Claire Trevett wraps the week in which Australia's PM got his own back on Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson is banned from some future sport events, and the lights went out on National Party leader Simon Bridges.
Sunday: ScoMo's Revenge
Never one to miss a chance, Australia's Prime Minister ScottMorrison finally got his revenge on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after a string of losses to New Zealand by Australian sports teams.
Beehive Diaries has learned that Australia's convincing win in the Constellation Cup prompted a quick text to his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern … just in case she had missed it.
After New Zealand beat Australia in the Netball World Cup final in July, Ardern was quick to text Morrison about the result – and showed little pity about the possibility she had woken him up at an ungodly hour.
She had also forced Morrison to have a stuffed kiwi on his desk after a Bledisloe Cup bet in August.
But it was a bit raw coming the night after of the All Blacks' loss to England in the Rugby World Cup semifinal.
At least she could point out New Zealand had made it to the semifinals.
Monday: The Rugby World Cup semi fallout
Spare some pity for Toby Fisher, the husband of British High Commissioner Laura Clarke.
Fisher is a New Zealander.
There was some inevitable pre-match ribbing about the game, and again afterwards.
Clarke tweeted a photo of Fisher wearing an English rugby jersey to his work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Monday, courtesy of her team's triumph.
All manner of things have been blamed for the semifinals loss, from the All Blacks' moustaches to simply being outplayed.
But investigations by Beehive Diaries uncovered the real reason: Sports Minister Grant Robertson.
Nothing but jinxing: Sports Minister Grant Robertson is better at playing sport than watching it. Photo / Brett Phibbs PhotoSport
Back in July, Robertson travelled to England to watch the Black Caps play England in the Cricket World Cup final.
New Zealand lost.
This time, Robertson travelled to Japan to watch the All Blacks in the semifinals against England.
New Zealand lost.
The Labour creed of kindness and compassion was not supposed to extend to English sports teams, nor was addressing inequality supposed to mean sharing World Cups with others.
So some action has been taken.
Grant Robertson's staff have imposed a ban on him attending any future international sporting fixtures against England.
The ban may be extended to fixtures against other countries, depending on Robertson's performance in future.
Robertson has taken over the role of official jinx from former National minister Steven Joyce.
Joyce earned the nickname Jinxy Joyce after he was responsible for Team NZ's sudden losing streak from what had seemed an unloseable position at the America's Cup in 2013.
The team started losing one race after another after Joyce arrived in San Francisco, hoping to get the reflected glory.
Given this, it is no surprise that after the rugby loss when National MP Judith Collins tweeted "never happened when we were in Government", the first response was from Steven Joyce, who suggested it was "Possibly not the time Judith".
Wednesday: What is in a letter?
There's something satisfying about a good old mystery. One of the best recent examples was the teapot tapes of 2011, the controversial recording of a conversation between then PM Sir John Key and then Act leader John Banks at a café in the Epsom electorate.
So for some time there has been great excitement about a letter Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter sent to Phil Twyford just before Twyford put a second Mt Victoria tunnel on the backburner in Wellington's transport plan.
Genter had repeatedly refused to release the letter.
The protagonists in the case of the Mystery Letter: Phil Twyford and his associate minister Julie Anne Genter. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Every Big Reveal needs a good build-up.
Here we had stand-offs in Parliament about what letterhead Genter used when she wrote it, what hat she was wearing, was the pen she used a Ministerial Services-provided Bic or a Green Party-funded and branded stylus.
There was speculation she had threatened to burn down the house if a tunnel was built.
There was collateral damage – the lack of any move to try to ease congestion out to the eastern suburbs was one of the factors blamed for former Mayor Justin Lester's [*TBC] defeat in the local body election to tunnel-friendly Andy Foster.
There were calls of hypocrisy about the Greens – the champions of transparency – refusing to reveal a letter under the Official Information Act.
In the end, the Ombudsman came down on the side of everybody. He ruled that the letter was in her capacity as a minister, so was subject to the OIA.
But because it was a frank exchange of views on the development of a policy it did not have to be released.
Instead we had to settle for a summary of the contents, which revealed Genter liked bikes and public transport more than cars but didn't want any of them to be able to go through a second tunnel anytime soon.
Given these less than startling revelations, it makes one wonder why there was such great resistance to releasing the letter in the first place.
Unless there is something else in there that nobody is talking about. Release the letter.
Wednesday: lights out, camera, action
National Party leader Simon Bridges rolled up to Christchurch to deliver the grand unveiling of National's social services policy discussion document.
It was a vexed exercise from the start.
National Party leader Simon Bridges left in the dark on an earlier occasion. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Held at The Loft, a health and wellbeing centre in Christchurch, there was no lectern so Bridges improvised with a stool.
After the third sentence, just as he was pledging to support New Zealanders to lead better lives, the lights went out.
It turned out the lights were motion-activated, and Bridges' speech was so riveting it had his rendered his audience immobile.
To make matters worse, a bit further through Bridges completely lost his place in the speech – twice in quick succession.
All of this is possibly why the video is not on National's Facebook page or website.
He can always blame the gangs, crims, or extremists.
