National's Sam Uffindell wants to stay on as an MP
Stuff broke the story yesterday of Uffindell beating a young student at King's College. Last night the MP for Tauranga said he hadn’t ruled out standing down but this morning said he wants to stay on
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Tuesday, August 9, by Anna Rawhiti-Connell. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: poll results put National/ACT in governing position; Auditor-general has concerns about Three Waters; Commerce Commission gives preliminary green-light to media to collectively bargain with Google and Meta; but first, Sam Uffindell’s past again raises questions about National’s candidate selection process.
Sam Uffindell will discuss his future with the party in Wellington today
Newly elected MP for Tauranga Sam Uffindell asked to leave King’s College in 1999 after beating young boy
As detailed by Stuff’s Kirsty Johnston, Uffindell was asked to leave King’s College as a fifth former (year 11) after viciously beating a younger student late at night. The incident took place in 1999 and the victim says he thought the boys had been using wooden bed legs unscrewed from their dorm to beat him with. Stuff spoke to three witnesses who were present at the time and called Uffindell who said he couldn’t recall using bed legs but couldn’t rule it out either. Uffindell spoke to Lisa Owen on RNZ’s Checkpoint last night where he said he only used his fists to hit the victim. Stuff has approached King’s College to confirm if bed legs were used and is awaiting a response.
Uffindell wants to stay on as an MP
Uffindell apologised to the victim, who spoke to Johnston anonymously, 22 years after the attack and nine months before he publicly announced his political aspirations. The victim said he probably wouldn’t have agreed to speak to Stuff about the incident if Uffindell had properly handled the apology. Toby Manhire highlights the tenor of Uffindell’s maiden speech a week ago in which he lamented “a growing culture of lawlessness, lack of accountability, a sense of impunity, and significant underlying generational social problems”. Speaking to Newstalk ZB's Heather du Plessis-Allan last night, Uffindell confirmed the incident and said it was "one of the dumbest, stupidest things I have ever done". He didn’t rule out standing down as an MP when speaking to du Plessis-Allan, but told Rachel Smalley on Today FM this morning that he wants to stay on. He will discuss his future with the party today.
Party aware of incident ahead of selection
The party was aware of the incident before selecting Uffindell to run for the seat and it was not disclosed to voters ahead of the by-election. In his Checkpoint interview, Uffindell said he disclosed the incident “fully” to the party in writing in April as they requested that kind of information and he “thought it would come up at some stage” if he was successful. Posting on his Patreon, National party pollster David Farrar (paywalled) said if he were on the board or committee, he would have insisted that Uffindell disclose the incident publicly. The Herald’s Claire Trevett (paywalled) recalls the details of a Q & A event hosted during the by-election campaign where candidates were asked about their biggest mistake. Act candidate Cam Luxton disclosed a drink-driving conviction. Uffindell responded with "Not coming home to New Zealand sooner. There's nowhere we'd rather raise our kids."
More “exact vetting” of candidates committed to ahead of Uffindell’s selection
The party’s candidate selection processes have drawn criticism in the past, following scandals involving MPs and candidates including Todd Barclay in 2017, Jami-Lee Ross in 2018, Andrew Falloon and Hamish Walker in 2020 and Jake Bezzant in 2021. National's review of its failed 2020 election campaign recommended improving candidate selection. In a Herald story from March about the party’s “National 101” summer programme, it’s noted that the party would “also conduct more exacting vetting of potential candidates to weed out any potentially problematic selections” and that the party would “begin the formal process of selecting a candidate to run in Tauranga” the following week.
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Poll shows National and Act could govern
The latest 1News Kantar poll shows that if the results carried through to the 2023 election, Act and National could form a government with 62 seats. Support for National fell by two points to 37%, but support for Act is up four points to 11%. Both prime minister Jacinda Ardern and opposition leader Christopher Luxon are down three points in the preferred prime minister polling. Ardern is on 30%, her lowest polling since becoming prime minister, while Luxon is on 22%. Labour is on 33%, down two points and the Greens are down one point on 9%. Toby Manhire writes that the best way to think about the next election is in terms of blocs and has charted the growth in the gap between the National/Act and Labour/Greens blocs. Notes on the margin of error and confidence level are at the bottom of the 1News report.
Auditor general raises concerns over Three Waters reforms
As reported by the NBR’s Brent Edwards (paywalled), auditor general John Ryan is concerned about the level of scrutiny that can be applied to the four new water services entities. In his submission to the finance and expenditure committee, Ryan said the new entities could not be held to account by ratepayers like local authorities, nor could they be held accountable by parliament because they were not Crown entities. The National Party issued a press release just after 3pm yesterday saying the government must listen to the auditor general. National’s local government spokesperson Simon Watts said: “The Government arrogantly ignored the criticism of local communities and National when it was told these reforms were unaccountable and not transparent, and now they are being confronted with the reality.”
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Media advances further on ability to negotiate collectively with tech giants
In a preliminary decision, the Commerce Commission has found the News Publishers Association of New Zealand (NPA) should be able to collectively bargain with Google and Meta. The decision would allow the collective to negotiate with Google and Meta on the terms and conditions of displaying their content on internet platforms operated by Google and Meta. The proposed arrangement would be for a period of 10 years. General Manager of the NPA, Brook Cameron, said: “Today’s announcement means we are one step closer to redressing the power imbalance that exists between independent New Zealand news publishers and the digital giants, and securing fair payment for Kiwi journalism used on their platforms.”
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NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi is reviewing its decision not to run a trial of a cycling and pedestrian lane on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Generation Z are embracing a new “trend” called “quiet quitting”. For what it’s worth, it sounds a lot like ye olde “working to rule”.
Evidence from ex-MP Jami-Lee Ross is aired in court during ongoing political donations trial.
Message in a bottle found in Christchurch war memorial.
New Zealand to sign 'strategic partnership' with Malaysia.
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New Zealand team ends Commonwealth Games with 20 gold medals
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