‘I’m gutted about this story and everything it is about’
As the Jami-Lee Ross fallout continued, National Party leader Simon Bridges stuck to his Hawke’s Bay commitments at the Royal NZ Show, fielding questions from hovering national media as well as taking time to sniff Deliverance at a local high school.
An under-fire Simon Bridges escaped the chaos embroiling him in Parliament for a day in Hawke’s Bay yesterday. The leader of the National Party, who’s spent the past few days sweating on each new revelation from jilted MP Jami-Lee Ross, instead started light-heartedly spraying himself with a new natural body spray.
He did it in a visit to St Johns College to support entrepreneurs, Knights of Enterprise, who created the spray, called Deliverance.
Bridges said it was important to support the Hastings teens Ishan Parmar, Sam William-Smith, Oliver Garider, James Barr and Louis Gaffney as they had gone to a lot of effort to contact him.
“It sounded like a really, cool, fun, interesting thing that they’ve done.”
The young entrepreneurs said they had developed Deliverance after learning regular deodorant contains aluminum, which can cause prostate and breast cancer later in life.
Bridges, who rarely wears cologne, and MP for Tukituki Lawrence Yule both tried the spray.
“My wife is going to be pleased,” Bridges joked.
“She’ll want to know what’s going on, but once she’s worked out where I’ve got it from it’ll be great.”
Knights of Enterprise had approached several pharmacies and hoped to have their product selling in a week or so.
After trying the spray, Bridges and Yule spent time with the boys discussing politics, business and education.
Bridges said it was always great to visit what was a “special part of the world” to him, and get out and talk to people who supported him.
“It’s been a tough time, and so it’s very much appreciated, and getting out of the Wellington bubble and out into the real world.”
As well as spending time at St Johns, Bridges spent the morning at the Royal A & P Show, where he announced National’s “Have your
Say”, listening campaign, which is focused on rural New Zealand.
The political scandal surrounding Bridges started with former National MP Jami-Lee Ross alleging Bridges had committed donation fraud.
Ross has since released a tape publicly, in which Bridges is heard
I’m gutted about this story and everything that it’s about Simon Bridges
calling MP Maureen Pugh “f***ing useless”.
Ross said he was accused by Bridges and Deputy Leader Paula Bennett of sexual harassment, but Bennett later said he mis-characterised the conversation, and instead they had discussed “inappropriate behaviour for a married MP”. Since then, Newsroom has release a year-long investigation, in which they spoke to four women claiming Ross sexually harassed them.
Bridges told media the report was upsetting.
“I’m gutted about this story and everything that it’s about.”