Dotcom correction in Parliament today.
While John Key took plenty of ribbing and heckling from opposition parties when making the correction, ultimately there was no major slip up or gotcha moment uncovered during his statement or follow up questioning today.
While the Labour Party may have inflicted little new damage to Key directly today, this was not a good day for his Government.
David Shearer - under huge pressure over his lack of evidence to back up his Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) tape claims - held his ground in Parliament and whilst not spectacular delivered the lines he needed to.
The problem for Key today was that there were two other National Party ministers in the gun as well.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett took a hammering from opposition MPs over the privacy leak at the Work and Income kiosks.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Hekia Parata again came under fire over the issue of the Christchurch School closures.
In fact, so spoilt for choice today was the opposition that it didn't even bother to ask questions about the troubled manufacturing export sector.
Those apparently will come later in the week.
The fact is that the Government is now having to fight a number of fires on different fronts. It's starting to look a little rattled.
So far there has only been minor damage in the polls, with the latest One News Colmar Brunton Poll having National on 45% still.
And if there is a clue to why, it may perhaps lie in the weak inflation data out today. The cost of living is not going through the roof and interest rates remain very low.
This is keeping a large group of voters relatively insulated from a sluggish economy.
However, with growth forecasts to slow later this year the Government will know it could soon be vulnerable on this front too.