Singing ‘all the burning bridges’
Peters’ song pick perfect summary of National dilemma
On a day that was all about the National Party, it was NZ First leader Winston Peters who took the prize for the best summary. Walking into Parliament for Question Time, Peters wandered up to the waiting media and played them the soundtrack for the war film Kelly’s Heroes: Burning Bridges.
Two hours earlier, Jami-Lee Ross had stood in the same spot and fired a broadside at the Bridges Peters was referring to — National Party leader Simon Bridges.
Ross resigned from the party and as an MP so he could contest his Botany byelection as an independent.
He stood alone. The rest of his colleagues had already walked past and, in an astonishing display of collective disdain, many condemned Ross, citing gross disloyalty rather than opting for “no comment”.
At the start of the day going into that caucus meeting, National MP Todd Muller described the general feeling in National as “raw”.
When they came out two hours later, it was raw and bleeding. Ross was amputated and accusations flew.
Soon after the National MPs locked the door for their caucus meeting at 10.30am, Ross said he would speak to media at 11am in the lobby.
He came alone, a solitary figure ostracised from his own party and, it soon became clear, hell bent on revenge. When he left there was silence. It had been gobsmacking.
There were the details of his logistics. He turned off his phone at 1pm on Monday, drove down from Auckland, printed his statement off yesterday and went to Parliament just after the caucus began.
One question was why he drove rather than flew. “I needed the time out to clear my head . . . I’ve had nine hours of driving to think about it.”
Ross managed to be lucid for his 57-minute long stand-up. He called Bridges “corrupt”, “dishonest” and accused him of unlawful handling of a donation. He said he would go to the police and claimed Bridges and his deputy Paula Bennett had accused him of harassing women.
He claimed MPs were “having conversations in their offices late at night” about Bridges, concerned about his polling.
Bridges, turning up half an hour after Ross left, delivered a 12-minute response to this tirade.
Behind him stood the very same people Ross had just listed as those who would be better leaders than Bridges — Judith Collins, Mark Mitchell, and Amy Adams — as well as Paula Bennett and Todd McClay.
Asked about claims of his “corrupt” handling of a donation, Bridges hedged and fudged, declared that all Ross had said was baseless and hedged and fudged again.
Asked again for any details around the donation or whether it had even been offered or given, he insisted he had already answered the questions.
It was unclear whether his failure to answer was because he could not or because he would not. The result was he looked shifty and evasive.
It beggars belief Bridges fronted at all without having a convincing response to Ross’ allegation.
Later in the day, party president Peter Goodfellow issued a statement saying Ross’ allegations did not match anything in National’s records.
Bennett told reporters she had not accused Ross of harassment, but of inappropriate behaviour for a married MP. Take that as code for what you will.
Until and unless either National or the police clears matters up, it will remain a matter of credibility.
Was Ross “delusional” as Collins claimed and Bridges atrociously and wrongly maligned? Or was Bridges in trouble?
As for Ross, all sour grapes grow from a seed and 50 minutes into his press conference he revealed what that seed was.
Ross had supported Bridges both as deputy leader back in 2016 and as leader this year.
In return he had expected a plum post — but Bridges had given them to others instead, Shadow Leader of the House to Gerry Brownlee and chief whip to Barbara Kuriger. He did get a front bench role and Transport, but not what he said was promised.
Whatever the truth, the National Party put on quite a show. In all of its nine years in Opposition, Labour never provided such fireworks despite churning through five leaders.
Ahead lies that Botany byelection for a series of encores.