Paula Bennett on Labour's arrogant MPs and why Trevor Mallard needs to go

Trevor Mallard more often than not can't see past his Labour Party ideology to run Parliament for all MPs. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Opinion:

Being a member of Parliament can bring out the best and the worst in people. You have to be slightly bonkers and have a high degree of confidence just to want to be an MP – unfortunately, that can click into arrogance really easily when you get there if not kept in check. I should point out that this arrogance is not the domain of just one political party.

There are examples galore from all sides of the House (including the Green Party, even though they want us to believe they don't play personality politics and saunter around looking arrogant because some of them really believe they are better than the rest of us). Plenty has been written in the past about National MPs behaving badly and I am sure someone is screaming at their screen about how arrogant they think I am.

Willie Jackson's display this week calling David Seymour "a useless Māori" and then blatantly defending it was actually a breath of fresh air. He said what he meant, he didn't back down and he was playing directly to his audience, Māori voters on the Māori roll. I don't agree with his analysis but that's irrelevant – I don't agree with most things Willie Jackson says and have myself in 2019 been told by him that I am not Māori enough – but I do like people who shoot straight from the hip and Willie himself pointed out that Parliament is a boisterous place.

Willie will be Willie, predictable, pretty harmless and easy to ignore. I am sure the PM is not too worried about his latest outburst, after all, she needs the support of her Māori caucus and those votes.

She should be worried about the creeping arrogance of Police Minister Poto Williams in not allowing Opposition members to meet with the Police Commissioner, a public servant who they have a role to hold to account. I can't believe that just three weeks ago Poto was denying there is a gang problem in NZ. But the PM has probably consoled herself that it's not arrogance but incompetence and, as we see daily, that is acceptable in her Cabinet.

What should increasingly be worrying the PM is the arrogance of Trevor Mallard and the damage this is doing her. From badly handling the actual Parliament protest and then badly handling the aftermath by trespassing ex MPs and unforgivably giving Winston Peters a platform to crow from to generally running the debating chamber with ridiculous rulings that mean people can't actually debate, it is time for him to bow out.

I like Trevor, I think he is a complicated bloke who at times tries to do his best but more often than not he can't see past his Labour Party ideology to run Parliament for all MPs. He is also now damaging the PM as she defends him and it is for this reason he should go.

Once a Labour MP said one of the vilest things to me in Parliament that actually shocked me. I don't think you need every detail, but in the House, he shouted out to me words that insinuated that in the past I had been paid for sex. He wanted to hurt me and it was nothing short of malicious. He had only been an MP for a few months. I didn't confront him at the time – I would have had to explain why it was offensive and that would have made it worse for myself. It continued to play on my mind though and I felt I had to call out appalling behaviour. So I got hold of the Hansard (the official record-keeping of what goes on in the House) found the offending bit, circled it and simply wrote him a note asking if this is the sort of person he wants to be – and I signed it. He avoided me for months.

Of course, arrogance is not the sole province of members of Parliament and in the last week chief executive Simon Henry has proven he is not only arrogant but has ignorant, 1960s, pathetic views - fortunately in response New Zealanders didn't scribble him a note but shouted back at him while maintaining their dignity and talked with their wallets. Unfortunately for the women in his life, I think it all fell on deaf ears.

Paula Bennett is a former Deputy Prime Minister and National Party politician who now works at Bayleys Real Estate as national director — customer engagement.