Raining Cheshire Cats

On top of the PM’s other party management crises, he has to fix the fruit and veges GST policy leak revealed by a gleeful Nicola Willis.

- MICHELE HEWITSON

In a ninth-floor office in a Wellington building a man in a suit sits behind a desk. He has a furrowed brow. He is surrounded by buckets. There is water dripping from the ceiling. Plonk. Plonk. Plonk. He is in a leaky building.

As anyone who has ever had a leaking roof knows, identifying the source of the leak is a tricky business. Identifying whoever leaked what are claimed to be details of Labour's tax plans to Opposition deputy leader Nicola Willis might prove even trickier. She almost managed not to look like the Cheshire Cat when announcing what bounty had dropped into her bucket.

As leaks go, it wasn't going to excite WikiLeaks. Labour planned to remove GST from fruit and veges, which appears to amount to the astounding saving for households of about $5 a week, or a bunch of bananas.

Whoever the leaker is, they must have it in for Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, formerly known as Chippy, who is now Mr Not Quite So Chipper. Having to get about in your office wearing a raincoat, dodging buckets and rotting bananas will do that to a chap.

It is tempting to think he keeps a dartboard in his office decorated with the face of whoever he suspects is the leaker. It is also tempting to think the leaker, too, has in his or her office a dartboard adorned with the face of the PM.

The government's chief whip, Tangi Utikere, moonlighting as Inspector Clouseau, could just follow the thunk, thunk, thunk sound of darts hitting the board. Or perhaps it would be better not to follow the thunks and to have the caucus wear chattercancelling headphones until election night. To expose the leaker would be to expose a further fracture in Labour's already fractious caucus. This is the second caucus leak. The first was about allegations of bad temper and shouting by ex-justice minister and soon to be ex-MP Kiri Allan.