Political diary: The political week that was

Monday

A shadow has been cast over the Beehive, but the Prime Minister does not want the hunt for who's responsible for leaking commercially sensitive Cabinet papers to Telecom to cast a pall over the Government, especially in the run-up to the Budget. With the leak thought to have come out of a minister's office in the Beehive, things are a little too close to home for comfort. She says it should not be assumed the leak came from the Beehive. She also does not want progress reports from the State Services Commission on how its inquiry is going. She is trying to put some distance between the Government and the inquiry to stifle National's claims the investigation is not independent. She also does not want to lay herself open to accusations of interfering - the charge National levelled at her during the Companies Office inquiry into David Parker's past. National is still suspicious. The State Services Commission initially says it expects to report within a month. That suggests after the Budget and conceivably during the subsequent two-week recess when Parliament will not be sitting. But the commission makes rapid progress. By Friday, it is clear the commission has found the culprit. It will be reporting next week. With the Budget due next Thursday, the Government will be praying that happens earlier in the week than later.


Tuesday

 The Budget is still more than a week away but Michael Cullen and John Key are already sparring in Parliament over its content - or lack thereof. The Finance Minister describes his Opposition counterpart as "the young and the restless" in reference to Key's leadership aspirations. Key gets one back by reminding Cullen of last year's disastrous Budget and Labour Party president Mike Williams' infamous quip as to its contents. Key chortles that the "deep, dark secret" of last year's Budget was tax cuts which never happened, while this year's deep, dark secret - the unbundling of the local loop which opens Telecom to competition - has already happened. But Cullen is nothing if not verbally dexterous. "There are a number of local loops opposite that I would love to unbundle," he responds, directing his gaze at the National benches.

Wednesday

Don Brash's awful week just gets worse. Fresh from the previous day's disaster of a press conference, National's leader falls victim to a harmless looking photo-opportunity. With his leadership skills again in question, Brash is photographed "walking the plank" as he boards the biodiesel-powered trimaran Earthrace in Wellington Harbour. How were Brash's spin doctors to know that the vessel did not have a normal gangplank? Should they have checked? Should Brash have pleaded a sudden case of seasickness and left it to his colleagues, Nick Smith and Phil Heatley, to clamber aboard? Labour's spin doctors quietly breathe a sigh of relief that it did not happen to them.


Thursday

Don Brash writes to Parliament's commerce select committee asking it to conduct a separate investigation into the Telecom leak. You can imagine what Labour thinks of that idea. But Labour does not have a majority on the nine-member committee. National and Labour each have four seats and United Future's Gordon Copeland holds the crucial casting vote. His is a tricky position. The State Services Commissioner Mark Prebble asks the committee to wait for him to finish his inquiry. Copeland is happy with that. But if Prebble's inquiry is inconclusive, Copeland says the committee should go ahead with one of its own. Given Prebble seems to have his man or woman, that may not be necessary. However, no one can accuse Copeland of not being even-handed.


Friday

A few sore heads around Parliament no doubt following the National Party's 70th anniversary knees-up in the Beehive banquet hall last night. The word is that Jim Bolger earlier complained about the five-minute speaking slots allocated to former leaders. The Great Helmsman apparently considered he should have got more time to wax eloquent, given his tenure at the top far extended those of the others.