OPINION:
What is it with National Party leaders destroying their own MPs' careers? Now Christopher Luxon has thrown his new MP under a bus.
I wrote last week that this election is Luxon's to lose. I pointed to his lack of experience. He does not know the rules of Tammany Hall.
Rule number one: "For my friends, anything. For my enemies, an inquiry".
Never call for an inquiry into yourself.
The Uffindell affair could have been a one-day issue. All Luxon had to say was, "the people of Tauranga have elected Sam Uffindell. In the next 16 months the MP has to face re-selection and re-election. If the party or voters want to hold him accountable for things that may have happened years ago, they can. My task as leader is to hold Mr Uffindell accountable for his actions as an MP, which have been exemplary."
A CEO may be able to shift an issue off to the lawyers. But in politics, the buck stops with the leader.
Luxon has lost control of the issue. It is now a scandal that could roll on and on.
If Luxon is lucky and the QC running the inquiry is sensible, then she has already written her report. It could say there is a reason for the statute of limitations. After such a time, no one's memory is reliable. The only thing that has been alleged is bad behaviour, something that is not uncommon among students. The QC could recommend Uffindell be reinstated.
But the QC could just as easily take weeks. There have been other QCs' opinions that were supposed to take days, that have taken months. There is no law involved, it is just her opinion, and she might write a damming report.
Then Luxon would be in a real fix. Tauranga expects their MP to be in the National caucus. It is a constitutional outrage to expel a properly elected MP based on the opinion of a lawyer. Only a vote of the whole House can expel an MP from Parliament. And Parliament would never vote to expel someone for alleged misbehaviour when they were young.
What did Luxon do at university? Did he not observe that students who had been living for five years under the discipline of boarding school often go a bit overboard in the freedom of university?
These students grow up, have families and become responsible citizens. Many have distinguished careers and some even become MPs. If MPs are to be vetted for youthful indiscretions, Parliament will no longer be a house of representatives.
No one has told Uffindell the Tammany Hall rules either.
Rule number two: "never apologise, never explain and never, never resign".
Getting Uffindell to give press conferences to explain his actions did him no favours.
Uffindell should have issued a statement saying that he never asked anyone to vote for him because of what he did as a schoolboy or as a student. He campaigned on his ability to represent Tauranga and that is his focus.
Uffindell could use my line. As the newly selected candidate for Auckland Central, I door-knocked on the Symonds St state flat block opposite our old family home.
"Good morning. I am the Labour candidate. My name is ..."
"I know who you are," said the female occupant. "You are that naughty Prebble boy."
"There were five of us boys," I said hopefully.
"Your brothers were good boys," she said. "You are the one that did that April fool's day prank that gave us all panic attacks."
This was true. At age 10 I climbed to the top of the stairwell and hung over the railing. I screamed for help. Doors opened everywhere. Tenants saw a boy dangling over a six-storey drop. When the first man almost reached me, my hands appeared to slip.
I landed on a hidden ledge a metre below, shouted "April fool" and ran off. I got into a lot of trouble.
I did not attempt to apologise to the voter. Instead, I said: "do you think Parliament deserves to get me?"
She laughed and said: "I almost feel sorry for Mr Muldoon".
Uffindell could say, "these stories just prove I am the man to drive these rascals out of office. They will be exiting through the windows."
Instead of holding an inquiry into Uffindell's past actions, National should be focused on the Reserve Bank's actions.
Labour is showing how to handle a scandal. The former Labour whip has not given any explanation for the explosive claims by the Labour MP for Hamilton West that the whip was a bully.
Dr Sharma will regret calling for an inquiry. Instead of an inquiry, he may already be expelled from caucus. No sympathy - he is being ejected because his actions as an MP caused by his inflated sense of entitlement.
Labour's real scandal will be forgotten while National's manufactured scandal rolls on.
Richard Prebble is a former leader of the Act Party and a former member of the Labour Party.