Can National drain swamp?

Sex, money and power. Political scandals traditionally boil down to at least one of those three things. Throw in corruption claims, anonymous donations, personal treachery, leaks and inquiries, thwarted ambition, insults and casual mental health labelling and you have a scandal that makes National’s last round of dirty politics look like a Sunday School picnic.

What we have seen this week is unprecedented in New Zealand politics. Dissenters and splitters are not new. Political historians might think back to John A Lee, who famously attacked his leader, Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage, in an essay on ‘‘Psychopathology in politics’’ and was expelled from the party.

But Lee damaged only himself. JamiLee Ross’ political bombshell has thrown mud across the wider party. It is not just self-destructive but ruthlessly destructive of the electoral changes of his former friend, leader Simon Bridges. National’s hard-won reputation as a united, disciplined party has been tarnished and will take more than one electoral cycle to repair.

Like Labour in the 1980s, MPs are attacking each other in private and public. It was highly embarrassing for Bridges to be caught insulting list MP Maureen Pugh in a phone call secretly recorded by Ross. But National list MP Nicky Wagner’s claim that Ross is suffering a ‘‘psychotic episode’’ is unhelpful mental health shaming that undermines the party’s previous platitudes about wellness.

The recording released by Ross on Wednesday did not overtly connect Bridges to illegal handling of political donations. Ross may always have known that and will have known its contents would damage Bridges in other ways. It will be hard for the party to move on from the implication that millionaires who anonymously support it can buy a place on the party list.

During the call, Ross told Bridges that while there was ‘‘no catch’’, the $100,000 donation from a Chinese businessman came with a discussion about putting another Chinese candidate on the list. The two politicians then talked about whether ‘‘two Chinese would be nice’’, as Bridges put it, or whether they should get one Filipino instead. Both seemed to agree ‘‘two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians’’.

What reads like cold calculations about the political and commercial value of one ethnicity over another might have just been the political equivalent of locker room banter between two men who used to be friends. Some might compare it to Labour’s backing by unions and its promotion of unionlinked candidates. But unions are accountable New Zealand institutions whereas the donation was allegedly made by a businessman connected to China’s ‘‘soft power’’ strategies.

That is just one thread that needs following further after this week’s bombshells. In the meantime, National is scrambling to present itself as strong, stable and future-focused, with Ross as just one bad apple.

Will the public buy it? National has to do much more to drain the swamp it is mired in. Bridges has been severely tainted by this week, as have deputy leader Paula Bennett, senior MP Judith Collins and others who stood as a glum united front behind him. They looked as shell-shocked and traumatised as much of the public must have felt as one more depressing, nasty story about the biggest party in politics was told.

‘‘It is not just self-destructive but ruthlessly destructive of the electoral changes of his former friend, leader Simon Bridges.’’