New Zealand First Party Minister, Shane Jones, in his first speech on his return to Parliament, made it abundantly clear that this attempt to smear Winston was a key to National's defeat.
I've been involved in political organisation for nearly 40 years on both sides of the Tasman and I have to say that this has to be the all-time stunner of an own goal.
In any kind of proportional representation environment, it is essential that the big parties maintain friendly relationships with as many of the smaller parties as they can.
MMP was designed by the Americans for Germany after World War II and the specific aim of the system is to reduce the likelihood of one-party government, and the rise of another Hitler.
I recall a conversation with Peter Dunne when he was Associate Minister of Health with responsibility for drug policy in one of the John Key National-led governments.
Dunne left the Labour Party at the advent of MMP in 1994 to join what eventually became the United Future Party.
He told me that when he announced his departure many of the Labour MPs, whose party he had just abandoned, either snubbed him or were actively spiteful.
Helen Clark, he said, was a notable exception to this nasty behaviour. She told Peter that he would be missed and wished him well.
This turned out to be sensible, future-focused behaviour. After the 2002 General Election Dunne's party was signed up as a support Party for Helen Clark's Labour administration.
Had English adopted Clark's approach, he'd be Prime Minister right now.
Whoever decided that leaking Winston's problems with his superannuation was a good idea robbed the National Party of its chance of a rare fourth term and turned English into a two-time loser.
The responsibility for this calamity belongs to campaign manager Joyce. If he didn't know about the intention to leak he should have. If he did know about it he should have stopped it.
While the National Party drifts into navel-gazing mode, our new Prime Minister, having been thrown into the deep end of international politics, seems to be thriving.
Prodding Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about what looks very much like a humanitarian disaster on Manus Island, a refugee detention facility on what was an Australian Naval base before Papua New Guinea became independent, is courageous and quite possibly dangerous.
Turnbull will be hyper-sensitive about this all too public fiasco.
The so-called Pacific Solution, whereby water-born refugees trying to enter Australia are diverted to offshore detention centres, is popular with Australian voters and Turnbull dare not compromise this policy.
John Key's offer for NZ to accept 150 of these unfortunates, repeated by Jacinda Ardern, has again been rebuffed by Turnbull.
While this problem bubbles away, Turnbull's grip on his job looks increasingly shaky and Jacinda will obviously know this.
Yet another Australian lower house MP has been forced to resign over the dual citizenship debacle and this time it's Liberal MP John Alexander, the former tennis player, who's having to bail out of his Sydney seat of Bennelong.
Where Turnbull could be relaxed about coalition MP Barnaby Joyce getting forced into a byelection in his safe rural seat of New England, Alexander's seat is close to marginal and has been held by the ALP in recent times.
The Australian Labor Party has compounded Turnbull's misery by selecting Kristina Keneally, a telegenic former New South Wales Premier who was born in Las Vegas and retains an American accent to run in the byelection on December 16.
A bad outcome for Turnbull's Liberal Party could see him forced into a general election that he's very unlikely to win.
Isn't politics fun?
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
