PM will apologise for Lester mislabel
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she will apologise to former Wellington mayor Justin Lester after she appeared to forget he was her own party’s candidate for the city’s mayoralty.
Ardern said she would apologise to Lester, saying she has ‘‘no hesitation doing that’’.
She also wanted to clarify her comments, noting ‘‘some of the things I’ve seen haven’t necessarily been accurate’’.
On Monday, during her post-Cabinet press conference, Ardern told reporters that Labour candidate Lester – who lost the mayoral chains to Andy Foster – had run as an independent candidate.
Asked about Lester’s failed bid on the Labour ticket, she replied: ‘‘Justin ran as an independent,’’ leading to suggestions she was distancing herself from him.
Lester seemed unperturbed, calling it an ‘‘honest mistake’’.
When Stuff corrected Ardern, asking if she made an error, she said: ‘‘No. My reference there, in terms of the way he branded himself during the campaign, wasn’t overt in that regard.’’
She did not see his loss as a sign that Labour was in trouble, rejecting a link between local results and Labour’s fortunes nationally.
The interaction left many wondering whether the prime minister was intentionally distancing herself from the failed candidate, given voting papers stated Lester as a Labour candidate, and all his campaign paraphernalia was party-branded.
However, yesterday, Ardern said she had assumed that Lester was a similar case to Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, who had sought to be endorsed as a candidate by the party without formally running on a Labour ticket.
Lester was backed by the party but that did not ‘‘necessarily translate’’ into his branding and that was why she made the mistake.
Lester told Stuff the prime minister had simply made an error. ‘‘I’ve talked to Jacinda’s team. They acknowledge that it was an honest mistake.’’