Bridges says tape exonerates him
Rogue MP Jami-Lee Ross has released the tape of him and National Party leader Simon Bridges discussing a $100,000 donation, in which Bridges describes one of his MPs as ‘‘f ...... useless’’.
But Bridges argues the tape actually exonerated him of any allegation of electoral fraud.
The release of the tape came yesterday afternoon after three days of chaos in Parliament.
Ross released the tape after handing it over to police, who are now looking into his allegation of electoral fraud levied against Bridges. The allegation concerns a $100,000 donation from Chinese businessman Zhang Yikun, which Ross says Bridges asked him to split into smaller parts so it could remain anonymous.
But that conversation was not the one released. In the conversation from June 25, Ross and Bridges do discuss the donation and how to handle it but there is no smoking gun.
‘‘He [Ross] defamed me and he is a liar,’’ Bridges said during a post-tape standup yesterday. The tape exonerated him, he said.
In the taped phone call, Ross reminds Bridges of the $100,000 donations, which Bridges says is ‘‘fantastic’’. Bridges and Ross then mull over how to get the donation to the party, with Bridges saying he has to ‘‘find the right words’’ to talk to party president Peter Goodfellow.
Ross and Bridges then discuss how the Chinese donors are keen to get more than one ethnically Chinese MP, with Ross saying ‘‘two Chinese MPs are better than two Indians’’.
They decide to send one person to candidate college but leave more decisions for later on.
Bridges discusses a cull of his list MPs, noting that low-ranked MP Maureen Pugh is ‘‘f ...... useless’’. He started his press conference by apologising to Pugh, saying the comments were not how he felt, he was ‘‘mortified and there was no excuse’’.
‘‘This is a really big and hard lesson for me.’’
During the press standup, Bridges said National was a party ‘‘that thinks about multiculturalism and representation’’.
He said it was a ‘‘blunt private conversation’’ but he stood by wanting a multicultural caucus.
He said he was ‘‘not perfect’’ and a ‘‘rough diamond’’ but he slept well at night because he knew that when it counted, he did the right thing.
‘‘I don’t muck around with electoral law.’’
Bridges repeated that Ross had ‘‘defamed’’ him and said Ross was ‘‘utterly discredited’’ and had attempted to blackmail him ‘‘criminally’’. Ross had secretly been recording him for months, he suspected.
Bridges called Ross a ‘‘terrible’’ person.
However, he said it was ‘‘hardly worth the time and effort’’ of pursuing legal action.
ROSS VISITS POLICE
After talking to police in Wellington yesterday, Ross said he didn’t know if the police believed he had a reasonable case but they did spend two hours talking. ‘‘It’s up to the police now.’’ He confirmed he had more recordings.
Asked how long he had been recording his colleagues, Ross said this was not a habit but after the allegations of harassment three weeks ago he started to record meetings.
‘‘That’s when I decided that I needed to protect myself.’’
The Botany MP has caused days of political chaos with his bold allegations about Bridges, his former ally and party leader, all of which Bridges denies.
Ross has resigned from the party and has pledged to stand in a by-election to contest the Auckland seat of Botany.
On Tuesday Ross said Bridges asked him to take the donation and break it into smaller pieces from different donors, illegally making it anonymous.
Bridges has denied any illegal activity, and deputy leader Paula Bennett has suggested Ross acted alone in any unlawful acts.
‘‘When you step back from it slightly it sounds like he has gone and collected that donation, that he has filed that claim.
‘‘I’m worried for him as much as anyone else in all this,’’ Bennett said yesterday, cautioning that this was speculation.