Faeces left onMP’s car

When Labour MPIngrid Leary set off for work yesterday, she did not expect to find faeces scattered on her car. Leary represents Taieri, an electorate that covers South Dunedin to South Otago, and had no idea why shewas targeted. ‘‘I can’t fathom what it takes tomotivate someone to do that. It might be perverse ofme to think that, but I had to laugh and sigh at the same time ... it’s not even an election year.’’ Learymoved to Dunedin to run for the seat in 2020, andwas not known for courting controversy. She hoped it was dog faeces but, as they were large for a dog, she couldn’t rule out they came from a human. Eitherway, she said they were stale andmost likely collected over a long period of time. ‘‘I feel sorry for the person who did it; it must have taken a lot of effort to curate it.’’ She said shewas a doit-yourself kind of person, so had promptly removed the faeces. Leary said it would be ‘‘disturbing’’ if it happened again. She didn’t think it was to dowith her being awoman, despite misogyny against female MPs being a topic of discussion in other parts of the country.