Act leader Rodney Hide's centre of gravity shifted too far away from his brain once he turned his attention from perk-busting to pork-busting.

The politician who made his name by excoriating MPs' perks, and attacking the wastage of taxpayers' money, faces deserved media scrutiny after a staffer said Hide timed an international fact-finding trip to coincide with the wedding of his girlfriend's brother in London.

It was already a well-established fact that Hide dipped into a parliamentary slush fund to pay for 90 per cent of Louise Crome's airfares, after Prime Minister John Key ruled his Cabinet ministers couldn't use Ministerial Services money for such trips during tough times.

He justifiably faced media flak over the devious method he used to circumvent Key's dictate.

But it was not until Hide was caught out slagging Key's leadership to Act supporters that he faced political utu. It was quickly leaked that Hide had taken a weekend off while in London to attend the Crome family wedding, and another day off in Los Angeles to take his girlfriend sight-seeing at Universal Studios.

As a past exponent of the leaking arts, Hide won't have to search far for fingerprints. An astute man would respond by drawing a line under the scandal by paying back Crome's $13,000 airfare, particularly as he has also been caught out boasting to his supporters about plans to save the taxpayer $66 million by axing 700 Auckland bureaucrats.

Although Hide says he has paid back $10,000 he and Crome spent on a holiday to Hawaii, he shows all the signs of having developed exactly the same type of hubris that led to NZ First leader Winston Peters' demise.

Parliamentary colleagues who suffered his sanctimonious attitude, as he used his maiden speech to Parliament to attack MPs' "perks", are enjoying his discomfiture.

They saw his popularity escalate as he delivered up mini-scandals to favoured television journalists and newspaper reporters who were short of a scoop to lead news bulletins or splash across the front pages of Sunday papers. When he reached a depressive low four or five years ago, he contemplated chucking in politics for a career as an investigative journalist.

Hide no longer bothers to turn the charm on for reporters. His face has developed hard edges.

It might be the result of too much body-building, but these days Hide performs a bit too much like a political thug for the comfort of other politicians and media.