Silence from several National party quarters over the Uffindell affair
Last week provided such an abundance of political action it’s difficult to choose a topic so I’ll focus on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the Uffindell affair.
Many folks have a “Queen story” so here’s my small one.
I was invited to a function she attended roughly 20 years ago.
Though I was not introduced to the Queen, I observed her at relatively close quarters.
I remember that she was relaxed, was enjoying meeting the people, smiled often and she was blessed with a beautiful skin. A rather nice person, I thought. Logically, having a head of state who is appointed by birth in the 21st Century is truly bizarre and when it occurs in North Korea, we correctly label it as a madness.
As a republican I would prefer to see us pick our own Kiwi head of state but I’m not fanatical about it and I don’t think anything will change any time soon (unless Charles III turns out to be an unmitigated disaster).
Australia had a referendum on a republic in 1999 and voted to keep the monarchy by 55 per cent to 45 per cent.
The issue that dominated the referendum was just how a president would be chosen - election or appointment.
The late Sir Michael Cullen took the attitude about the current arrangement of “if it works, don’t fix it”.
I suspect most Kiwis would agree with that sentiment at the moment.
The matter of newly elected Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell reached another milestone this week with the release of Maria Dew KC’s investigation into an alleged incident of aggression when Uffindell was a student at Otago University.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon exonerated Uffindell but gave out no detail or even an executive summary.
It is likely that Dew found a “he said, she said” situation with no independent witnesses and gave Uffindell the benefit of the doubt.
Parliament is a bear-pit and Uffindell’s “tough on crime” maiden speech, before the assault became public, was foolish and will not be forgotten.
I think he will realise that his political career will never progress beyond the backbench and will choose to return to his banking vocation next year.
This saga leaves much unanswered, spotlights a dysfunctional National Party and a leader with plausibility problems. To recap the sequence of events:
Sam Uffindell nominates for the Tauranga byelection and tells the preselection panel of senior National Party officials that he took part in an attack on a
"Parliament is a bearpit and Uffindell’s “tough on crime” maiden speech, before the assault became public, was foolish and will not be forgotten."
13-year-old when aged 16.
His only punishment was to be transferred from one expensive private boarding school to another.
Members of the selection panel made the decision not to tell the local National Party members who were to make choice of candidate.
A member of the selection panel does, however, inform an official in Chris Luxon’s parliamentary office of the assault.
Luxon claims that this official failed to pass on this information.
This kind of “mistake”, if it really happened, exposed Luxon and should be a firing offence.
No one was fired or, as far as we know, disciplined in any way making the “communication failure” alibi hard to believe.
This also points to very poor judgment by the pre-selection panel.
I chaired dozens of Labour Party selections over nearly a decade and had a candidate made such an admission in the selection process, I wouldn’t have touched them with a barge pole.
The attack involved an injured victim so the risk of the incident becoming public, as it did, was intolerably high.
This penny didn’t drop with the panel.
When announcing the outcome of the Maria Dew report, conveniently delayed to the day of the Queen’s funeral, Luxon was obviously uncomfortable.
He avoided responding to assertions from a Ma¯ori reporter that the “punishment” meted out to Uffindell would be a lot different to the outcome for a 16-year-old Ma¯ori youth. This is undoubtedly true; I’ve met several young Ma¯ori doing jail time for actions no worse than that of Uffindell. Luxon was equally uneasy when questioned by Richard Harman.
Harman is among the best of the current crop of political reporters now Colin James has retired.
He first asked Luxon if he was on the board of the National Party, to which he answered “yes”.
Harman then observed that selection panels are expected to report to the National Party Board and asked if the Tauranga selection panel had reported to that board as would be normal.
Neither Luxon nor Sylvia Wood, National Party president, would answer the question. Had the panel not reported to the board, there would have been no reason to evade the question, so it can be assumed a report was tabled.
Luxon’s assertion that he knew nothing of Uffindell’s assault before the matter became public is not plausible.