Plagiarism?

Whale Oil quotes The Standard quoting David Cunliffe:

It’s a budget that picks pennies out of the pockets of children with after-school jobs, raids the piggy banks of the elderly with prescriptions to fill, crushes the dreams of many university hopefuls and attacks those with the least power to defend themselves. Not only is the budget not brave, it is possibly the most cowardly thing I’ve seen in my life.

Whale highlights a letter to the editor which said:

A budget which has the worst growth in 50 years, sees 50,000 people moving to Australia and has 50,000 more people on benefits. It’s a budget that picks pennies out of the pockets of children with after-school jobs, raids the piggy banks of the elderly with prescriptions to fill, crushes the dreams of many university hopefuls and attacks those with the least power to defend themselves. Not only is the budget not brave, it is possibly the most cowardly thing I’ve seen in my life.

So who is the original author and who is the plagiarist? Worth finding out.

UPDATE: No plagiarism at all. It seems David Cunliffe liked the quote on someone’s Facebook page, meaning it appeared on his timeline, and The Standard misattributed the quote to Cunliffe.