Uffindell’s selection says it all about National’s values

When actor and political liberal George Clooney was asked a decade ago if he’d consider running for politics he demurred, exclaiming, ``I didn’t live my life the right way for politics,’’ before musing that a smart campaigner would say from the start, ``I did it all. I drank the bong water. Now, let’s talk about the issues.’’

It’s too late for Sam Uffindell to muse on his ineligibility for politics on even the most desultory of bong water tests. He wasn’t prepared to start his campaign by applying the George principle and announce, ``I did it all.’’

Instead, he actively chose to cover up his true character; when the Bay of Plenty Times asked all candidates during the Tauranga by-election campaign what their biggest mistake was, his answer was asinine: ``Not coming home to New Zealand sooner. There’s nowhere we’d rather raise our kids,’’ he replied.

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 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 sidehustle, 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.

That red flag under their new candidate selection process should have been enough to disqualify Uffindell. Instead, it speaks volumes for the party’s own values that McClay continued to keep the truth from voters throughout the campaign and Uffindell went along for the ride.

It also cuts to the lack of transparency internally within National

that its leader and deputy did not know of Uffindell’s violent past until Monday morning.

The fact that the board knew but Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis didn’t is indicative of one of two issues: either the board thought Luxon would reveal Uffindell’s indiscretion and not support him as a candidate; or it wanted to protect Luxon and Willis

in case of the inevitable fallout from the revelations. As Luxon is a relative newcomer to the National fold, and an inexperienced politician, the latter sounds more likely than the former.

With Uffindell exiled to Tauranga, awaiting his fate in the wake of QC Maria Dew’s report in the next fortnight, it’s a snatchdefeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory moment for National. Last weekend’s bland but successful annual conference is forgotten while the party is plunged back into a crisis that’s all too familiar.

It’s hard to paint yourself as the party that’s moved on from its troubles when you keep appointing narcissistic, entitled white blokes as candidates. Candidates who lead double lives and lie to the electorate, either by omission or commission.

It’s also the exact opposite of Luxon’s contention that the party is finding new and diverse candidates. If that was the case in Tauranga, Rotorua mayoral candidate Tania Tapsell should have been a pre-selection candidate, if not selected.

One thing’s for sure: no matter what kind of report Dew produces, Uffindell’s career as Tauranga’s MP is finished, destined to join the long, inglorious drumroll of National Party MP flunkies consigned to the scrapheap.

To keep him on would give Labour and the Greens simply too much opportunity during next year’s election campaign to claim that National is the party of privileged white men. Which means, if Luxon has any hope of winning next year, he will have to make some hard calls.

Does he sack Uffindell and call a by-election? To do so would not only be expensive but would result in yet more months of cripplingly bad headlines, which would constantly remind voters that National is a party of political expediency without values.

Does he keep Uffindell on as Tauranga MP until the next election, keeping him as a lameduck MP and outside caucus, and announce that a new candidate is on the way in 2023? While onerous, it seems the lesser of two evils. There’s no doubt Uffindell would continue to be a reminder of the party’s lack of integrity, but it avoids the ignominy of yet another by-election.

This tawdry affair reflects badly not just on this candidate but on the National Party that was prepared to have him as one. It shows us there’s been no renaissance, just more of the same.

It also begs the question: will voters care, or is this the week Election 2023 was lost for the National Party?