By MATHEW DEARNALEY
Gerry Brownlee's elevation has appalled an Auckland man who won $8500 in damages from the MP after being assaulted at a National Party election campaign launch in 1999.
"For them to elect this man to any leadership role is yet another death knell for the National Party,"
said Neil Abel, an opponent of native forest logging who took a successful civil case against Mr Brownlee after the police declined to prosecute the politician.
"The rot has set in," he said.
Mr Abel, 63, won his case in the Auckland District Court last year after Judge Fred McElrea ruled that Mr Brownlee used excessive and unreasonable force trying to remove him from a staircase handrail at Eden Park.
The judge said Mr Brownlee was up to twice Mr Abel's weight as well as younger and fitter.
Although accepting a denial by the MP that he threatened to throw Mr Abel down a marble staircase, the judge said he was sure something was said which prompted that fear.
Mr Abel told the Herald last night that he could not forget being marched out of a hall with MP John Carter on one arm and a National Party supporter on the other before Mr Brownlee grabbed him from behind by his belt, lifting his feet off the ground.
This followed his heckling of the then Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, about her Government's policy of allowing logging of native forestry on the West Coast.
"Politicians used to stand on street corners and could be challenged and be heckled, but that practice has gone by the by," he said.
"When do we get the opportunity to challenge our representatives in a public forum?"
