It all started yesterday afternoon when the Speaker ruled on Mr Shearer's complaint against Peter Dunne; the Herald reports:
United Future leader Peter Dunne says he has been cleared by the Speaker of misleading a select committee about leaking a confidential report.
In a statement, Mr Dunne claimed that the Speaker had ruled that he did not deliberately mislead the Finance and Expenditure Committee when he denied being responsible for leaking the Kitteridge Report on the GCSB.
Labour made a breach of privilege complaint following the Henry Report into the leaking of the GCSB document.
Mr Dunne resigned after he was unable to produce emails requested by inquiry head David Henry.
He said: "I welcome the Speaker's decision to dismiss the complaint and his ruling that my answers did not deliberately mislead the Finance and Expenditure Committee, nor were in contempt of Parliament.''
Labour and David Shearer were trying to paint Peter Dunne into a corner, where he would have no option but to resign, possibly bringing the Key-led Government down. They have failed, although that may be a blessing in disguise as a dysfunctional and reportedly broke Labour Party is in no condition at the moment to fight an election.
That's a segue into the second leg of the trifecta. Stuff has been running a poll on Mr Shearer's leadership, and the numbers don't look good; check this out:
Those are not got figures for David Shearer. More than 10,000 people have responded to the poll, and whilst website polls are less than scientific, the trend certainly suggests that Mr Shearer has a lot of work to do to silence those who are trying to pull the rug out from underneath him.
The final leg of the trifecta happened this morning. As we were driving to work, RadioLive breakfast host was lamenting the no-show of Mr Shearer for a scheduled interview; one that Shearer's staff had been badgering Lush for. A date was arranged, and Marcus Lush had even ordered in the flat white reported to be Mr Shearer's coffee of choice. But then this happened:
Marcus Lush was incredulous that Shearer had failed to front for an interview which his staff had lobbied for. Whilst Lush wasn't questioning Mr Shearer's excuse (taking his son to the airport for an overseas trip) he was incredulous at Shearer's explanation that it "fell through the cracks". And so he should be.
There are two possible explanations for Mr Shearer's no-show. Either he forgot that his staff had made the appointment with Marcus Lush (and his memory has been less than reliable this year!), or someone has set him up by not diarying the interview, and by not making sure that the Leader of the Opposition turned up. Given what's been happening over the last few weeks, we would lean towards the latter.
But whatever, it is a poor show by David Shearer. After going to ground earlier in the week because of Labour's Man-Ban, he has stuffed up the opportunity to end the week on a high, and is now the target of fun for a broadcaster with a significant sized audience. It may be winter, but we reckon that there might be a BBQ or two whilst Parliament is in its winter recess.
