At the same time that Jacinda Ardern was holding a press conference, Gaurav Sharma dropped another bomb on Facebook, including screenshots supposedly from other MPs upset at bullying within the Labour Party. He timed his drop to perfection. Gaurav Sharma is playing a beautiful game of death by a thousand cuts. The only question now is who is going to crack first?
This was his latest statement on Facebook:
In December last year I gave the following screenshots in print to the Chief of Staff of Prime Minister when I made complaints about then Chief Whip Kieran McAnulty and his bullying. These are some of the messages from MPs who were also being bullied. One of the MPs spent almost 3 hours in tears talking about how they were being treated. Others asked me how to fake a Covid test so they didn’t have to come to Parliament because of how much they were scared of being bullied.
I specifically flagged to the Chief of Staff in our meeting that there were many members of caucus in this situation and I was worried about their mental health as well as lack of any support or due process. This isn’t just any staff, this is the Chief of Staff of PMO. I specifically said that this needed to be investigated but nothing was done at all. Instead a few months later Kieran was promoted to a Minister of the Crown unfortunately sending a message to caucus members being bullied that their well-being and concerns didn’t matter.
On Friday Prime Minister specifically said that she has been aware of issues surrounding me for a long time which obviously would include these claims as well as printed evidence I provided. On Tuesday in a meeting while discussing about Sam Uffindell’s issues with National Party, she specifically mentioned that something similar wouldn’t happen in Labour because she was advised of everything that happened in Caucus as well as within the Party.
After 1.5 years of going through every manager, every office, knocking every door in Parliament I never got heard. Even after I wrote an op-Ed last week raising my concerns there was an attempt to deny that bullying existed or any serious allegations were made. In addition to that the party machinery has been trying to deflect the situation by trying to dig my past and make accusations about me. I could be a hardened criminal with 30 years of prison record or a murderer but that should not stop me from getting a fair independent hearing re my concerns.
I have been told since my op-Ed came out that I shouldn’t talk to the media and instead should raise things with the Whips or the Leader but that’s exactly what I have tried to do for last 1.5 years without being heard at all. And now I am being silenced again as such the bullying continues.
I have been driven to this point because even now the party and it’s leadership refuses to believe that there is a problem.
It’s a sad day for our democracy.
[these screenshots are from other MPs. I have cropped their name to protect their privacy]
Gaurav Sharma, Facebook
Gaurav Sharma’s political career inside the Labour Party is effectively over but I think he already knows that. The Labour Party machine is now going to systematically break him on the wheel.
With each and every post on Facebook, they will attack him even more. They started with sending in the union bully-boys like Darien Fenton to silence him. Then they started smearing him under the guise of expressing concern for his well-being, something Josie Pagani likens to being bullied by a wellness coach. They’ve used anonymous sources and leaked stuff to the media and now the Media Party, earning their bribes, are saying that Sharma is an insignificant nothing, conditioning readers to think of Sharma as a dog turd on Labour’s boot to be scraped off at their leisure.
Labour will now give Gaurav Sharma the Taito Phillip Field treatment. The inside word is that Sharma is likely to be expelled from caucus for the trumped-up charge of breaching caucus confidence.
Which then suggests Sharma will just tell all the stories he can think of…endlessly. It will be bombs away and the target will be Jacinda Ardern and the entire Labour Party.
Sharma must surely know that he is burning the whole house down. But every attack that Labour and their media and commentariat lickspittles make will merely cement in the public’s mind that Labour is exactly what Sharma has been saying they are: a bunch of nasty, vindictive and ultimately sanctimonious bullies – and probably racists to boot.
This game has only just begun and there will be no upside for either Sharma or the Labour Party.
Sharma should find a real nasty and brutal political operator to negotiate on his behalf, someone who knows the dark arts well and is prepared to kick some balls. Right now though he is doing a fine job of my favourite political play, ‘death by a thousand cuts’. He should drop a new bomb every day at varying times, which will drive the Labour hierarchy absolutely batshit crazy and also drive the news cycle.
Right now Labour is having to react to Sharma, and they really don’t like that. He needs to continue to make them react, and each time they do he wins a little bit more. Constantly change up the attacks…an accusation there, another here, some documents there. Little by little those cuts will hurt and eventually, Labour will bleed out and want to buy him off. Then Sharma can claim they tried to bribe him into silence.
The funny thing is that Labour thinks they are smarter than everyone else. But Gaurav Sharma was the second dux at Auckland Grammar and a Fulbright scholar, and he has a medical degree. He’s easily the smartest guy in Labour, and so far he has the measure of the numpties in the Prime Minister’s Office. He has sat there for nearly two years watching clearly stupid people doing stupid things and he’s had enough, so he is revealing to us all just how inept Labour’s ineptocracy really is.
Reminds me of the Dark Knight movie:
And things are going to get toasty.
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