PM Christopher Luxon puts MP Andrew Bayly on notice in latest case of MPs behaving boorishly - Claire Trevett

Opinion

THREE KEY FACTS

• On Friday, PM Christopher Luxon released a complaint from a man who claimed minister Andrew Bayly had humiliated him, alleging he had sworn and repeatedly called him a “loser” on a workplace visit.
• Bayly has apologised, saying it was intended as a light-hearted exchange and he did not intend to offend the man.
• Labour leader Chris Hipkins says Luxon should punish Bayly with demotion.

Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

OPINION

National’s Andrew Bayly has delivered what should be an unnecessary reminder to politicians that there isn’t much they’ll get away with when it comes to boorish behaviour — and that the public does not like MPs being rude to workers.

The tale of Bayly’s treatment of a worker in Marlborough — ribbing him for working late and allegedly making the L sign and calling him a loser — emerged after Bayly released it last Friday.

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It transpired that happened after the worker emailed Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and other politicians with the whole sorry saga.

Bayly apologised and promised Luxon it would not happen again.

Luxon’s response was to put Bayly into Last Chance Land.

Luxon said on Friday, and repeatedly on Monday, that he had made it clear to Bayly that if there were repeat performances, he would not be so forgiving.

Luxon stopped short of saying what the consequences might be — but noted he acted “fairly and swiftly” when dealing with problems with MPs.

It was probably the proportionate response.

It’s not an immediately sackable offence. It’s in that tough category of offences for a Prime Minister to contend with: the sin of not reading the room, of boorish behaviour, of causing “unintentional offence”.

Luxon’s office made inquiries into whether there had been any earlier complaints about Bayly’s behaviour but none had come to light.

Luxon insisted Bayly was genuinely mortified — although, admittedly, it is hard to argue you didn’t think it was offensive or humiliating to call a complete stranger a loser and make the L sign at them.

It also makes Luxon an easier target for Opposition attacks that he sets a low standard for ministers’ behaviour, especially when Luxon often bayed for heads to roll in Labour when he was in opposition.

Bayly should consider himself lucky, given the PM described his actions as “way off-beam”.

However, Luxon has clearly decided it was due to social clumsiness on Bayly’s part rather than roiling arrogance.

Bayly has appeared genuinely contrite and while he has claimed his version of events is a bit different to those of the worker, he has not bothered to try to litigate the finer details beyond saying he was not intoxicated.

There’s little point getting bogged down in point-by-point litigation.

It was also naive to think he’d get away with it by way of a simple apology at the first moment.

Yes, there are rude idiots in every walk of life, but politicians will almost inevitably be dobbed in for it.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly. Photo / Mark Mitchell

There is a fairly long line-up of MPs who have found that out the hard way, including former Prime Minister Sir John Key, for yanking the ponytail of a waitress at his local cafe.

The defences Key put up are strikingly similar to those Bayly used: they had thought it was all part of light-hearted banter and had not realised it was not going down well.

Then there was Aaron Gilmore back in 2013, who ended up having to resign from Parliament altogether after being rude to a barman in the “Don’t you know who I am?” way.

The technical reason he lost his job was for the crime of misleading the Prime Minister rather than being rude to a waiter. Key said at the time Gilmore had not been truthful about name-dropping the PM in his conversation with that waiter. Gilmore left Parliament two days later.

(Admittedly, Gilmore must have watched the National MPs who have dropped by the wayside since then wondering whether his crime was really that big after all.)

The bigger reason in his case was the public outcry reached uncomfortable levels and more stories were emerging. The PM had wasted enough breath trying to defend him.

The same two issues present some risk to Bayly now.

Bayly, Key and Gilmore have all illustrated that people don’t like MPs being rude to the ordinary worker.

It is in that public backlash — and the risk of more stories coming out — that the danger lies for Bayly.

One incident tends to have the effect of flushing out other cases where there are any.

The question now is what Luxon will do if more stories come to light about Bayly and his manner of engaging with people.

Although the Prime Minister’s office has checked whether any complaints have been made in the past and found none, that does not mean people won’t now raise their hands. As for what Luxon would do if something further came to light, Luxon would not answer that, saying it would depend on the circumstances of it.

Now the waiting game commences.

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