Bennett: Politics brutal in every way

People will go ‘ God, what a week . . . and we don’t want too many of them, thanks.’ Paula Bennett

Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett has been in the Clutha- Southland electorate for the past couple of days and says the electorate is moving on quickly after the resignation of MP Todd Barclay.

And National campaign chairman and Finance Minister Steven Joyce describes the events of the past week as “bumps” and says he does not believe it will affect the party’s conference in Wellington this weekend, three months out from the election.

“Politics is brutal in every way,” said Bennett. “Brutal on an individual like that but also brutal in the way that everyone moves on so quickly.”

She said that within three days of former Prime Minister John Key resigning “it was kind of like ‘ the King is dead, long live the King’.”

Barclay resigned after it was revealed he had confided in Prime Minister Bill English last year that he had taped his former electorate agent’s phone calls during an employment dispute.

The political blowtorch was then applied to English who had sat for over a year while Barclay denied it and refused to cooperate with a police investigation, which was dropped for lack of evidence.

About 700 delegates have registered for the party’s conference in Wellington including half a dozen from Clutha- Southland.

Bennett said Barclay was not expected at the conference, but that was his personal choice.

She said there was a sense of disbe- lief in Clutha- Southland that things had happened as quickly as they had.

“But actually they were turning their sights as to who was next.”

Like Joyce, she did not think National’s bad week would affect the conference.

“People will go ‘ God, what a week . . . and we don’t want too many of them, thanks.”’

Joyce said the events of the week would not significantly affect the conference.

“We have got a pretty experienced crew of volunteers who have seen a lot over the years and they know that these bumps happen from time to time,” he said.

He said the events of the week, including complaints about Labour’s foreign intern scheme, would remove any complacency.