Putting the game before the stakes

There were questions in Parliament yesterday over whether United Future leader Peter Dunne had leaked the Kitteridge report into the GCSB to the media. While initially raised by Winston Peters, it is Labour which has been doing most of the questioning in the House, and they're running with it again today, with Chris Hipkins attempting to dig into the investigation into the leak.

Which invites the question: why? After all, this leak was a Good Thing. It exposed malfeasance and possibly criminal behaviour by a government body, putting them under the spotlight and creating some unaccustomed accountability. And Labour wants that punished?

While exposing (or merely tarring) Dunne as the leaker would create discomfort within the government's coalition, it would do so at the cost of chilling further leaks. Its putting politics before policy, the Game before the stakes. Sadly, Labour's apparatchiks no longer seem to know any better.