Labour MP for the Taieri electorate, Ingrid Leary. Photo / Peter McIntosh
Labour MP for the Taieri electorate, Ingrid Leary. Photo / Peter McIntosh
An Otago Member of Parliament is calling for people to find more constructive ways to express their grievances after her car was despoiled with faeces.
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary said today started off as a beautiful, sunny day and she was looking forward to getting to her electorate.
The Labour Party MP said she smelled the faeces before she saw them, strewn across the hood of her car.
The incident was unlikely to be opportunistic because of the significant amount of faeces, which were hard, suggesting they had been collected over several days, she said.
While said she was not an expert on poop, she believed it was dog excrement.
She laughed because the situation was ''so incredibly funny'', but also sighed because she felt sorry for the person who had dumped the excrement.
''I just think they could have saved both themselves and me a lot of effort if they'd just contacted me to have a bit of a yarn rather than go to such extraordinary lengths to vent their frustration.''
She could not draw any conclusions about either the identity or the motivations of the mystery poop smearer.
Because she did not know what their grievance was, she could not do the part of her job that was to find solutions to issues.
The poop was cleaned off using detergent, hot water and an old scrubbing brush - which was then thrown out - and then she had a shower.
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary's car was targeted with faeces on Friday.
She said her attitude to the incident was a little bit flippant, as she had constituents who were facing ''massive issues'' around inequality and were struggling day to day with life, which put the defiling of her car into perspective.
However, there was a deeper issue about people's attitudes and behaviour towards politicians.
She could have just cleaned the car and moved on, but she felt it was important to have discussions about what is and is not acceptable behaviour towards public figures.
People did need to have ''an incredibly thick skin'' to be in the role, as it drew a lot of criticism, she said.
After she posted online about the incident, people were speculating about who it might have been despite there being no evidence.
''If the person does hold anti-Government sentiments, they might have shot themselves in the foot by doing this,'' Leary said.
