What a bad week for politicians.

The phrase “loose and incompetent” has been thrown around a bit and it’s quite appropriate. "Terrible ironies" is another phrase that fits.

The Government’s much-lauded Wellbeing Budget is due tomorrow and yet today New Zealand’s teachers are on their biggest strike in history, to remind the Government that they want more money in this Budget for their own wellbeing. The irony here is that teachers are unionised and Labour is the party of the unions, yet they’re attacking the party that probably fits them best. The other irony is National’s Nikki Kaye is now urging the Government to break the standoff, presumably by putting more money and resources on the table. And chance she had when this negotiation first started two years ago.

Then there’s the whole Parliament bulling inquiry schemozzle, where the Speaker demonstrated his total lack of knowledge of how to deal with HR issues, probably because he’s never been in a real business environment. The irony here is that Parliament created the workplace regulations and yet have no idea or inclination to obey the laws they wrote. This chapter has been definitely loose and incompetent.

There is another irony in this that National tried to hide. Yesterday the party released the results of their own inquiry into inappropriate behaviour. An inquiry not worth the paper it’s written on. It appears to be an executive summary suggesting a code of conduct. It’s an inquiry that did not talk to female MPs in the party. All this as Paula Bennett rails against Trevor Mallards inquiry. Pot. Kettle. Black.

The way National hid this inquiry was by releasing it while they were setting off a bomb under the Government’s Wellbeing Budget.

Starting at 10 am, then again at 1pm and then again at 4pm, the opposition appeared to release many of the embargoed details of the forthcoming Budget.They used the figures to highlight how the coalition partners either skewed money in favour of their pet issues or missed out on funding. And they crowed that the fact someone had got hold of the details from Treasury was an example of loose and incompetent government and it’s public service.

Fair point. This doesn’t happen often and shouldn’t happen. Treasury should not get hacked. It’s a violation of our national security. The police need to find the hacker and Treasury needs to seal its doors.

Now the irony here, is that the hacked documents were released by a man, who last year was so incensed by leaks that he launched his own witch hunt to find the culprits. To hear Simon Bridges say yesterday that Grant Robertson was launching a witch hunt, I thought was very rich indeed.

But here’s my concern, and it goes to the character and abilities of the opposition. There is a reason Budgets are kept secret, that we have lockups and everyone gets the information at the same time. It's not so a Government can release fireworks. There are legal reasons

Budgets are like financial results of companies. They disclose the state of finances and the country’s spending intentions. There are financial ramifications and commercial sensitivities at play. In the business world such a leak of spending intentions would be viewed as a very serious thing indeed, and raises the fear of insider trading. For instance, with the alleged $641 million increase in the Defence Vote I wonder if anyone is increasing their stake in defence suppliers today?

So I thought Simon Bridges was right to say he had the documents. He was right to say the Budget will disappoint the public and also Labour’s coalition partners. He should have slammed Treasury’s security measures. He could have informed the police himself. But to release the figures I thought was irresponsible. Perhaps it’s because he has no business experience himself. It was grubby and unnecessary and somewhat unpatriotic

So yes, the Government has been loose and incompetent, Treasury has been loose and incompetent, and the opposition has been not much better. What a terrible crop of politicians we have at the moment.