National MP Andrew Falloon has announced he will retire at the September 19 election to maintain his "health and wellbeing".
He said: “As I noted in my maiden speech three years ago, when I was younger I lost three close friends to suicide. It was an extremely difficult period in my life. Unfortunately, recently, another friend took their own life, which has brought back much unresolved grief.
"I have made a number of mistakes and I apologise to those who have been affected.
“Recent events have compounded that situation and reminded me of the need to maintain my own health and wellbeing. I have again been receiving counselling."
National Leader Judith Collins said: “The National Party was advised of an issue relating to Andrew late on Friday afternoon and we have dealt with it this morning."
Falloon said he on Monday told Collins he wouldn't be contesting the election.
Collins said: “Andrew is suffering from significant mental health issues and his privacy, and that of his family, must be respected.”
Meanwhile a spokesperson for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said an "item of correspondence" was sent to her office last week related to Falloon. Ardern's office then sent it to the Leader of the Opposition, with the sender's permission.
The spokesperson said, "We treat all correspondence confidentially. All matters to do with Andrew Falloon's resignation are a matter for the Leader of the Opposition."
Falloon said: “I want to thank Judith for her support during this time and I look forward to helping a new candidate in the Rangitata electorate in any way I can.
“I apologise for this disruption to my colleagues and to those I serve in Mid and South Canterbury.”
Falloon follows a string of National MPs who have in recent weeks said they'd step down at the election: Amy Adams, Nikki Kaye, Hamish Walker, Jian Yang and Paula Bennett.
Other National MPs to retire at the September election include Maggie Barry, David Carter, Nathan Guy, Anne Tolley, Nicky Wagner, Sarah Dowie and Alastair Scott.
119 Comments
The heading is wrong. He is NOT resigning for mental health reasons. He has been sacked and only after further revelations left Collins, who had defended him yesterday, with no options. He’s a grubby, entitled idiot. The big question is, who’s picking these f***wits? Are there many more to come out of the woodwork? Heaven forbid that one of them becomes a minister in any future government. Falloon’s biog on Wikipedia is interesting. Seems like he was an ACT high flier, head hunted to join the Nats.
Exactly. What the heck is the selection criteria? Whatever it is, it is delivering up an array of individuals who have neither respect nor application to the responsibilities and performance of our government. Lets see now. Gilmour, Barclay,Walker,Falloon could all be type cast. And then you have Ross and the affair too. Perhaps the Key regime attracted or incubated this culture that is manifesting now. Whatever it is, it is all about them, their ambition and self interest, before anything else.
It's utterly disgraceful that he attempted to use mental health issues to hide his predatory sexual behaviour. How dare he disrespect the memory of the those young men who committed suicide twenty years ago? Can you imagine how the families of those who lost their sons feel, having all this dragged into the media attached to his seedy behaviour? We have a genuine mental health crisis and he is undermining that for spin? Shame on him.
It turns out it wasn't just one.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300061529/andrew-falloon-sent…
What a proper party member progression system would look like?
This system is used by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_Department_of_the_Communist_…).
The Party is one of the most meritocratic political institutions in the world. Only one fifth of Politburo members come from privileged backgrounds, and in the Central Committee of more than 300, the percentage is even smaller. This is thanks to a body little known to Westerners — the Party’s Organization Department system that guides candidates through integrated career tracks for Chinese officials, recruiting college graduates into entry-level positions and promoting them through the ranks, including high officialdom — a process requiring up to three decades. While patronage plays a role, merit is the underlying driver, says Li. “Within this system,” Li says, “and this is not a put-down — merely a statement of fact: George W. Bush and Barack Obama, before running for president, would not have made small-county chief in China’s system.”
That's an interesting link...I guess nobody has the perfect system...
".....The buying and selling of official positions also takes place, particularly in small localities, where head of the local Organization Department is among the most sought after positions. The job carries great discretionary power, allowing the wielder the ability to grant jobs to other individuals in return for cash. The practice is characterised by bribery, corruption, treachery, and "sheer desperate self-interest,"...."
More tripe from your brainwashed, delusional mind. I know of a few examples where qualified, experienced, and selected candidates have been taken aside, and been shifted into lower positions because the boss wishes to appoint a relative instead. Merit! Don't make me laugh. Go back to your village and observe how real officialdom works. Jobs for the boys.
Seems an ideal opportunity to get these issues talked about . Particularly rural male suicides. If he , and muller could talk about it , the publicity could be very beneficial to many. Understandable if they don't , and the mainstream media don't help with the dirt digging.
Fine line there - it is absolutely the media's job to dig on politicians activities. If Falloon's explanations for his yet to be revealed 'mistakes' are proven valid then discretion needs to be exercised in how they are reported. Not to undermine your excellent point that pollies and others should be affirmed in talking openly about mental health issues but he is a public figure by choice and knows a higher level of scrutiny goes with the territory. I hope his explanation is genuine but want examination of this to make sure mental health is not being used as a cover for old fashioned bad behaviour.
Both of you have very valid points, though perhaps it's just that National party are far too corrupt and this weighs very heavily on their minds. After all, their main policies do center around selling out NZ to the highest bidders. And it doesn't matter to them if the main buyer is a foreign dictatorship.
Yawn.. same old conspiracy BS... what policy exactly is selling out NZ?
IMO, feathering one's nest is not selling out NZ (Tremain, Brash, Shipley, Sabin, Richardson). However, I 'personally' don't believe that ex-MPs should be allowed to work for organizations or interests where there is a possibility that your prior experience as a politician can help to grease wheels or potentially divulge sensitive information.
Sending Porn to a school girl is not a mental health issue. You can find as many as excuses if you want but that behavior is unacceptable as a MP. You want your kids to receive porn from these nasty people? Be my guest, vote for them. National wont have my vote until I see certain actions being done to get rid of their internal corruptions. It sounds like they really have an awful culture within the party. I just can't trust them anymore.
Agree... not acceptable... see my post below. I was questioning the suggesting of National selling out NZ and its reason for being on this article.
No excuses.. he is gone and I think Collins needs to go to. Why on earth would she allow him to cite mental health issues?
As inept as Labour have been, I aint voting National at this election.
Well the process was that some party felt obliged to report the matter to the Prime Minister’s office and it has advanced from there to the National Party. One would have thought if there was a problem of this magnitude apparent, that National would normally have been aware and involved from the outset. As Middleman explains, it would be a very poor show to use as a smoke screen, the dire circumstances and consequences this country carries with regard to mental health issues that have been abused and neglected far too often, far too easily.
Agree with the above comment... given the reference to mental health issues you would expect National have ensured he has the correct medical expertise around him... and its not a convenient smoke screen for poor behaviour.
Would be telling to know if National have simply accepted him citing mental health as his public rationale for departing.. or have they rallied around their troubled colleague, Given STUFF are reporting this follows an alcohol-related incident on Friday I'd suggest its the former.
One child max, zero imports.
You have to realise that the planet is 5-6 billion overstocked; no end to letting people in.
https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil1100/Hardin.pdf
TK - No, I'd not 'like China'. Why is it folk put emotion (wish, in this instance) into it all the time? But their one-child policy, given their own overpopulation, was the best move by a government, anywhere, anytime. Are you capable of separating action from actor? Read this - all of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolutionary-Change-…
Dispassionately......
Probably laws and draconian penalties, perhaps post-child sterilisation. But maybe we agree that chosen-childless can trade their abstinence to others; he debate is yet to be had. But I think we ar well into a 'period of consequences' now, and no leader will dare go there until too late (it's already too late numbers-wise, I mean too late strategically.
Ok, and by when do you want this "reduction" to 2m to be done?
Also if the world is really going to go to hell in a handbasket like you think it is, two things:
1. There are 1 million NZ citizens overseas. Are you going to deny them their right to return?
2. In a long enough time span, the problem should take care of itself
And maybe we better get a plan for reducing to a population of 2 million or so (folk tend not to be so nice to each other when they're scrapping)?
There's no evidence suicide is linked to population growth (https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/data-story-over…).
Then you all need to address population.
Because the more people you have per resource (land, materials, energy) the less there is per-head. Just think, if there were a million less hereabouts, would there be a 'housing crisis'? Would prices be what they are?
What we have is a population crisis - if we called it what it is, we might be getting somewhere.
oh dear...
National MP Andrew Falloon is believed to have quit politics after an incident involving him sending a schoolgirl "inappropriate material".
The Herald understands the image was not of himself but was sexually explicit in nature.
The schoolgirl's parents alerted the Prime Minister's office to the incident - and Jacinda Ardern's chief of staff, with permission, notified National leader Judith Collins on Friday.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12349504
Perhaps we should also be congratulating the PM's office for handling this issue with the care and respect it demands instead of leveraging it to score some cheap political points.
Given the most recent experiences with the National Party, can we honestly say the same process would have been undertaken if the shoe was on the other foot?
No it is counterproductive to praise an action solely because it is correct. Regrettably though, in this day and age, your point is hardly unjustified. It would be something of an indictment on our political circles, if that doing what is right and proper, could end up as being regarded as politically astute.
Hard to believe that the police will not need to be involved surely. I mean that would be the case obviously for any adult who peddled pornography in such a manner. resigning from a job does not absolve anyone. Being drunk and/or past personal grief might well be a factor but that is now for the court to determine. Cannot imagine any parent in New Zealand, or any nation, would not think due legal process must be followed.
Looks like Police had original complaint weeks ago, had a look at it, decided it wasn't worth prosecuting for whatever reason, valid or no. We still don't have a clear timeline on this, which is possibly why the victim's age has been all over the place in reports. I'd suspect that the most likely scenario is that she was 17 or 18, in final year of high school when the offence took place, and has turned 19 and started uni whilst the police were sitting on the file.
It's more than yuk, it's sexually predatory and an abuse of power. He also tried to use the suicides of young men 20 years ago and a personal mental health issue as a smokescreen. In addition, he lied and tried to blame colleagues for sending the pic, whilst failing to disclose sending other pics to other women. This a morally bankrupt behaviour and this type of person has no business in politics.
Are we expected to believe that all these sorts of behaviours just magically appeared this week? That no one noticed he was a wrongun before?
And people genuinely struggling with their mental health are demonised, stigmatised, and generally thrown under the bus because this skeevy narcissist wants to make self-serving excuses for his sexual harassment of a young woman. If he gave a damn about suicide he wouldn't be dragging them into this as an excuse for sending dirty pics to somebody young enough to be his daughter.
Well done National for winning the trifecta on underage affairs. John Key had a thing for girls with pony tails, Chris Bishop was cautioned for snap-chatting school kids and now this? One could be forgiven for believing there's a culture of this in National. Even the handling of RoastBusters by Anne Tolley....
you are drawing a bit of a long bow to rope John Key in on the pony tail thing whilst blindly ignoring the young Labour issues and subsequent cover up.
Why is it so hard to find good people to run for office? Here and abroad it seems to attract a grubby element who carry a sense of entitlement and a need to look after themselves with no understanding of public service.
But we're not talking about Labour. As far as I am aware, that issue with young Labour sex camp went through the courts and the culprit (who unlike National wasn't a list MP) was charged with Assault. It was probably Max Key, turned up to an underage Labour scout camp with a chiller trailer of booze and a car load of his Roast Buster mates.
Why are you defending him? Stop defending him before you know what's actually going on.
Apparently there were allegations towards him from multiple women and police have advised Judith Collins they are likely to reopen the investigation.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122194402/live-national-leade…
A University student's parents forwarded it to the P.M??? . seems much more likely it was a schoolgirl for the parents to be involved, so probably a fair call on the ski,py info avaliable at first .
Really , it was a failure of Collins and Falloon to put the information out there, and be straight out at the start , that caused speculation and possible misinterpretation. To characterise been at a party and mislaying ones phone as a mental health issue is a very long straw.
So my take is that Collins was told that Uni Student received porn from Falloon, Falloon probably told her that it was 3rd party who had borrowed his phone (whether or not that is true), and Collins made him quietly fall on his sword for moral (not criminal) failing. The PM's office likely decided to turn this into a hit job by leaking to media that it was a schoolgirl, which Herald ran with, retracting after Falloon corrected them (grounds for a defamation case there?).
Seems to me that Labour is most likely source for the inaccurate age detail in initial media reports, as it was the PM's office that the family of the girl approached, and if it was the girl in question or her family approaching media directly then they would have been more clear on details of her age. It can be pretty much expected that any party, including Labour will use whatever ammunition is presented to them to hurt their opponents (whatever they might pretend to the contrary). Perhaps this was utu for Bennett's revelation of rape allegations against PM's senior staffer in 2018?
Recent developments clear this up. How on earth can you even begin to defend this man, and Collins’ feeble response yesterday. Compare her fluster with Ardern’s measured response. I ‘m an impartial observer just in case you think otherwise. It all comes down to the people behind you. Like with the Boag thing, Labour pulled a masterstroke appointing a QC rather than going for cheap points. And the same yesterday, put it on to Collins, rather than leak it to the media.
Need to update this story in light of recent developments.Mental health reasons? My ****. Collins would have known far more yesterday and should not have used the mental health cover story. She’s got egg on her face as a result. What is it with these youngish Nat MPs? Who’s putting these idiots forward? National has a huge problem and needs to get back to its roots [thats not a double entendre BTW). Anybody would have seen thru this man when he appeared on TV last night. Very, very angry to see this once great party in such disarray. Bring back Bolger, English or some such half decent person.
So Mr Falloon gets caught not once but twice sending pornography to young women. How many other times has he been doing the same thing? Is Mr Falloon married or in a stable relationship?
Yet he puts himself in a public position (member of Parliament) and tries to pretend this is normal behaviour. Then he gets caught out with his pants down both figuratively and literally.
"Oh, I have mental health issues" What bollocks. He should be sacked immediately. And lose all rights to any pension. I feel for his family, not for him.
Before we jump to conclusions, recognise that we have few of the facts. The most important being their prior relationship/association, if any.
Firstly, she's not a schoolgirl, she was a university student and well over the age of consent. "Sugar daddy" arrangements are actually common amongst university students with older men (note he's only 37). An Australian website in this vein has tens of thousands of members. Secondly, the fact that her parents went directly to the PM, suggests a political element - i.e. hoping the PM would use the information for political gain. The police have laid no charges. I'm assuming this is because harassment requires a pattern of behaviour after the recipient has made it clear that it is unwanted - i.e. a single flirty message doesn't meet this threshold.
So he gets a pass from me, despite the public handwringing and moralising.
There are now 3 woman,either he is very wealthy if he is entering into a 'sugar daddy' arrangement as you put forward,or as I suspect,he is just a creep and as someone above mentioned,it seems there is a culture in the Party,perhaps one of self entitlement,born to rule etc.
No the facts as we currently know them are that he lied, tried to blame colleagues for sending pics. Tried to excuse his behaviour on mental health issues and drag the memory of other young men's suicide through the mud in order to smoke screen his behaviour. And also fail to disclose sending **UNSOLICITED** porn pics to other women (not just the first 19 year old). Some are now saying that he also has a drinking problem. The police are now apparently re-opening the case according to JC just now. Personally, I think sending unsolicited porn to 19 years old is not indicative of a respectful "sugar daddy" thing but a sex pest or predatory behaviour.
Personally, I don't consider condemning this to be "moralising". I fully expect a career in politics to mean a commitment to honesty and a high code of ethics. And whilst, a relationship between a 37 year old and 19 year old, whether it be "sugar daddy" or otherwise might be "normal", I do not consider it acceptable behaviour from a married man, in a position of power (such as politics) where the action becomes exploitative. He exploited his position of power, the faith of the National party, the trust his voters placed in him and unless he and his wife have an open marriage of some kind, then he has exploited the trust of his wife too.
Been a National supporter for a long time but dont know how anyone can vote for this lot.
There is no doubt Falloon citing mental health issues is nothing short of disgusting. How does someone of these morals end up even being considered for parliament?
What I find extremely troubling as a Nat supporter is Collins would has been aware of the behaviour since Friday. To sit by and idly let him cite mental health issues is 1, morally reprehensible and 2, extremely naive to think the truth wouldnt come to light.
Labour has been such a lost cause over the last three years I assumed National would waltz back in... but they have proven themselves to collectively be lacking in any moral compass or leadership whatsoever.
Collins has done well to bounce this fool as soon as she got wind of it .
He must be a crazy-asf lunatic to have done this to someone who was a virtual stranger , and STILL AT SCHOOL !!!!! .
And what is he even doing speaking to a schoolgirl ?
On initially reading it , I thought Its such a wild story that if it was in the US media, I would have written it off as Fake News
The more I think about it the more I think that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction
I have the horrible feeling there is a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye.
Something just does not add up .
We really do need to get to the bottom of it , and also why the Police dont want to prosecute where a schoolgirl is involved .
The Police need to explain to the NZ public why this is so
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