Uffindell issue morphs into Sharma squeeze

For most of this week Labour has been playing it cool, with National under the gun over MP Sam Uffindell – who knew what, when, and whether the party turned a blind eye to bad behaviour in the past.

Number one rule: never get between a scandal and the public. And Labour was following that rule. After a torrid few weeks, the party thought that perhaps its fortunes might be starting to turn. But no such luck.

On Thursday afternoon the MP for Hamilton West, Dr Gaurav Sharma, blew up his political career, writing a fantastical oped in the New Zealand Herald claiming that basically everyone south of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been involved in rampant bullying in Parliament.

The claims seemed to have come out of nowhere, and the confusing thing about it was that there were no actual, concrete claims of bullying.

In fact, several sources have told Stuff that Sharma had had difficulties in his office. The veiled language of ``employment matters’’ has left everyone to reach their own conclusions, but Labour whip Duncan Webb confirmed that Sharma had not been able to hire new staff until those issues were resolved – a practice begun a couple of years ago.

But now, Labour is squarely in the middle of it. The Francis Review has cast a shadow over Parliament, with scrutiny still on how the institution manages elected MPs who also find themselves struggling when in charge of staff.

For the people who knew Sharma within Labour, he was a bit of an oddball who had expectations of being a parliamentarian that did not accord with reality. For MPs who consider they had a high-flying career before politics, to suddenly find themselves an anonymous backbencher, the lowest rung on a very hierarchical ladder, and expected to shut up, can come as a rude shock.

Several medical professionals Sharma worked with, who have spoken to Stuff on the condition of anonymity, describe a chirpy gladhander whose interest in practising medicine was rivalled by his interest in name-dropping. When, as a junior doctor, he was confronted with feedback about his performance, he would resort to excuses about how busy he was outside his medical life.

Indeed, his LinkedIn CV and other biographical information suggest an incredible career. This seems at odds with the man seen around Parliament, whom one Labour source described as just a ``plonker’’.

But while the spotlight has been on National for its selection processes this week, it is a reminder that difficulty in selecting good candidates is not the preserve of any one party.

Sharma became the candidate for Hamilton West in 2017 when former MP Sue Moroney quit after being given a lowly spot on Labour’s list. According to sources, he was seen as a bit of saviour for the local party: a young, Indian doctor who seemed very good and who also reflected the new and changing face of New Zealand.

In 2020 he ended up winning the seat off National’s Tim Macindoe, as part of the massive Labour sweep across the country as the party basked in the post-Covid glow of Jacinda Ardern’s pandemic management.

Labour has a big and unwieldy back bench and it is no surprise that one has now blown out.

Sharma clearly had issues with staff to the point at which it was decided that he could not hire any more, until it was deemed by the Labour whips, alongside Parliamentary Service, that he was ready to do so.

Clearly, at some point, he appears to have decided that this was bullying by Labour whips, Jacinda Ardern’s office, Parliamentary Service and many more besides.

Make no mistake, while Ardern said yesterday that she was there to support Sharma and that he was part of the Labour family, at the very least he will be deselected as the candidate for Hamilton West at the next election, thus ending a short and forgettable political career.

But the consequence of his actions – which he obviously did not fully appreciate – is that it once again puts the actions of all of his colleagues under the spotlight. When someone makes claims like this – even though this one was general in nature and didn’t actually involve any concrete allegations – journalists, the Opposition and others are duty bound to look into it.

He and Uffindell now most likely have one thing in common – neither will be an MP come the next election.

In a week when Labour has been quietly delighting in the fact that National was in trouble, this couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The Uffindell situation also revealed – ironically – that National’s new vetting of candidates was actually pretty good. He disclosed his King’s College bullying to the party; a selection panel knew about it.

What failed massively was the next step: what the vetting turned up was basically ignored or wasn’t seen as a problem, and so no plan was devised to deal with it. No amount of good process can make up for political incompetence.

National leader Christopher Luxon says he didn’t know – although someone in his office did – and he mostly handled it well considering the hand he was dealt.

However, it will all return again in a couple of weeks when a report comes back from Maria Dew, QC, into an incident while Uffindell was in his early 20s.

The Sharma allegations come at a doubly bad time for Labour.

Although various sources say its internal polling is better than the 1News Kantar poll that showed it on 33% and losing power, the party is in a rut.

It doesn’t appear to have much of an economic message and nothing much seems to be going right. More than that, a lot of legislation on which ministers are spending time won’t be big votewinners.

When it was just Uffindell, it was a National Party problem. Now it is Labour as well, it becomes a case of ``they are all as bad as each other’’, thus neutralising any positive effect for the Government.

There are still probably 14 months to run until the next election, but Labour now knows it

is in for a rough stretch. Its cost-ofliving payment has not provided the political ballast it had hoped for and inflation is still bubbling away, although globally there are signs it might be tipping downwards.

In fact, the worst news in both the Kantar poll and a Horizon Research Poll obtained by Stuff during the week, was that support for both major parties is falling. ACT or the Greens will likely play a much larger role in either a centre-left or centre-right government come next year. Te Pati Ma¯ ori could well decide who sits on the Treasury benches.

It could be that ACT and the Greens are part of a new MMP cycle – both have competent and stable leadership (Green Party vagaries excepted), and that they will be structurally bigger over the next period. Or it could be that the main parties are struggling to find favour with voters.

Either way, the only sort of party that currently isn’t in Parliament, or over 5%, is one marketing itself as centrist and a counterweight to a pure right-bloc or left-bloc coalition next time around.

Come election year, either NZ First or even The Opportunities Party could come through and try to claim that ground.