New National MP Sam Uffindell has admitted hitting and bullying others when in his teens, on top of Monday's revelation of an assault of a fellow Kings College boarding pupil when he was 16, that led to him shifting to St Paul's Collegiate.
Uffindell made the comments at an emotional standup news conference in Parliament after Stuff reported that Uffindell had told National's electorate selection committee, but not National delegates or Tauranga voters or leader Christopher Luxon, that he assaulted a fellow pupil in 1999 at Kings College.
Uffindell said he had apologised to his victim last year and was remorseful. He said he deserved a second chance. However, the victim told Stuff he felt used when he discovered in the media that Uffindell was going to run for Parliament soon after being contacted by Uffindell with an apology.
Luxon told a news conference earlier he had only found out Monday about the assault, and would have preferred the electorate committee had told him, National delegates and Tauranga voters before the by-election. Uffindell never admitted it during the campaign in public, saying when asked about his biggest mistake that it was not to return to New Zealand sooner. Asked at a campaign event what he would tell his younger self, he said he should have a different hair style.
Uffindell was also asked by the Bay of Plenty Times during the campaign about being suspended from St Paul's Collegiate, but he declined to specify what actually happened.
"I was a bully at school, and I’m not proud of that at all," Uffindell said, adding he had been a "16-year-old thug" at high school, but was not trying to hide his past.
Luxon said he had only heard of the one incident and that he supported Uffindell staying on as MP on that basis.
"He is genuinely regretful and he’s shown tremendous amounts of contrition and empathy for the victim. He is not the same person that he was 22 years ago," Luxon said.
“He has my support. But clearly he needs to be able to build back trust with the voters in Tauranga," he said.
My view
In my view, former National Leader John Key would not have tolerated Uffindell staying on as MP for more than a minute or two after finding out Uffindell and the selection committee kept the information from voters, delegates and him.
This is now a test of Luxon's judgement. It is not tenable for Luxon to say he and Tauranga voters should have known before the by-election, but to leave Uffindell in place until the end of next year, particularly with the political risk of more skeletons emerging from the closet.
This is a test of whether Christopher Luxon is as much of a smiling assassin as John Key. If he chooses to leave Uffindell in place, it is another sign that Luxon lacks the deft touch and political instincts to repeat Key's success. Key axed Pansy Wong within two days of hearing in 2011 of her travel entitlement irregularities. Aaron 'don't you know who I am' Gilmore lasted less than a day after it emerged he had been less than clear in his explanation of wrongdoing to Key in 2013.
Key was also ruthless in removing Kate Wilkinson and Phil Heatley as cabinet ministers because they had not performed in National's first term from 2008-2011.
I think there's a chance Luxon ditches Uffindell before the end of the day to cauterise the political damage to less than a day's worth of ugly headlines and revelations. If this drags on for many days, it will damage National. Luxon should also be insisting on the immediate resignation of Peter Goodfellow as a National Party board director.
Goodfellow was President when Uffindell was selected and stepped aside as President last weekend after a series of poor candidate selections in recent years, including Todd Barclay (2014-2017), Jami-Lee Ross (2011-2020), Todd Muller (2014-22), Andrew Falloon (2017-2020), Hamish Walker (2017-2020), Jian Yang (2011-2020), Aaron Gilmore (2013-13) and 2020 Upper Harbour candidate Jake Bezzant. Due diligence did not discover issues with bullying, sexual harassment, mental illness, sending pornographic images, leaking private data, training Chinese spies, being entitled and allegedly impersonating an ex-girlfriend online, respectively.
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