The Prime Minister sighed, and started packing for the long weekend. He chided himself for sighing. He sighed so often these days. It had come with the job.
He laid out a suitcase on the bed. It still had a baggage tag on it from a triphe had taken last year. Last year! It felt so long ago. He remembered that trip - sunlight, a few drinks at twilight, the usual paperwork but he was on top of it, he was always on top of it back then. He flipped open the case. The past, he reflected, was another holiday.
He packed a suit. Then he remembered the suit he had downstairs from the drycleaner, and he brought it back to his room and packed it as well. Then he packed six business shirts, and three pairs of leather shoes.
There was something missing. He sighed, and packed another suit. Well, he reflected, it is called a suitcase.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Photo / Getty Images
Christopher Luxon
The leader of the National Party said to an aide, whose name he had forgotten, “Pack my suitcase for me, will you?”
He put his feet up. He swiped through social media on his phone to see what people were saying about his Get NZ Back On Track tour. He saw a lot of positives, especially his stand on crime.
“Gangs are not nice people,” he had said. “We are going to back our police and give them the tools they need.”
He had good writers. And they knew the value of stats.
“Violent crime is up 30 per cent. Retail crime is up 40 per cent. Gang memberships are up over 60 per cent and in five of our police districts we have more gang members than we now have police officers.”
He got a bit bored reading the tweets and retweets, and looked for a game. He found an app for Subway Surfer.
He called out to an aide, “How do you play this?”
Christopher Luxon at the Birkenhead Bowling Club. Photo / Alex Burton
Kiri Allan
The Labour Cabinet member sighed, and started packing for the long weekend.
It had been a niggling week. She had read the wrong speech at the third reading of a freedom camping bill in Parliament. There had been a muck-up, a misunderstanding. By mistake, she re-read almost word for word a speech given at the Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation bill’s second reading.
Justice Minister Kiri Allan was given the wrong speech to read. Photo / Mark Mitchell
She sighed. It wasn’t her fault. She had been roped in to speak on the bill at the last minute, and Labour whips gave her the wrong speech to read.
It wasn’t a big deal. Nobody died. But she was aware it was a bad look, and that National would exploit it as a sign the Government was in disarray, a shambles, all at sea.
