Gerry Brownlee hasn't had to sit on a select committee for years. That's not the case anymore.

There's no doubt MPs, and particularly former ministers, are still getting their heads around there being a change of Government.

The difficulties of the transition were in full display at the foreign affairs and trade select committee on Thursday when a usually straight-forward and mundane meeting turned into full-blown jockeying with a hint of chaos.

Foreign affairs and trade has long been an area of bipartisanship in Parliament with MPs from across the political divide generally finding common ground in select committee for the greater good of the country's international reputation.

JOHN HAWKINS/STUFF Former Trade Minister Todd McClay did much of the work on what is now called the CPTPP - but he won't be getting a trip to Chile to see it get signed.

But the level of decorum has shifted substantially since the new Government took over and some former senior ministers who used to run the show are now dealing with not only having to attend lowly select committees again, but also sitting on the opposite side of the table.

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National Party big-hitters Gerry Brownlee, Todd McClay and Mark Mitchell - formerly Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence Ministers - have found themselves in a position where they hold all the information, given it wasn't that long ago they were running the ministry, but no longer have any of the power.

HAGEN HOPKINS National MP Mark Mitchell was in charge of chairing the foreign affairs select committee on Thursday but he momentarily forgot and left a room of MPs to their own devices.

They know where the weak spots are (think of a Russian free trade deal and how much that will grate the Europeans, who officials are also in the process of trying to secure an agreement with).

On Thursday the scene was set early with Mitchell in the chairman's seat filling in for his colleague Simon O'Connor.

Brownlee was to his left, focused very carefully on his phone for at least the first twenty minutes of the briefing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade - it's difficult to know if he was researching trade deals or playing Angry Birds.

McClay, as studious as he is, was busy scribbling down notes and questions all the while furiously clicking his pen on and off unaware he was raising the blood pressure in the room of anyone who finds repetitive loud noises as annoying as nails on a blackboard.

The root of the trio's concerns seemed to centre on who was, or more importantly who wasn't, going to Chile to sign the CPTPP.

​McClay, who did much of the work on the earlier version, hasn't had an invite and Brownlee wasn't going to lie down without making it clear his colleague should be on that plane.

"How big's the party heading to the CPTPP signing next week?" asked Brownlee.

Not to be outdone, McClay weighed in with this cracker, "would it be easier to get them to sign the two pages of changes rather than the 6000-page one, it's pretty heavy on a 24-hour trip?"

With the level of scrutinising at all-new highs (or perhaps lows), Employment Minister Willie Jackson thought he'd try his luck at asking officials to confirm the CPTPP deal was "better" than the previous one, the TPP.

He almost set a new record for variations of the same question.

"You do think this is a significantly better agreement don't you?"

"Yes, or no?"

"But better right?"

Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman seemed to be taking the idea of a National-Greens teal deal seriously when she started to pick the CPTPP apart for all its faults.

McClay couldn't stop grinning as he commended Ghahraman for making "some great points" and encouraged the chair to let her carry on as long as she liked.

And just incase peak crazy hadn't been reached Mitchell decided to wander off and have a chat to Parliamentary staff at a table nearby.

This left MPs with no chairman and an awkward silence, closely followed by hysterics, when an answer wrapped up and everyone looked at each other clueless about what to do next.

Mitchell found his way back to his seat just in time to leave it as O'Connor made his entry - albeit, just in time to end the madness.