Leak exposes Nats’ indiscipline

Covid-19 has done serious damage to two, or possibly three, political careers in New Zealand. We can count former health minister David Clark in that tally. We might be able to count former National leader Simon Bridges, who got on the wrong side of the public mood during the level 4 lockdown. And we can definitely count one-term National MP Hamish Walker.

There have been jokes about the curse of Clutha-Southland. National’s Bill English held the vast and very blue electorate from its creation in

1996 until 2014, when he went list-only. But replacement Todd Barclay quit after just one term, due to a secret recordings scandal. Now Walker is doing the same, after leaking private information about Covid-19 patients.

Walker has learned that, when you are stuck in a hole, you really should stop digging. The MP has a profile in the deep south but most of the country became aware of him only last week when he issued a press release warning that

11,000 people were to be isolated in the south – and worse, they were coming from Pakistan, India and South Korea.

Walker’s outburst was swiftly and fairly dismissed as both fanciful and racist. After a day or so, leader Todd Muller expressed concern and disappointment. The sorry saga should have ended there, but in what appears to have been a misguided attempt to win the argument about arrivals from other countries, Walker released private details of 18 active Covid-19 cases to media outlets. The information seems to have been leaked to him by Michelle Boag, a former National Party president who retained an influence within the party, despite being openly disliked by some factions.

Boag has also parlayed her political influence into regular media commentary roles. That must surely come to an end after this outrageous privacy breach.

Again, Muller’s response seemed tepid until he read the public mood, which mostly ranged from shocked to disgusted, and called on the National Party board to effectively deselect Walker and find a new candidate just two months from an election. But just as the board were due to meet, Walker deselected himself.

Clutha-Southland is a safe enough seat that even a last-minute substitution will probably not affect National’s chances. But damage has been done to the image and reputation of a party that has never completely recovered from the ‘‘dirty politics’’ scandals of 2014.

Walker is a young MP who went rogue, either because of poor management or blatant arrogance. Just as his initial press release was not signed off by those higher up, his unapproved leak left Muller and health spokesman Michael Woodhouse looking confused and uninformed for more than three days.

Nothing unites a political party like winning, but nothing splits a political party like losing. Current polling suggests National is staring down the barrel of its worst election defeat since 2002. A sense of panic drove the coup that installed Muller, but a lack of discipline has permeated the party since English and former prime minister John Key left.

Yet Covid-19 is bigger and more important than politics. New Zealanders were right to be horrified that private medical information was cynically weaponised by Walker and Boag, to either create short-term gains in the media or build a wider impression of chaos and mismanagement that would benefit their party in September.

Boag has regular media commentary roles. That must surely come to an end after this outrageous breach.