There is nothing like a good laugh. Stuff tends to have it in spades these days. I don’t go there much now – it used to be my go-to news site – but if I do now, it is purely for entertainment value. Here is what had me cracking my ribs on Saturday.
This week’s revelations of Uffindell as a 16-year-old bully who beat a year 9 student, before being asked to leave King’s College in an “open and shut case”, then going on to St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton, where he was again briefly suspended, then allegedly terrorising a flatmate in his second year at Otago University, stand in stark contrast to what he led you to believe he was: the successful banker with an agribusiness side-hustle, complete with beautiful wife and children.
More troubling is that the National Party was complicit in not telling voters about Uffindell’s past. The fact that Uffindell revealed his expulsion to the nine-member pre-selection committee, which included newly installed president Sylvia Wood, campaign chair Todd McClay and former president Judy Kirk, and they still made him their candidate shows it’s not so much a case of redemptive second chances but one lacking complete moral direction.
Oooh. Nasty. “Lacking complete moral direction”. Serious claims. But Janet Wilson, someone I never previously classed as a Labour stalwart (but was obviously wrong), must have had her eyes and ears completely closed, because this article was printed on Saturday August 13th – two days after Gaurav Sharma levied bullying claims against the Government and one day after Jacinda threw him under the bus, treating him like a five-year-old who has just lost his ice-cream. He then replied on Facebook, also on Friday, actually naming the bullies and giving more details of the disgraceful behaviour he encountered as part of the Government.
Was Janet Wilson at an all-day party on Friday? How did she miss all of this?
That red flag under their new candidate selection process should have been enough to disqualify Uffindell. Instead, it speaks volumes of the party’s own values that McClay continued to keep the truth from voters throughout the campaign and Uffindell went along for the ride.
No red flags for Labour though?
In all of this, my own observation is that Gaurav Sharma is exactly the type of MP we really need in parliament. He believes he is serving his country and representing the people of Hamilton East. What a refreshing change it is to hear an MP speak like that. The last time I heard Jacinda speak in similar tones was on election night 2020, when she promised to govern ‘for all New Zealanders’. She lied.
I don’t think Gaurav Sharma is lying. I think he is being truthful. And, while we often suspect and sometimes get evidence of bullying in parliament (Trevor Mallard and Meka Whaitiri immediately come to mind), most of it is covered up. Now, the voters have been given a glimpse of life within the inner workings of parliament… and it is not a pretty sight.
But hey. Let’s blame National for selecting a man who beat someone up when he was 16.
Doesn’t everyone have things in their past, particularly in their youth, that they wish they hadn’t done? That they shouldn’t have done?
However, Wilson has decided to stay quiet about the bullying that is going on in parliament today by educated adults who clearly feel they have to go to great lengths to make MPs toe the party line. Where MPs are told things like –
I was then told by Duncan Webb in clear terms that “the only way this country can succeed is if Labour is in government. Government means Labour. So the Party comes first and foremost before the country.”
Gaurav Sharma
“So the party comes first and foremost before the country.” That is the attitude of one of our current MPs in the Government. It is truly shocking.
But no. That Uffindell, eh?
I would vote for Gaurav Sharma. I wish I was in his constituency. He is a man of honour, of integrity, who is clearly not afraid to speak the truth, no matter what it costs him. He is the type of politician that we really need.
Not for Janet Wilson though.
It also begs the question: will voters care, or is this the week Election 2023 was lost for the National Party?
Stuff
Nice try, Janet, but this week we have also had a glimpse of Labour’s moral direction. Now, you tell me – will voters care more about a man who beat up a kid when he was 16, or an obvious bullying culture in the Labour Government right now? We have all seen evidence of it. Mallard has a record of beating up other MPs, of bullying protesters and making false accusations. Meka Whaitiri was accused of beating up a staff member. Kieran McAnulty and Duncan Webb are now accused of bullying and gaslighting.
I am a voter and I will forgive Sam Uffindell his bad behaviour as a youth. But a Government that bullies, belittles and gaslights its own MPs? That, I think is unforgivable.
Sorry, Janet, but I think this may have been the week where election 2023 was lost by Labour. Shame you somehow missed it.