Another leak

58 comments on “Another leak ”

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1. higherstandard 1

   9 September 2008 at 11:06 am

   MMMMMM

   It’ll be interesting what the public’s view is on this.

   I’m may not be representative but I think this confirms more about Trevor Mallard and his handlers than it does about National.
2. coge 2

   9 September 2008 at 11:06 am

   “Honestly” Tane, we saw something like this coming today. Hardly a distraction from the main event. The question must be asked, why are underhanded countermeasures needed at all?
3. Tane 3

   9 September 2008 at 11:11 am

   I’m not sure what you’re on about coge. One or more people inside the National Party caucus are leaking policy (not to mention other embarrassing information) to Labour. We’ve now seen four policies leaked and no doubt more to come.

   To me that speaks of major divisions within National and a concerted effort to undermine John Key. That’s pretty significant and worthy of our attention and analysis, don’t you think?
4. Matthew Pilott 4

   9 September 2008 at 11:12 am

   HS, coge, so there’s nothing wrong within National, it’s Mallard’s fault that people in National are leaking their policies. And it’s not an issue that someone in National feels it necessary to leak internal documents to the opposition, for whatever reason, the only concern is that Mallard is telling the public that there are leaks.

   Your comments imply that Mallard should be protecting National from itself: quite an interesting line.

   I wonder if that’s the one National will use this time around.
5. higherstandard 5

   9 September 2008 at 11:24 am

   MP

   Trevor Mallard has not proven himself to be an honourable member so I am withholding an opinion on whether there are or aren’t leaks within National.
6. higherstandard 6

   9 September 2008 at 11:26 am

   MP

   Also as I said last week it might be more productive to actually debate the merit of what was in the policies.
7. Matthew Pilott 7

   9 September 2008 at 11:27 am

   Your first comment wasn’t ‘withholding’ an opinion at all, HS.
8. Matthew Pilott 8

   9 September 2008 at 11:29 am

   And yes, HS, I’d love to debate what is in National policy – why must I depend on the Right Honourable Trevor Mallard to deliver them?
9. Crank 9

   9 September 2008 at 11:34 am

   As I said on the previous thread.

   A leak of this size and regularity starts to appear less like a leak and more like theft.

   Mallard already has a record of assault and infidelity, he only needs stealing to make it a full house
10. Toxteth O'Grady 10

    9 September 2008 at 11:37 am

    There is no leak from within the Nats. This is a beat up from Trev and the Standard. If there really was a leak where are the good policies? It’s more likely that some dumbarse National incompetent left hard copy in the cafe or something equally as retarded. I’ll believe there really is a leak when i see Trev release National’s tax policy. It ain’t going to happen.
11. Tane 11

    9 September 2008 at 11:37 am

    Ah, the stolen emails defence. Real credible mate.
12. Vanilla Eis 12

    9 September 2008 at 11:40 am

    Toxeth: “where are the good policies?”

    That’s the problem mate – the Nats don’t seem to have any

    captcha: and deduce (what you want from that).
13. Tane 13

    9 September 2008 at 11:41 am

    Oh, and you fullas arguing theft – what do you say about TV3 revealing it received its tip-off about Lord Ashcroft from a person inside the National Party?

    Is that theft too?
14. yl 14

    9 September 2008 at 11:42 am

    Toxteth O’Grady,

    how is it that environment policy is not ‘good’ policy.

    It has been labeled as an election issue.

    I am going to take a leap and assume from the tone of your comment that you tend to sit on the right. It just goes to show the rights views on the environment.

    But i agree with you, Nationals environment is not a ‘good’ policy, it is super weak.
15. Robinsod 15

    9 September 2008 at 11:48 am

    But Tane – that’s what you’d expect from Blar/Ted/Eddie/Toxteth etc.

    Oh and hi blar – your style sticks out like dog’s balls.

    What I really love is how invested the right have got in this whole Winston Peters thing and how disappointed they are going to be. When both the committee, the SFO and the cops come back with the fact that there is no case and the polls show that nobody is blaming Labour apart from the usual frothing crazies like Farrar and Hooton then they’re all going to be so upset.

    I can’t wait…
16. Tim Ellis 16

    9 September 2008 at 11:48 am

    This does look pretty messy. On the face of it, it does now look as if there is somebody within National who is deliberately dumping material on the Labour Party.

    The nature of the material leaked so far doesn’t appear to be very consequential: the environment, conservation, and science policies. These are policies that will all have been distributed at caucus, were probably just a few days from release, and possibly as many as 100 people would have seen them.

    So given that the stuff leaked so far is hardly critical, top-secret stuff, and presuming it is a leak, then the leak could be anyone from John Key down to an MP’s secretary. Given the risks involved, it’s much more likely to be the latter than the former.

    I don’t agree with Mallard’s claim, or Tane’s claim, that this is evidence of huge divisions within National’s caucus. If the leak is a single, parliamentary staffer, then it says nothing of the sort. If it is a parliamentary staffer, then the motivations for the leak could be varied: annoyed at the prospect that they won’t get a job in government, falling-out with the boss, offer of financial reward to leak material, promise of a job in a Labour Party opposition office after the election, etc.

    If Mallard did have a leak from somebody identifiable, and senior, with access to really sensitive material, then he would be letting that bomb off fairly soon, like tonight when Owen Glenn gives evidence. He hasn’t. All he’s got is a small, relatively insignificant policy release. This is not the sign of somebody who’s picked up the big smoking gun.

    Like I say, it is messy that National probably has somebody like this within the ranks, but this person is likely to be caught soon. If they are caught, there are big risks to the Labour Party as well. If Trevor Mallard made some offer of a future advantage to the staffer, in return for receiving these documents, then that kind of sleazy politics will backfire. I can guarantee you that National will have stepped up the resolve to find the leak, and when they do that leak will squeal all.
17. Robinsod 17

    9 September 2008 at 11:51 am

    Oh and Blar? I’ve got a really good post in the making – if I were you I’d start regularly checking ‘sodblog to make sure you don’t miss out on it…
18. Lew 18

    9 September 2008 at 11:51 am

    When it comes to issues like this, which break along partisan lines, the opinions of those at either end are irrelevant. Personally, I’d be shocked if Steve, Tane, Matt, Mallard and others didn’t cry `leak’ every time, and equally shocked if HS, coge, Crank and Key didn’t cry `theft’.

    Those who aren’t strongly aligned will be the judge of whether the Nats are leaking, incompetent, or the victims of theft. What the media think goes some way to defining this. The fact that TV3 have been the recipients of several confirmed leaks this year already (Derek Fox leak; Ashcroft for two) gives an indication of the line they (at least) will be running.

    Edit: Tim Ellis, while your analysis is right, I think you miss the point. It’s not what gets leaked – it’s that policy gets leaked at all. Unless clear skullduggery is uncovered (and given the inconsequential nature of this stuff, this seems unlikely to be an orchestrated plot by Labour) the Nats either look incompetent or internally divided.

    L
19. Crank 19

    9 September 2008 at 11:52 am

    Tane

    “Ah, the stolen emails defence. Real credible mate.”

    I would hate to think that you were ready to cast judgement on this without going through the due process to find out the facts.
20. Tane 20

    9 September 2008 at 11:54 am

    The police have shown there was no evidence of theft in the Hollow Men email leak. Hager insists his sources are inside the National Party. He’s since been handed information from inside the party showing National uses Crosby Textor.

    TV3 has confirmed they are receiving leaks from the National Party over Lord Ashcroft’s visit.

    Now there’s National Party policy coming out in the form of caucus briefing papers.

    Occam’s razor says there’s a leak, and that it’s probably from inside caucus.
21. Crank 21

    9 September 2008 at 11:57 am

    Occam’s razor says Winston is corrupt.
22. Tane 22

    9 September 2008 at 12:03 pm

    Yeah, and given the evidence we’ve seen he probably is. The question is whether he can be done for it, and whether the evidence provided is sufficient to give Clark grounds to sack him.

    The leak is almost certainly from inside caucus. If I were Key I wouldn’t be sacking Bill English quite yet, but I’d sure be running my numbers and watching my back.
23. Dom 23

    9 September 2008 at 12:04 pm

    If Labour was stealing these policies I’m sure they’d nick something more newsworthy than Conservation or Research!
24. Tim Ellis 24

    9 September 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Lew, I agree with your points. Like I say, I don’t think it looks tidy when anything has been leaked, whether accidental, as in mislaying a document at Bellamy’s, or deliberate, as in a staffer or caucus member handing documents over to Mallard’s office.

    I further agree that the views of the most partisan, on either side, don’t assist us in working out what went out. Trevor Mallard has a vested interest in promoting the theory that the National Party is divided. So does Tane. John Key has a vested interest in suppressing the theory that the National Party is divided.

    Let’s assume there’s a mole at some level in the National Party. Does the existence of a mole say that the National Party caucus is divided, or there is a major faction, or serious dissent within the National Party caucus, or that John Key is about to be rolled?
25. toad 25

    9 September 2008 at 12:08 pm

    Could just be building up to the biggies, Dom. Maybe they’ve got the lot.
26. Toxteth O'Grady 26

    9 September 2008 at 12:09 pm

    Yl,
    It’s not about a left/right thing – it’s the theatre of it all. I’m not a supporter of either side – I just love the drama and strategy. If there is a steady stream of further releases by TM, I’ll concede there is a leak from within the ranks, but at the moment I think there are other explanations to this as opposed to with is being purported by a political opponent. If anyone takes anything TM says as gospel then they are on a one-way track to Jonestown. Some Labour lackey found something lying around and they have used it to their advantage fair play too. The Nats deserve to be shown in a negative light for this error but to stretch it out to full blown case of an insider handing over what is second and third level policy announcements to political opponents suggests there are too many Tom Clancy novels being read
27. Phil 27

    9 September 2008 at 12:15 pm

    Lew,

    Did you never read Archer/Forsyth/Clancy?
    First rule of espionage; never bite off more than you can chew (ie; you don’t start with the big stuff)

    Let’s assume for a second that this is leak – that someone inside National has been ‘cultivated’ and is handing over tidbits of info to Mallard and Labour (assuming for the moment that this is unrelated to Hagar).

    What then happens if/when this person is outed? How does the Labour party look when it becomes public knowledge that they had someone planted in National? That’s really only one step removed from Watergate…

    That’s dangerous ground.
28. Anita 28

    9 September 2008 at 12:23 pm

    Let’s pretend, for a moment, that National’s spin is true: all caucus members got a bundle of draft policies for approval, one accidentally left theirs in a cafe, someone found it and now Labour has it and is drip feeding it to the media. So National knows exactly what Labour has (the bundle of policies).

    If we were National political strategists, what would our best play be? Easy, release all the policies in the group, that way Labour can’t keep drip feeding them, our (bullet point) policy briefs would get out (just like we want them to), and we wouldn’t look like dicks.

    Given that’s not how it’s happening, I can posit a couple of possible reasons:
    1) National’s spin is incorrect and they know it; or
    2) National’s political strategists are incompetent; or
    3) National want their policy to be released this way.

    Any other possibilities?
29. Steve Pierson 29

    9 September 2008 at 12:23 pm

    phil. you’re premise is flawed. just because labour got the leaks doesn’t mean they cultivated the leaker. you don’t think garner cultivated the secret agenda taper do you?
30. Tim Ellis 30

    9 September 2008 at 12:24 pm

    Tane, I know you’ve got a barrow to push here.

    The police have shown there was no evidence of theft in the Hollow Men email leak.

    No they didn’t, Tane. The police didn’t show that. The police just did not find any evidence of theft. The failure to find evidence can mean either the police didn’t go looking for it–which is Brash’s claim–or that there was no evidence to be found–which is your claim.

    Hager insists his sources are inside the National Party. He’s since been handed information from inside the party showing National uses Crosby Textor.

    Hager also has a barrow to push. It is in Hager’s interest to say this. He has said he’s been handed information on this, but I for one don’t take that as a fact. National has used Crosby Textor for many years in the past. It doesn’t take a high level leak to say that they are using them again. I haven’t seen any documentary evidence from Hager to say that he’s received emails or invoices confirming it. The most I have seen is speculation from Hager. If there was documentary evidence, I would be surprised why he hasn’t produced it.

    TV3 has confirmed they are receiving leaks from the National Party over Lord Ashcroft’s visit.

    A leak, not leaks. Singular, not plural. This on its own is quite concerning, I admit, because as I understand the leader’s diary is not widely circulated. I don’t think there’s any reason for Garner to lie about this. However Garner would not know whether the information came from somebody who had access to Key’s diary (which would be very troublesome for Key), or from somebody who heard idle gossip that Ashcroft was visiting, and then leaked it to Garner. It’s pretty clear Garner got that information from somebody speaking out of turn. Whether it was a malicious leak by somebody disaffected, or sloppy trading of gossip, I don’t know.

    Now there’s National Party policy coming out in the form of caucus briefing papers.

    Three so far. The first two clearly went together, because they related to National’s environment and conservation launch. The third one may have been discussed and distributed at the same caucus meeting. I don’t know. But we do know that they were all pretty widely-distributed documents, given a caucus of 48 and the likelihood that parliamentary staff received that material as well.

    Occam’s razor says there’s a leak, and that it’s probably from inside caucus.

    Occam’s razor says there’s a leak from somebody on the periphery of caucus.
31. Anita 31

    9 September 2008 at 12:26 pm

    P.S. Let’s pretend, for a different moment, that National’s information security processes are somewhat adequate. They know exactly how many copies of the policies-for-approval were printed, they know who had them, they can count them back in. Therefore they either know exactly whose is missing, or they know that someone deliberately copied theirs and passed it on.

    Recaptcha is being particularly surreal today: 2,813,430,000 smink
32. Tim Ellis 32

    9 September 2008 at 12:28 pm

    That’s exactly right, Phil. If there is a leaker, and that leaker is caught, that person will squeal. If they were groomed by the Labour Party, then the political damage to Labour for engaging in those dirty tricks would be enormous.

    Anita, I agree with you also. If all the papers released by Mallard so far are from the same caucus meeting, then it would make sense for the Nats to kill the noise by releasing all the stuff discussed at that meeting.

    Clearly there wasn’t any big stuff leaked, otherwise Mallard would have released it by now.
33. Lew 33

    9 September 2008 at 12:30 pm

    Tim: “Does the existence of a mole say that the National Party caucus is divided, or there is a major faction, or serious dissent within the National Party caucus, or that John Key is about to be rolled?”

    I don’t necessarily think so. It’s an indication that all’s not running as smoothly as outward appearances might indicate. What you make of that depends on your allegiances and proclivities.

    Phil: “What then happens if/when this person is outed? How does the Labour party look when it becomes public knowledge that they had someone planted in National?”

    That’s an `if’ you’re looking for, not a `when’.

    “That’s really only one step removed from Watergate ”

    And all that shows is that you don’t know much about Watergate.

    Edit: Crikey, I can’t keep up with this thread.

    L
34. Tane 34

    9 September 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Tim. I don’t have time to go through this all point by point, but just look at the hurdles you have to jump through to explain away all these leaks. The simplest explanation is that there’s someone leaking inside the National Party.
35. Anita 35

    9 September 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Tim Ellis,

    The failure to find evidence can mean either the police didn’t go looking for itwhich is Brash’s claimor that there was no evidence to be foundwhich is your claim.

    Actually the Police say they went looking. Are you saying that they’re lieing? Are you saying that Brash said they were lieing? If so, you might like to provide a reference.
36. Anita 36

    9 September 2008 at 12:36 pm

    Tim Ellis,

    Anita, I agree with you also. If all the papers released by Mallard so far are from the same caucus meeting, then it would make sense for the Nats to kill the noise by releasing all the stuff discussed at that meeting.

    So why haven’t they? Either incompetence or the papers don’t naturally fit together (e.g. same caucus meeting).

    Clearly there wasn’t any big stuff leaked, otherwise Mallard would have released it by now.

    …wasn’t any big stuff leaked yet

    I agree that if Mallard had anything big he’d release it immediately, no point losing out by National releasing first.
37. Tim Ellis 37

    9 September 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Tane, I think I gave a fair and relatively unbiased analysis. My conclusion is that there probably is somebody leaking from inside the National Party. My conclusion is premised on the view that only some of the material leaked out is the result of a deliberate action, and that if there is a leak it is from a minor staffer who for some reason is disaffected.

    It is a very long bow to draw to say that these leaks show major factionalism and division in the National Party, as you have. Political parties leak all the time. It’s called gossip. Some gossip is based on actual evidence, other is based on pure speculation. Governments leak all the time. When they do, it is most often as a result of sloppy information security and gossip, rather than malicious leaking.

    If the relatively minor leaks point to a divided and shambolic National Party and say that National isn’t fit to govern, then the steady streams of unauthorised information flows that come out of the PM’s office, Cabinet, Labour caucus, and every branch of government for which ministers are responsible, show that Labour isn’t fit to run a government, either.
38. Matthew Pilott 38

    9 September 2008 at 12:49 pm

    Why didn’t National release the conservation policy before Mallard, if they were ‘bundled’ together, so as to take the wind out of Mallard’s sails? If that was not a lie, it would have been sensible to do so in order to prevent Mallard from saying there were two separate leaks. They did not. I assume it was a lie (‘misdirection’ if I was feeling generous), or that they were incompetant, or gambling that somehow their ‘bundled’ documents were magically separated before reaching Mallard’s hands.
39. lprent 39

    9 September 2008 at 12:49 pm

    Crank: In the absence of any other info, occams razor says that the Nat’s are probably corrupt as well for the same reason. Except their amounts are bigger. $2.3 million in anonymous donations from the Waitemata trust in 2005 compared to the much smaller amounts from the Spencer trust for NZF.

    After this gets over for NZF, then I’d really like the Nat’s accounts looked at closely.
40. toad 40

    9 September 2008 at 12:50 pm

    Tim Ellis said: Clearly there wasn’t any big stuff leaked, otherwise Mallard would have released it by now.

    Tim (& Anita taking the same line), I don’t agree. Mallard will know when National is planning to release it. If he had stuff about, say, National’s tax cuts, he’d hold onto that until two or three days befor the National release is due to maximise the Labour spin he can put on it and undercut the impact of the National release.
41. Dom 41

    9 September 2008 at 12:51 pm

    Tim, there is a huge difference between the inner circle of a party leaking policy like a sieve and a government in power for nine years having leaks come from government departments containing literally thousands of people. The fact that some person/people inside that small group of National people has and continues to leak confidential information should have them VERY concerned.
42. Billy 42

    9 September 2008 at 12:53 pm

    Toxteth,

    Do you still hold the record for sticking marshmallows up one single nostril?
    
43. Matthew Pilott 43

    9 September 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Tim, minor leaks do not involve entire policy documents. A disaffected staffer would tell someone that Key picks his nose and leaves KFC wrappers everywhere. I don’t think it’s very balanced to claim that this is minor, or likely to be from a minor staffer, without corroborating evidence. It is an equally partisan assumption as that which claims Key is about to be rolled. Factionism would be more the middle ground to me – nothing too damaging, but enough to make Key’s ship look unsteady.

    Same goes with your call about Garner, it’s not clear that it was an accidental gossip leak at all. The chances of that being accidental are slim, it’s a very specific tidbit of information to have reached the media.

    Your last comment (12:43) is illustrative though – some small leaks do happen with frequency, acknowledged. They are not damaging private diary appointments or unreleased policy documents in the run up to an election.
44. randal 44

    9 September 2008 at 12:57 pm

    one more leak and national nd John Keys will implode! extra extra…more leaks right now on rnz national…wahooo
45. Anita 45

    9 September 2008 at 1:04 pm

    Toad,

    Re: whether Mallard would release big leaked policies early or sit on them

    Mallard will know when National is planning to release it. If he had stuff about, say, National’s tax cuts, he’d hold onto that until two or three days befor the National release is due to maximise the Labour spin he can put on it and undercut the impact of the National release.

    If there was a good chance National knew he had it and might bring forward their announcement then I reckon the right play is to release it. So if Mallard got a single bundle, such that when he started National would know what he had, he should release the biggest ones first so he doesn’t lose traction.

    If, on the other hand, he was getting individual leaks so National wouldn’t know what he had then he should hold big ones back for the most damage. Particularly when a day or two would get robust analysis, for example with National’s tax cuts holding it until the Labour economists have crunched the numbers would make a lot of sense.
46. Pascal's bookie 46

    9 September 2008 at 1:11 pm

    We should also remember that the ‘importance’ of the policy leaked is only a floor on the access the leaker has not a ceiling.

    There is no reason to suppose that the leaker would release the most important stuff s/he could get. In fact they are likely not to, as it narrows the list of suspects. The leaks are not necessarily designed to do as much damage as the leaker could possibly do, but enough to serve whatever purpose the leaker has.

    Bearing this in mind, the fact that tax policy or whatever hasn’t come out tells us nothing about the identity or access that the leaker has. Maybe leaking tax policy would do too much damage, maybe the leaker doesn’t have access to it, maybe leaking it would identify who leaked. Unknowns.
47. Crank 47

    9 September 2008 at 1:12 pm

    Lprent,

    I would have to disagree with you there.

    The fact that National has declared donations from its trusts would mean that the simplest assumption is that all donations to the trusts had been passed to the party and declared. And using occams razor that is probably right.
48. Anita 48

    9 September 2008 at 1:12 pm

    Let’s say, for yet another moment, that I’m a junior National MP. I have a folder which contains some policy drafts (wow, this proves I’m really important). After lunch with my mates I realise I no longer have the folder and feel really sick, I race back down to the cafe to look for it, but it isn’t there.

    What do I do?

    a) Fess up to the whip/campaign team/my more senior mate

    b) Cross my fingers and hope nothing bad happens.

    Sadly my cowardice gets in the way and I pick b… A day passes, and Labour starts releasing policies that were in my folder, my stomach goes all swirly (even worse than when I realised I’d lost the folder!).

    What do I do?

    a) Fess up to the whip/campaign team/my more senior mate

    b) Stay mum, sit at the back so when it’s mentioned in a meeting so I don’t have to make eye contact. When asked if I know anything about it, lie.

    So what does this tell us? Either

    a) National’s spin as untrue (and they know it); or
    b) One of their MPs is a lieing coward who won’t even be honest with colleagues; or
    c) National knows what’s in the folder.

    If they know what’s in the folder, they should have released the rest of the policies by now. So either they’re incompetent, or they’re lieing, or they know that one of their MPs is a lieing coward who doesn’t trust their colleagues.
49. Tim Ellis 49

    9 September 2008 at 1:13 pm

    Matthew, this is an interesting debate.

    I disagree that minor leaks do not involve entire policy documents. The issue of how severe a leak is, goes to how secret the material was in the first place. If a document is being circulated to a hundred people, it clearly isn’t very sensitive. If it is only being circulated to three people, then it is likely to be extremely sensitive.

    Of the documents released by Mallard, at least three of the four were caucus briefing papers. Caucus briefing papers are not top secret. They are distributed to all caucus members, the research unit, and the Leader’s office. That’s probably eighty people. If they were circulated in advance, they probably went to MP’s offices electronically, which widens the net to MPs executive assistants. That’s about 130 people.

    130 people, by definition, is not the inner core. There is no evidence that anybody within the inner core is systematically leaking material to the Labour Party. It is very difficult to think what motive anybody in the inner core might have to do so.
50. Anita 50

    9 September 2008 at 1:18 pm

    Crank,

    One of the accusations being levelled against NZ First is that donations were shaped to the $10k threshold so that they did not have to be declared.

    Do you really think National donors didn’t do the same thing?
51. Crank 51

    9 September 2008 at 1:28 pm

    Anita,

    I don’t think anyone is levelling any accusations of the sort.

    Making annoymous donations up to the $10k threshold is totally legal.

    Aside from the issue that the Vela donations were made by companies that had the same shareholders, if the donations were made direct to the party as opposed to the trust then this would not be an issue at all.
52. Robinsod 52

    9 September 2008 at 1:33 pm

    Jeez Tim – you seem to know a lot about how all this politics stuff works – you’re not on the PS/Nats’ payroll are you?
53. Tim Ellis 53

    9 September 2008 at 1:41 pm

    Anita, those are plausible scenarios, but I think there are a couple of elements you’ve missed out.

    The first element is that if it was a staffer who left the material at Bellamy’s, it rules out that the accidental leaker is an MP who is a lying coward. If it was a staffer who now knows that they left some documents at Bellamy’s, due to the power structures in Parliament, it’s even less likely that they would fess up. They would be sacked immediately.

    Next, you’re assuming that what was left at Bellamy’s, if it was documents left at Bellamy’s, were in a discrete package, and that National should now know which documents were left there, and which weren’t. I very much doubt there was a bunch of folders distributed to everybody. In the accidental leak scenario, it is more likely that documents were circulated electronically. Some MPs and staff would have read them. Others would not have read them. Some would have printed them off, some wouldn’t. What they were carrying around, and how they were bundled, is very difficult to know.

    What is likely, however, is that if the documents were accidentally left at Bellamy’s, or Copperfields, or at a bus-stop, they are likely to generally focus on the same topic. This is consistent with the environment, conservation, and biofuels policies being “leaked”. The evidence says that they were a widely-circulated caucus briefing prior to National’s bluegreen launch on Saturday.

    Alternatively, in the accidental leak scenario, the documents “leaked” could all relate to a single meeting: briefing papers for caucus. In which case it is unlikely that material not relating to items discussed at that caucus meeting would be among the briefing papers.
54. Tim Ellis 54

    9 September 2008 at 1:43 pm

    You know the answer to that Robinsod, of course I am. By the way, are we still on for our 2am coffee at Starbucks, so I can hand you the tax policy paper for you to hand on to Trevor tomorrow? Will be a good distraction from Winston appearing at the privileges committee meeting if Trevor can do another press release about the leaks, huh?
55. Robinsod 55

    9 September 2008 at 1:46 pm

    Tim – so your answer is yes?
56. Anita 56

    9 September 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Tim,

    Ok, it’s possible that the lieing coward is a staff member, that seems a reasonable possibility. Not a very reassuring one for National tho 🙂

    If I left a bunch of important papers somewhere I’d like to imagine I could relatively accurately describe what was in them “um… the papers from caucus this morning, a phone list for the insurance council, some scribbled notes from my meetings yesterday with x, y and z that I was planning to type up, a pile of paper about the bathroom renovation, the working paper from the select committee and submissions from umm… thingy and whatsit”

    Or, if I couldn’t actually remember exactly what was in the bundle, I could figure out what policies I use to have paper copies of and no longer did.

    This isn’t administrivia, these are serious and sensitive documents; losing them and then not knowing what you’d lost would not be a sign of usefulness around parliament.
57. Toxteth O'Grady 57

    9 September 2008 at 3:38 pm

    Billy,
    Yes I do. And the world’s stickiest bogey
58. Billy 58

    9 September 2008 at 4:04 pm

    Don’t know why my Toxteth link didn’t work:

    http://www.menvafan.net/annat/tv/tyo/bambi2.htm

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