Simon Bridges must almost be wishing that he’d never chucked Jami-Lee Ross under the bus. Botany is turning into a real mess as list MPs jockey for a safe seat and flip the bird at the President, Peter Goodfellow and Regional Chair, Andrew Hunt, who both want ‘Happy hand clapper’ Christopher Luxon.
Air New Zealand senior executives really don’t like Christopher Luxon and are peppering our tipline with all sorts of details. One of their allegations is that Luxon really doesn’t like homosexuals, gay marriage or gay adoption. It all sounds pretty unlikely to me since it is an industry that has a high proportion of gay employees compared to other industries. Whatever the truth is, it can all be easily sorted out during selection with some smart questioning from delegates.
Newshub understands National MP Agnes Loheni has thrown her hat in the ring to be selected as the National Party candidate for Botany.
National MPs have confirmed to Newshub that Loheni – National’s spokesperson for small business and Pacific peoples – informed caucus on Tuesday morning.
Loheni will be competing for selection against former Air New Zealand boss Christopher Luxon, who confirmed last week that he wants to run in Botany as the National candidate.
Newshub
The BFD understands that Paolo Garcia has been sniffing around and busily signing up members. The membership is now well over 600 so the regional office won’t be able to stack the delegates. The only influence they’ll get is stacking the pre-selection committee. However they will have a real problem bowling both Katrina Bungard and Agnes Loheni as both have been or are candidates already. That makes life hard for Luxon and creates a potential three-way split between a carpet-bagger, a local and a sitting List MP.
Botany is becoming very messy, but it is a situation that is entirely of Simon Bridges’ making, and it could easily have been avoided.