Clark says Mallard defending woman's honour

Senior Cabinet Minister Trevor Mallard was "defending a woman's integrity" when he thumped National MP Tau Henare but his actions cannot go "unnoticed", Prime Minister Helen Clark says.

Miss Clark will reshuffle her Cabinet this week and Mr Mallard is expected to face demotion from his front-bench spot. He is also likely to lose some of his portfolios.

Miss Clark today said Mr Mallard should have been "big enough" to walk away from Mr Henare's taunts last Wednesday.

"I think he felt he was defending a woman's integrity - a woman who had been quite wrongly and unfairly named in Parliament by Mr Henare as involved with Mr Mallard, but it should not have got to fisticuffs," she said on Newstalk ZB.

Mr Henare is reported to have yelled "Shut up Sharon" to Mr Mallard in Parliament, sparking the altercation a few minutes later in the lobby of the debating chamber.

The reference followed a Herald on Sunday article that had wrongly linked Mr Mallard to the woman. The newspaper was forced to apologise.

However, later in the week Mr Mallard movedd to clear the air, revealing he was involved with former New Zealand rower Brenda Lawson.

Miss Clark said Mr Mallard had been through a difficult few months.

"He has been under a lot of stress as I think anyone is such a situation would have been. His very long term marriage of more than three decades had dissolved. His father had just died.

"But I think the message out of this is that when you are under that sort of stress and you are also in a very high-profile job you need to get some support and it may be professional support and no one should feel ashamed of that."

Miss Clark said Mr Mallard had been a strong and reliable minister, but would be held accountable for his actions in the upcoming reshuffle.

"I don't think the matter can go unnoticed at all. We don't approve of people resolving their differences through physical violence. It may not have been a protracted act, but it shouldn't have happened."

Mr Mallard could also suffer further consequences with ACT MP Rodney Hide laying a complaint with Speaker Margaret Wilson over the incident.

But Mr Mallard has received support from New Zealand First leader Winston Peters who opened his party's conference at the weekend by saying some of Mr Mallard's critics needed to get a life.

He called for less "hectoring, lecturing, prissy, do-gooder, PC, pointing-the-finger" because Mr Mallard had made one mistake.

NZPA