The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has challenged Defence Minister Judith Collins over her “can’t be trusted” backing for controversial BlackSky Technology satellite launches and called on the Prime Minister to withdraw approval.

National co-chair John Minto today wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon — who is currently in Korea for the APEC meeting — in response to what he described as a “shocking” TVNZ 1News interview with Collins last Friday that revealed the satellite launches could be used by Israel in its genocidal attacks on the besieged enclave of Gaza.

Minto asked Luxon to “overrule” Collins and end the BlackSky satellite launches

He said PSNA had requested the Prime Minister direct Collins to withdraw approval for forthcoming Rocket Lab satellite launches for BlackSky Technology from Mahia, which could be used by Israel in Gaza.

Collins “can’t be trusted to uphold New Zealanders’ values”, Minto said in a statement.

“She went for any excuse to justify approving the launches, and the Prime Minister must rein her in.”

‘Free hand’ claim
Collins had said in the 1News report that the UN Security Council did not encourage sanctions, so she believed New Zealand had a “free hand to be militarily complicit” in Israel’s resumed genocide in Gaza, PSNA said as the ceasefire remained shaky today with Israel’s renewed attacks on the enclave.

“But New Zealand has complained for decades about the veto powers of one country in the Security Council,” Minto said.

“Then, our government uses the very same US veto — which it opposes — to justify licensing the launch of spy satellites to target Gaza.”

Minto said New Zealand government was ignoring the International Court of Justice(ICJ), which has directed countries to do what they could to prevent Israel’s illegal occupation from continuing.

“Signing off on delivering the technology, which the IDF [Israeli military] uses for its bombing runs on a civilian population, can hardly be interpreted as helping Israel end its occupation of Gaza.”

Minto said Collins’ alternative excuse was that New Zealand was “not at war with Israel, so can’t sanction it” was “equally nonsensical”.

“It may come as news to the Defence Minister, but New Zealand is not at war with Iran or Russia either,” Minto said.

“Yet the government routinely imposes sanctions on both of these countries, with putting new sanctions on Iran just a few days ago.”

Israel kills 91 people
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have killed at least 91 people in Gaza overnight, including at least 24 children, according to medical sources, in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire.

Al Jazeera reports that US President Donald Trump said Israel had “hit back” after a soldier was “taken out” but he claimed “nothing was going to jeopardise” the ceasefire, Al Jazeera reports.

Trump also said Hamas had “to behave”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s major Palestine advocacy and protest group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned Defence Minister Judith Collins for “dog-whistling to her small choir” over Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza enclave.

Claiming that Collins’ open letter attack on teachers at the weekend was an attempt to “drown out Palestine” in discussions with the government, PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal said that it demonstrated more about her own prejudices than teacher priorities.

Teachers, who had devoted their lives to educating children in Aotearoa, would be “appalled at the wholesale slaughter” of Palestinian school children in Gaza, he said in a statement today.

Israel has killed at least 97 Palestinians and wounded 230 since the start of the ceasefire, and violated the truce agreement 80 times, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

“Teachers who are committed to the education and development of the next generation of our country would feel a special affinity with the children of another nation, who are being killed by Israeli bombing in their tens of thousands, seeing all their schools destroyed, and who will suffer the consequences of two years of malnutrition for the rest of their lives,” Nazzal said.

He added that just two months ago, Collins had featured on television standing next to a damaged residential building in Kiev while condemning Russia for attacks which had killed Ukrainian children.

“But not a critical word of Israel from her, or her cabinet colleagues, despite Israel just now resuming its mass bombing in Gaza,” Nazzal said.

Children ‘deserve protection’
“Ukrainian, Palestinian and New Zealand school children all deserve protection and we should expect our government to speak up loudly in their defence, without having to have a teachers’ union raise government inaction on Gaza with them.

“But even after 24 months of genocide, Collins won’t find the words to express New Zealand’s horror at the indiscriminate killing of school children in Gaza.

“But she’s in her element dog-whistling to her small choir in the pro-Israel lobby.

“Collins has already been referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for complicity in Israel’s genocide by facilitating the supply of military technology for Israeli use.

“It’s more than time for Luxon to pull back his Israeli fanatic colleagues and uphold an ethical rule-based policy, and not default to blind prejudices.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The co-leader of New Zealand’s minority Māori Party has launched a blistering attack on white privilege and the opposition National Party which it accuses of “igniting racism” in the framing of a debate about radical political change.

In a provocative introduction to her weekly column in The New Zealand Herald today, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asks: “Hey coloniser, so let me get this right, you want to lead a debate about indigenous rights that you helped to destroy?”

She writes in her media message to Pākehā colonisers: “You dishonour Te Tiriti [1840 Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding political partnership document] and promote continuing to do so.

“You stole our land and our language. You denounce our history, preferring to educate on anything but us. And you have done nothing to reverse this, instead preferring to ignore the problems.

“We are in an inherently white system that you designed, yet you feel oppressed that Māori want to stop the pain of inequities. Your systemic racism continues to perpetuate intergenerational trauma, which you refuse to accept.”

While acknowledging that National Party leader Judith Collins claimed that New Zealanders “find racism abhorrent”, she added that “in my opinion she is igniting racism through a carefully deployed campaign — apparently with the help of former leader Don Brash”.

Ngarewa-Packer says New Zealanders are entitled to a conversation about radical change, but they are not “counteracting with alternative solutions”, preferring to focus on what she saw as the “misery of struggling Māori whānau”.

‘White hypocrisy’
Criticising what she describes as “white hypocrisy”, Ngarewa-Packer called instead for a “debate about the coloniser’s entitlements”.

“And rather than start on a timeline plucked out to help lift right-wing leaders’ dying polls, let’s start at the beginning: 181 years ago, and discuss the rights of tangata whenua and the radical change needed in Aotearoa to see those rights fulfilled,” she said.

“And yes, I hear you. Why should you pay for your ancestors’ mistakes? But why should we, either?

“No one can give our language, lives, and land (actually this is possible) back. There is no true price for our tāonga. But we must at least stop the lying and stop making a mockery of tangata whenua with this pathetic dog-whistling.”

Ngarewa-Packer says a debate was needed on how New Zealand economy had been built off the “displacement of tangata whenua”.

“How tangata whenua are the largest benefactors to this nation, having accepted settlements worth 1 per cent loss of whenua stolen, in a process determined by the Crown!”

Disparity in the economy
Among examples Ngarewa-Packer gave of the disparity between the Pākehā and Māori share of the economy, were the NZ$1.9m funding for Te Matatini, the “largest kapa haka event on the planet, versus $16.9m for the NZ Symphony Orchestra”.

She also cited the $250m spent on the America’s Cup this year.

Ngarewa-Packer has also called for less hypocrisy about “crackdowns needed to stop crime”

“Let’s turn our gaze to white-collar crime, which has seen an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion loss to Aotearoa, through tax avoidance and evasion.”

She added that Māori sought to “drive our own tino rangatiratanga [self-determination]”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s opposition National Party leader Judith Collins has suffered a sharp dip in support in the preferred prime minister stakes, in the latest Newshub Reid Research poll.

The new poll has Labour on 52.7 percent while National has improved slightly to 27 percent support – an increase of 1.4 percentage points on election night.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is on 48.1 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes, while Collins has slipped to 5.6 percent – a drop of 12.8 percent.

This is despite plenty of media coverage since she began accusing the government of introducing separatism for Māori “by stealth” when dealing with poverty and lack of opportunity in New Zealand.

Labour keeps its majority stranglehold on Parliament on 52.7 percent, up 2.7 points on the election result.

The Green Party is on 7.1 percent – down 0.8 – and ACT is just below on 6.9 percent, down 0.7.

The Māori Party remains on 1.2.

The poll was conducted between 7 and 13 May with a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Strong team. More jobs. Better economy. So say the National Party’s campaign hoardings. Only thing is, last Sunday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll – which had support for the Labour Party at 60.9 percent and for National at 25.1 percent – suggests the team is not looking that strong at all.

Nor will it be having much to say on jobs or the economy following the general election on September 19 if those numbers are close to the result.

As you might expect, National’s leadership dismissed the poll as “rogue”, saying the party’s internal polling (which hasn’t been publicly released) puts it in a much stronger position.

READ MORE: National gambles on Collins crushing Ardern’s charisma in NZ election

But this latest poll is consistent with three others released since May (June 1, June 25 and July 15). Averaged out, these polls put support for Labour and National at 55.5 percent and 29.1 percent respectively.

[Editor: Yesterday’s 1 News-Colmar Brunton poll put National down to 32 percent while Labour moved up another three points to 53 percent.]

That is quite the gap. Assuming they are broadly accurate, what do they tell us about the state of politics in Aotearoa New Zealand?

The centre is now centre-left
For a start, the political centre appears to be shifting to the left. Across the past four polls, support for Labour and the Greens sits around 62 percent. When nearly two out of three voters in a naturally conservative nation support the centre-left, something is going on.

Correspondingly, as the notional median voter shifts left, parties on the right are being left high and dry. The Reid Research poll put the combined support for National, ACT and New Zealand First at 30.4 percent, a touch under half the level of support for the centre-left.

In 2017, National secured nearly 45 percent of the party vote. Nearly half of that support has bled away – and most of it hasn’t gone to other conservative parties. New Zealand First is on life support; the right-wing ACT party is at 3 percent; and the other centre-right parties (including the New Conservatives, the Outdoors Party and the conspiratorially inclined Advance NZ/Public Party coalition) are well off the pace.

The leadership gap
Then there is the question of leadership. Judith Collins was installed in an attempt to re-establish National’s bona fides as New Zealand’s natural party of government. But she has not had the impact Jacinda Ardern did when she took Labour’s reins several weeks out from the 2017 election.

In fact, while 25 percent of those polled by Reid Research support National, the party’s leader sits at only 14 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes: nearly half of those who would vote National do not rate Collins as the prime minister.

The polling suggests that Collins’s penchant for attack politics is not resonating with voters. She has not been helped by the recent antics of (now departed or demoted) caucus colleagues Hamish Walker, Michael Woodhouse and Andrew Falloon, but the buck stops with her.

National’s default claim of being the better economic manager also took a blow in the most recent poll. Asked who they trusted most with the post-covid economy, 62.3 percent of respondents preferred a Labour-led government and only 26.5 percent a National-led one.

Could we see an outright victory?
Something may be about to happen to the shape of our governments. Under New Zealand’s previous first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system we saw a string of manufactured governing majorities.

For the better part of the 20th century either National or (less frequently) Labour would win a majority of seats in the House of Representatives with a minority of the popular vote. Indeed, the last time any party won a majority of the popular vote was 1951.

That may be about to change. Since the first mixed member proportional (MMP) election in 1996 we have not had a single-party majority government: multi-party (and often minority) governments have become the norm. That is because MMP does not permit manufactured majorities in the way FPP does. To win an outright majority you need to enjoy the support of a (near) majority of voters.

Labour may be on the verge of doing precisely that. If it does, it will be a very different kind of single-party majority government to those formed after FPP elections.

In 1993, for instance, the National Party formed a single-party majority government on the basis of just 35 percent of the vote. If Labour is in a position to govern alone (even if Ardern looks to some sort of arrangement with the Greens) it will be because a genuine majority of voters want it to.

Rogue poll or outlier on the same trend, Collins has had her honeymoon (if it can even be called that). In a way, though, neither Ardern nor Collins is the real story here. Much can and will happen between now and September 5 when advance voting begins. But something bigger and more fundamental may be going on.

If the pollsters are anywhere near right, New Zealanders will look back at the 2020 election as one of those epochal events when the electoral tectonic plates moved.

Dr Richard Shaw is professor of politics, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Rob Muldoon was a pugnacious and abrasive prime minister of New Zealand who was treated unkindly by commentators – and even historians – in the aftermath of his period in office (1975 to 1984). Hopefully, future historians will treat him in a much more objective way.

It is important to note here that Sir Robert Muldoon was in fact one of our strongest, most important, and most pragmatic political leaders. Ever. And Judith Collins reminds me of him, in personal and personality ways, in strength and mana, and in political philosophy.

Notwithstanding the relatively unimportant matter of biological sex – he was male, and she is female – both were/are of similar build, and both had/have distinctive facial mannerisms. Muldoon was brought up by two fiercely socialist women, and Collins, as a young woman in Matamata, became a Labour Party supporter. They had/have genuine empathy for working class people.

(Talking about mannerisms and political styles, the present President of the USA always reminds me of the 1920s’ and 1930s’ Italian leader. Both of those leaders drew much initial support from the much neglected working classes and small businesses.)

Rob Muldoon

Muldoon led – and kept New Zealand safe – through the most difficult decade in New Zealand’s history. (In the 1970s, four countries that we shared histories with – Australia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay – had governments overthrown by coup d’états. At least the first two mentioned coups were stoked by the CIA.) The period from 1973 to 1985 was one of huge financial imbalances, double-digit inflation that became stagflation in many countries, the cutting of the economic umbilical cord with Great Britain, and very high crude oil prices.

Muldoon was a social liberal by the standards of his 1960s’ political peers – for example, he was strongly opposed to the death penalty, a big issue of that time. And he was more committed than any other political leader to the principles of the universal welfare state – more committed even than Michael Joseph Savage.

Rob Muldoon was most motivated by economic issues – and sat firmly in the political centre on matters of ideology and economic policy. He sparred equally with the activist political left (especially in the 1970s) and the activist political right (especially in the 1980s). Despite making plenty of enemies on both sides of politics, Muldoon followed a resolutely moderate economic course, for as long as he could keep his growing list of political enemies at bay. When his enemies on the left flipped, and joined his enemies to his right – setting the new socially liberal and economically conservative zeitgeist (neoliberalism) – Muldoon’s brand of centrist politics and Keynesian economics was doomed.

Nevertheless, New Zealand was a very different place in 1985 than it was in 1965, and for the better. There had been substantial economic and creative liberation in that period. The universal welfare state had been strengthened. And we had the 1982 Official Information Act, allowing for a much greater freedom of information.

Of great importance is the fact that Rob Muldoon was one of our greater leaders because he was not debt phobic. (Other leaders who were not debt phobic included Vogel, Ward and Savage.) Muldoon understood debt better than any other New Zealand politician, ever. And he knew that the indebtedness of New Zealand Inc to foreign interests was a much more consequential matter than the government debt that New Zealanders owed to themselves. In other words, he was more concerned – in globally depressed and unbalanced times – with the balance of payments’ current account deficits than he was with the government budget deficits. Hence his successful policy drive – dubbed ‘think big’ – to make New Zealand much more self-sufficient in energy. It was his initiative that led to the electrification of the North Island Main Trunk railway line.

I was never a Muldoon supporter until after he lost office in 1984, when I could see how the new political coalition of the right and the former left was mis-framing him, his centrist policies, and his legacy of achievement. Indeed, the only time I ever voted Labour – in 1978 I voted for Trevor de Cleene – I did so as an explicitly anti-Muldoon vote. (I also thought that Bill Rowling – Labour’s leader – was a much better politician in 1978 than he had been in 1975. The first act of New Zealand’s 1980s’ neoliberal coup was the 1982 deposition of Rowling – later Sir Wallace Rowling – as leader of Labour.)

Muldoon, as a National prime minister, could do things for the economy that he never could have done if he had been a Labour prime minister. A Labour leader with the mana of a Muldoon or Norman Kirk could have suffered the same fate as Gough Whitlam in Australia did in 1975.

Judith Collins

Judith Collins is at a similar stage of her political career to that of Rob Muldoon in 1972 to 1974. At that stage Muldoon was very disliked by the political left; and was the provisional darling of the financial right. Yet he went to the country in 1975 with an audacious (but historically attuned) centre-left policy; to restore universal superannuation by completing the vision that Savage enunciated in 1938.

Judith Collins will have an opportunity – from 2020 – to go to the New Zealand people in 2023 with a similarly necessary welfare reform. And she may be the only New Zealand politician with the ‘balls’ to integrate income tax with universal welfare, as Muldoon was wanting to do.

Like Muldoon, Collins knows how to ‘dog whistle’. She certainly needs a ‘Robs Mob’ from which to win votes. And she must dog whistle to her own patrons by making the usual noises about public debt. Yet, candidly, she has also stated that she ‘is not afraid of debt’. I was very encouraged to hear that. Further she does not want to ‘beggar the country’, which is what David Cameron did to the United Kingdom through his government’s ‘fiscal consolidation’ programme.

Muldoon always had enemies. So has Collins. She also has the political talent to lead, and to forge progression coalitions. Coalitions that are socially and economically centrist – indeed radically centrist (as Muldoon was). While she is socially liberal, I can see that – like Muldoon – she will most upset the neoliberals who espouse social liberalism and economic conservatism.

I think it’s unlikely that Judith Collins will be prime minister this October. But it’s not impossible. (In 2016 – using my knowledge of the American electoral system and the dire economic circumstances of rust-belt states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – I won a wager over who would then become president of the United States. It was a wager that I would have been more than happy to lose. I also saw that the British rustbelt would vote for Brexit.) Rather, Collins may do a Mike Moore. This year, I expect she will keep her party’s vote at over 30 percent, and I expect she will oversee as big a swing of the electoral pendulum in 2023 as occurred in 1993. (For those not in the know, the swing in the popular vote from one side of politics to the other in 1993 was as big as it was in 1975.)

Public Finance and Welfare reforms should be the big issues from 2020 to 2023; that is, so long as the mainstream media gives oxygen to them. (Welfare reform needs to be on the lines of Universal Income Flat Tax. Public Finance reform should be broadly along the lines espoused by ‘modern monetary theory’, which I will write about on a future date.)

New Zealand desperately needs a courageous economic non-conservative political leader; a leader who can stare down those journalists who oppose everything intellectual, propose nothing, and love to wallow in scandal. New Zealand needs a leader who is not risk-averse, and who will promote reasoned solutions to the problems that have been shelved in the ‘too-hard basket’. The first issue to deal with is that of public debt phobia.

The starting gates in New Zealand’s September 19 election race are finally full. Labour’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is the bookies’ favourite and the opposition took a long time to settle.

All the same, punters may still want to hedge their bets.

While the National Party’s internal disarray has made it look easy for Ardern, with a tough contender in new opposition leader Judith Collins the race for the prime-ministership could be more gruelling than the earlier odds suggested.

READ MORE: How New Zealand could keep eliminating coronavirus at its border for months to come, even as the global pandemic worsens

Yes, Ardern is now a globally celebrated figure. Her sheer charisma looked hard to beat even before the last election.

And, given her achievements since, it’s looking harder now. Under Ardern’s watch, the country has eliminated community transmission of covid-19 – at least for now.

Ardern’s highly visible leadership was reflected in opinion polls from April to June showing Labour over 50 percent, even as high as 59 percent.

But out of the ensuing panic in the National ranks has emerged a leader who, while polarising, might also be the party’s best chance of combating “the Jacinda effect”.

An ‘opposition from hell’
National’s problems can be traced back as far as its Pyrrhic victory at the last election. While it gained the most seats of any party, it couldn’t muster a coalition majority. The large caucus promised to be the “opposition from hell” – but ended up an opposition in hell instead.

Internal strife intensified as National dropped below 30 percent in some polls. Fearing for their seats, backbenchers scratched leader Simon Bridges and elevated the inexperienced Todd Muller, who quit just 53 days later after a shocking privacy scandal and a series of embarrassing gaffes.

National looked anything but the “strong team” their advertising wants voters to believe in.

Now desperate, the caucus wasted no time electing long-serving MP Collins as the fourth opposition leader Ardern has now faced. Let’s consider her odds.

Attack versus empathy
At 61, Judith Collins is a seasoned politician. First elected in 2002, she gained ministerial experience in John Key’s National-led government (2008–17).

She earned the nickname “Crusher Collins” when, as minister of police in 2009, she proposed punishing unrepentant boy-racers by destroying their souped-up vehicles in a car-crusher.

She appears to have embraced it, declaring on the day she became leader:

I am hoping that the National Party can crush the other lot when it comes to September 19.

She is strong and combative and unafraid to play attack dog. These may now be positive qualities in a centre-right female leader wanting to differentiate herself from Ardern’s empathy and kindness.

But Collins can be charming, too, though often with an edge. She was quick to compliment Ardern as an accomplished communicator – with a back-hander that “communication is not execution”.

This suggestion that Ardern is all appearance and little substance is part of the well-worn attack line National employs against a government it wants to brand as “failing to deliver”.

Competent but controversial
Collins herself has a track record as a very competent minister. When she took over as minister for accident compensation following major privacy bungles in 2012, for example, the portfolio was quickly out of the headlines and back on track.

National’s contentious election promise to privatise personal injury insurance was quietly abandoned too.

But Collins is no stranger to scandal, either.

Tainted by “dirty politics” during the Key years, stripped of her ministerial roles over allegations she undermined the then head of the Serious Fraud Office, she was later exonerated and rehabilitated by Key.

Collins is nothing if not a survivor.

The diversity problem
A politician’s past mistakes are rarely forgotten, but National’s core supporters appreciate the no-nonsense certitude Collins displays.

Her voting record on conscience bills reveals she is relatively liberal on social issues, including abortion and same-sex marriage, unlike her immediate predecessor Muller.

While Muller’s front bench was criticised for lacking any Māori MPs, Collins’ team includes two Māori men, ranked fourth and fifth.

But now there are fewer women: only two in the top 10 and six in the top 20. The day after Collins took the reins, two female front-benchers announced their decisions not to seek re-election.

As a conservative party that pitches to older folk, however, National wants to avoid looking “woke”. Collins says she won’t be “distracted” by gender and ethnicity, and will make appointments “utterly on merit”.

But her defensiveness about her own ethnicity has been, well, utterly cringe-worthy. National’s evident discomfort in confronting real-world discrimination and inequality will lose younger voters (and many older ones) to the Greens and Labour.

Who will go the distance?
So, after two leadership changes within two months, and only two months out from the election, Collins needs swiftly to discipline her team and prevent further damage.

She must also present a convincing economic plan at a time when big spending, budget deficits and borrowing for infrastructure are standard fiscal policies whether you’re left, right or centre.

Big asks, but these are extraordinary times and it’s unwise to make predictions. Labour’s rise in the polls was sudden and it could just as quickly fall, especially as economic pain becomes chronic, or if another coronavirus outbreak occurs.

Ardern’s kindness and political capital may sustain Labour through to a win. But Collins’ willpower could yet help National come from behind.

Dr Grant Duncan is associate professor for the School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The selection of Judith Collins by her colleagues as the new leader of New Zealand’s opposition National Party is a last minute throw of the political dice that might just save the Right from splintering at the upcoming election.

One of the problems of the political Left over the last 30 or so years is that it has been fragmented with voters under MMP choosing between Labour, Greens, TOP and Maori Party to name a few, along with NZ First as a centrist party. Whereas the Right has, until now, been solidly National with a much smaller ACT party.

The resignation of Todd Muller yesterday may see a number of traditional National Party voters move to ACT this election, but the selection of Judith Collins as leader will certainly do much stem that flow.

READ MORE: ‘Common goal – oust government’, says NZ’s new National leader Collins

While Judith Collins is a person with very different political views to my own I have to say she is a skilled politician and front-footed last night’s press conference in a way that immediately confirmed Muller’s own assessment of himself that he was not the right person for the job.

For me however there was one particularly revealing economic policy moment when she was posed a rare and intelligent and searching question very late in the gathering.

“What would be your general approach over the next three years?” the unseen journalist asked.

“ Would you borrow more? Would you cut the spending would you raise taxation. Would you try to pay the debt back or would you leave it to roll down through the generations?”

Tension-relieving joke
To which she responded with a tension-relieving joke before saying:

“It’s pretty obvious that the National Party is not the party of big taxes . We are the party of sensible spending, we’re a party of infrastructure, we’re a party that believes in investing. We’re not stupid with money because we always know that somebody has to pay it back and the last thing that we want is to leave a legacy for the next two generations to pay back on.

“These are the sorts of views that we are taking into this [election] and that’s where we are always better than the other people because we know that we have to pay it back.”

I’ll have more to say about the economic policies of all the political parties in the coming days but for now I offer just a quick reaction.

That statement by National’s new leader reflects a pre-covid mentality. It reveals a mindset that pretends the economic world has not dramatically changed, that we are not facing a major recession which may become a deep depression.

Why?

Because during the Great Depression years of the 1930s leaders like Franklin D Roosevelt and our own Michael Joseph Savage understood that in such times government spending is what saves an economy, not penny pinching or leaving it to business to decide .

New post-covid rules
The new rules of the post-covid economy are only just forming. The longer the pandemic runs the deeper our economic problems will become.

Yesterday’s thinking which pandered to the vested interests of the few at the expense of the many isn’t going to cut it .

As for “leaving a legacy of debt “for the next generations and being” a party of infrastructure” – I invite you to reflect on how our schools and hospitals were run down under the last National administration and how, in the 1990s, National Finance Minister Ruth Richardson cut the benefits – with the result that all the diseases of poverty which affect poor children the most all skyrocketed.

So in my view, last night the economic gauntlet has been thrown down .

Labour, Greens and all the others now have to pick it up and clearly state why their handling of our economy will be different from the continued neoliberal approach to running it that Judith Collins re-articulated last night.

Bryan Bruce is an independent New Zealand journalist and documentary maker with a progressive view on politics and economics. This commentary was first published on Facebook and has been republished here with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s National Party has elected Judith Collins as its new leader to replace Todd Muller, with Gerry Brownlee as her deputy to take on the Labour-led coalition government in the September general election.

Collins, 61, was first elected as an MP for Clevedon in 2002 and has been part of six Parliaments.

“I think it’s really important that we all have a common goal … to get rid of the current government and put in place a better government,” she said after emerging from the caucus meeting.

READ MORE: Muller’s ‘bolt from the blue’ resignation

“One of the things that unifies any party is if they see that we’re getting the results that we want … I think you’re going to find that we’re very focused on winning.

“There is no chance at all that I am going to allow … [Prime Minister Jacinda] Ardern to get away with any nonsense to do with our economy. I am going to hold her to account.

“I would say experience, toughness, the ability to make decisions … that would be myself. Jacinda Ardern is someone we should not ever underestimate.”

“We’re actually better. If you look at our team, our experience … it’s all better than Jacinda Ardern and her team.”

No major changes
She said the party’s policies would not see any major changes.

Collins, the MP for Papakura has been the shadow Attorney-General since May and holds the National Party’s spokesperson roles for several areas, including Economic Development, Regional Development and Pike River Re-Entry.

She has previously been the minister for ACC, Corrections, energy and resources, ethnic affairs, ethnic communities, justice, police, revenue and veterans’ affairs.

According to her National Party profile, she holds a Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws with Honours and a Master of Taxation Studies from the University of Auckland and was a lawyer and company director before being elected to parliament.

Brownlee said he was there to support Collins “and the rest of the team and that’s what I’ll be doing”.

He ruled out ever wanting the leadership.

Consideration for Muller
Collins replaces Todd Muller, who resigned this morning, saying it had become clear he was not the best person for the job.

Brownlee offered his sympathies.

“I just was devastated for Todd Muller and his family, I found Todd a wonderful person to work with … I’m sure he will continue to be just that.”

The party would continue to support Muller in what was a difficult time, Collins said. She said it was important that National MPs had no further distractions before the election.

History with scandal or controversy

• Dirty Politics 2014: She was accused of leaking information to her friend and right-wing blogger Cameron Slater in the book Dirty Politics. She resigned from Cabinet after allegations she tried to undermine the Serious Fraud Office director. An inquiry cleared her of wrongdoing. She was reinstated in 2015.
• Oravida 2014: She visited the Shanghai offices of Oravida, of which her husband is a director, while on a taxpayer-funded trip. The company used her photo as a product endorsement.
• Wetlands comments 2014: It emerged swamp kauri had been stockpiled in Northland under the name Oravida Kauri, another business linked to Oravida and Ms Collins’ husband. She outraged environmentalists by telling a reporter she did not care, saying, “Am I the Minister of Wetlands?”
• Brownlee was among former National ministers forced to defend the activities of private investigators under their watch after it emerged insurer Southern Response broke its code of conduct when it used security firm Thompson and Clark to secretly record meetings of earthquake victims. As former Earthquake Recovery Minister Brownlee took issue with the report, saying it used “inflammatory language that’s designed to make the big cost of it more palatable.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

by Dr Bryce Edwards

This week’s Colmar Brunton poll was one of the most bittersweet polls a political party and its leader have ever received. On the one hand, the party was up to 46 per cent but, on the other, leader Simon Bridges was only on 7 per cent as preferred PM. This meant that only 15 per cent of National supporters also appear to support Simon Bridges. 

Has a poll ever had such a cruel ratio of support for a major party leader in New Zealand? No, according to Colmar Brunton: “The largest discrepancy we could find was in the November 2006 poll, Don Brash’s last as leader of the National Party. Brash registered 11% in Preferred PM whilst National polled at 51% party support.”

Brash therefore had the support of 22 per cent of National voters – and he was rolled the next month. So, could the same thing be about to happen to Bridges? For most of the year, especially during the Jami-Lee Ross scandal, his party has appeared united behind Bridges, but has that all changed?

Bridges being undermined again

There appear to be strong signs that moves are underway within the National Party caucus to undermine Bridges. It hasn’t been widely reported, but a National MP – or at least someone claiming to be one – has been leaking internal party information to the media this week.

The first leak was of an “internal poll” that National Party had commissioned from David Farrar’s polling company Curia. This was passed onto journalists at the same time that the Colmar Brunton poll came out, and it was much less favourable to National. Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper reported it on Monday, saying: “Their overall rating had slipped to 41 per cent, teetering dangerously close to the red zone of the 30s, and behind Labour on 44” – see: Christmas break can’t come soon enough for Simon Bridges.

Soper gave further details of the demographic breakdown of this poll: “National had dropped in just about every polling group, except for women whose support was up slightly. Men bombed, with the over 60s, where the party usually fares well, crashing. Most age groups were heading towards the bloody carpet.”

The leaker reportedly clams the National caucus weren’t given the details for Bridges’ own public support: “they weren’t told how Bridges was faring in the preferred Prime Minister stakes and that had some of them seething. Polling on the leader has always been on the table for dissection.”

The leaker conveyed to Soper that “The Nats’ caucus was not a happy one”. And Soper concluded that Bridges’ leadership is therefore in trouble: “as they sharpen their knives for the Christmas turkey at least they’ll know their blades will be ready for use when they see their next internal poll at their first meeting next year.”

Soper then followed up this column with an extraordinary report saying that there appears to be a new leaker from within National: “An MP, either acting alone or with the knowledge of others, is undermining Bridges by using a burner phone, not taking any chances with the internal phone records of MPs inspected during the Jami-Lee Ross probe. The number can’t be traced and since the texting started the number’s changed. But the internal poll figures have checked out and so too have other claims made – which could only have come from a caucus member” – see: Burning Simon Bridges – Doomed to repeat National Party history.

According to Soper, the leaker gave further information, which is worth quoting at length: “The MP feeding the information’s going to a lot of trouble, texting with a third burner number, giving an insight into what went on in this week’s caucus. How Maggie Barry, who’s being besieged with bullying accusations, stood up and thanked her colleagues for their support, greeted by a stunned silence. Her colleagues remember her outburst in October, castigating Jami-Lee Ross for his behaviour towards his staff. The texter said they were bracing for more accusations against Barry, and they came. It’s unlikely this texter’s acting alone. It’s clearly a campaign to undermine National’s leadership team and the strain is beginning to show.

Three other media outlets have reported receiving the leaks from the anonymous texter. RNZ’s Chris Bramwell explains their own dealings with the story: “After RNZ ran the story with Mr Bridges’ comments, it received another text from the same anonymous person saying Mr Bridges was foolish for thinking the polling leak did not come from a National MP. The texter offered details of what happened in yesterday’s caucus meeting as proof they were an MP. RNZ has been unable to verify the texter’s identity” – see: Leaker claiming to be National MP sends another text.

The NBR’s Brent Edwards has commented on the leaks today: “Certainly what’s been going on have been attempts to discredit him as leader. There’s no doubt about it. So, someone, or some people, are clearly trying to undermine his leadership. Which in a way seems extraordinary…. The National Party is sitting very comfortably in the 40s… It’s astonishing to think that people would be thinking of pushing out the leader” – see: The people working to destabilise the National Party (paywalled).

Continued speculation about Bridges’ departure

In the above NBR item, Edwards concludes that Bridges “has got to be worried about it. It’s debilitating to his leadership.” Meanwhile Peter Dunne suggests that, although a change of leadership might be best to occur later next yet, “the difficulty that Simon Bridges has got is that it’s increasingly speculative as to whether he can last that long.”

Dunne also explains what he thinks is going on in the party at the moment: “There’s a group of people associate with the National Party – not necessarily in Parliament – who don’t like its current face. They don’t like that John Key didn’t spend enough political capital by being more rightwing. They feel that the current National Party is a little bit too ‘Labour-lite’.”

He says that there’s not necessarily a plan for a particular candidate to take over: “I don’t necessarily think that they have a candidate in mind. But these people are working to destabilise the National Party – a bit like what you’re seeing happen in Australia actually, with the Liberals – to the point where it starts to look like it’s imploding. And someone can then come through and say ‘It’s time to grab the ideological mettle – we’ve got to reshape this party as a genuine rightwing party, because that is what people want’.”

The timing for replacing Bridges was also canvassed by Duncan Garner in an interview yesterday with political commentators Chris Trotter and Trish Sherson – see: Should National pull a Jacinda Ardern and leave it to the last minute to roll Simon Bridges?

In this, Trotter suggests that Bridges is safe for the moment: “If you’re going to change your leader, the historical precedent now has been set with Jacinda – that is you spring it on people.” Furthermore, he says “If your party vote is on 46 percent, you’d have to be a turkey voting for an early Christmas if you moved at that point.”

Another leftwing political commentator, Gordon Campbell, also seems to believe that Bridges is safe for the time being. Writing about an earlier poll result, Campbell said that, like Theresa May in Britain, Bridges is “safe in his job only to the extent that no-one else on the National front bench seems ragingly keen on taking over the task of leading National to a likely defeat in 2020” – see: On what the polls say about National’s leadership.

Campbell looks at some of the pros and cons of a leadership change: “Ironically, Jami-Lee Ross has probably bought Bridges a bit of time. Such are the levels of anger at the Botany MP, his former colleagues will be wanting to deny Ross the satisfaction of seeing Bridges bite the dust anytime soon. Inevitably though, there will be a stock-taking when Parliament re-convenes in February, and if a leadership change is to happen it will occur around May-June next year. Even then, a leadership change will happen only if an erosion in poll support is putting many of the National caucus at risk in 2020, such that new leadership might staunch the likely scale of the losses.”

But Bridges is also getting flack this week from his own side of the political divide. Mike Hosking has criticised him for seeking public input into National’s policy development: “although it sounds all touchy-feely and inclusive, is it makes you look like you can’t think of anything. It makes you look like you’re not really sure of what you stand for. And if something that basic isn’t obvious, no one is supporting a bloke who is a bit ‘go where the wind takes him’. Great leaders don’t have to tell you what they believe because you already know. Bridges already suffers from a touch of the old wishy washy” – see: Wishy washy Simon Bridges needs to figure out what he stands for.

Long-time political journalist John Armstrong was recently even more critical, suggesting that Bridges is unlikely to make it to 2020 as leader: “every factor relevant to the likelihood of Bridges’ making it that far now screams to the negative” and “The stark reality is that he has never been in such a position of weakness as is the case now” – see: The sad truth for Simon Bridges is that the vast proportion of the public simply don’t like him.

It’s the poor personal polling that will do in Bridges, according to Armstrong: “Having slumped to just seven per cent, Bridges has sunk into the same dark, deep hole that swallowed up the likes of Andrew Little, David Cunliffe, David Shearer and Phil Goff when Labour was in Opposition. The more you try to dig yourself out, the deeper you dig yourself in. Everything you do is deemed to be wrong. The voting public stops listening to you because they think you are now unelectable. Once so tagged, you are unelectable.”

Finally, for a completely different take on Bridges’ chances and his leadership abilities, it’s well worth reading Ele Ludemann’s defence of the National leader and critique of the pundits who are “interviewing their own keyboards to write opinion pieces forecasting the end of the leader’s tenure” – see: Drip, drip, drip. The farmer, writer and long-time National Party activist concludes: “yesterday convinced me that like good farmers after bad lambings, Bridges has got up and is getting on, in spite of the drip,drip, drip that’s trying to take him down.”

Accusations have surfaced alleging the current National Party leadership conspired to politically destroy Jami-Lee Ross – this after details of his affair with a fellow party MP became known to them. The allegations raise serious questions. Those questions include: what did National’s leader and deputy leader know and when did they find out?

A sworn-to timeline of events is now essential so that the public interest can be satisfied. This must be a crucial element that is cemented in to the methodology of Simon Bridges’ inquiry into the culture of the National Party. Above all, it must be independent and publicly accessible.

The inquiry must examine the National leadership team’s actions and culture, test whether they acted in a proper and timely manner, and assess whether their actions considered a concern for the welfare and mental health of an MP they had previously supported, promoted, and embedded within their leadership team.

It follows that allegations suggesting a “hit job” was orchestrated from inside the National Party leadership must also be independently explored.

If the inquiry finds that either the leader, or deputy leader, was part of a destructive and inhumane attack on Jami-Lee Ross – while it was known that he was at high risk of being pushed over the edge, was ill, and verging on suicide – and that they acted without reasonable regard for his welfare, then it must be accepted by the National Party caucus, its membership and the public, that this National leadership team is at the very least morally bankrupt.

This inquiry ought to be conducted amidst a background whereby Ross declared his role in the destructive side of politics; following the orders of Sir John Key, Bill English, Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges. Ross was afterall a ‘numbers man’ for Bridges, and benefitted from the patronage that the Bridges-Bennett leadership team offered.

There are a number of ‘ifs’ in this analysis, but the public interest demands that they be considered.

The allegations have surfaced on the blog-site Whaleoil which is owned and edited by controversial writer Cameron Slater.

Some may dismiss the allegations on the basis of tribalism, or ignore the allegations because Slater was centrally involved in National’s so called Dirty Politics as revealed in 2014. But the nature of the allegations are as serious as they get in politics, and, if accurate played a part in the sudden deterioration of Jami-Lee Ross’ mental health, the sectioning of Ross for his own protection, and the erasion of credibility of a potential political opponent who was determined to continue as a critical member of New Zealand’s Parliament.

This analysis’ argument suggests any such bias, on behalf by Cameron Slater’s opponents, ought to be ethically and morally put aside until such a time as the truth and facts are tested. Such an inquiry, preferably judicial but essentially independent, must be robust and critical in its analysis.

To reiterate; numerous elements of this saga elevate the issues to a matter of serious public interest.

And it must be noted at this juncture, that the party’s leader Simon Bridges insists he has acted appropriately and denies taking part in any political “hit job”.

Let’s examine what Evening Report has learned from contacts close to events.

Alleged details of events between Saturday-Sunday October 20-21

There is a txt-chain of events that investigators can forensically examine that are central to understanding who was involved in the sectioning of Jami-Lee Ross.

If the txts are examined they will determine if it is fact that the National Party MP, with whom Jami-Lee Ross had a three-year affair, rang the Police and that as a consequence of that call the Police used mental health laws to take Jami-Lee Ross into custody and contain him within the mental health unit at Counties Manukau Health.

Txts will also show whether it is fact that the female MP then called Simon Bridges’ chief of staff at 9:15pm on Saturday October 20 informing him of the events. If so Bridges’ office was aware of an alleged suicide attempt. Investigators would then be able to assess whether a txt message from Jami-Lee Ross’ psychologist, who Evening Report understands messaged Jami-Lee Ross at 9:28pm on Saturday October 20, asking if he was ok, and that the psychologist had minutes prior received a txt message from Jamie Gray, Simon Bridges’ chief of staff.

It is a matter of public record that Simon Bridges appeared on NewsHub’s AM Show on Tuesday October 23, denying all knowledge of events on the Saturday night – that is until a wider grouping within the National Party became privy to what had happened to Jami-Lee Ross.

It appears reasonable to form an opinion that Bridges’ chief of staff would have informed the leader of such an event. If he didn’t, why didn’t he inform Bridges?

The sectioning of Jami-Lee Ross ended a week where many National Party MPs, and a wider network of those loyal to the party, appeared to be actively orchestrating a coordinated campaign to destroy the so-called rogue MP’s political chances and to discredit his claims of corruption within the National Party leadership. Had Jami-Lee Ross abused his position as the senior whip within the party? It certainly appears so. Did he abuse the power he was afforded? Media reports would suggest this was so. Did he have an affair with at least two women? Yes. But it appears that the public attacks began, not at the time when senior members of the party were informed of Ross’ actions, but, once Ross began to attack the leadership. This is significant.

An Opposition’s Role As The Public’s Advocate

As senior representatives of New Zealand’s Legislature, leader Simon Bridges and deputy leader Paula Bennett can arguably be regarded as the public’s advocates within Parliament. Their job is to keep the Executive Government on its toes, challenge its policy and rationale, to be Parliament’s keepers of the public’s interest.

As such, the public deserves to know if the leaders, as a team or individually, conspired to destroy the political chances of an MP and former colleague, who they considered to have gone rogue, and who they knew was suffering a crisis of mental health so serious that it could have ended in death.

It is in consideration of the public interest, that this editorial is written.

We now know as fact, Jami-Lee Ross had a three year affair with a South Island-based National MP.[name withheld]. Like him, she has two children and was married.

While the affair was going ‘well’, contacts inside the National Party have told Evening Report that Jami-Lee encouraged Bridges to promote his lover above her standing and reputation in caucus, well above some high profile MPs like National’s Chris Bishop who are respected among colleagues and media and seen to have been doing their job well. The promotion was seen to give leverage, to sure up the numbers to stabilise Bridges’ and Bennett’s leadership team at a time when they sensed support was delicate.

Meanwhile, Jami-Lee Ross continued to pull in big donations from wealthy Chinese residents in his Botany electorate. As a reward, Bridges embedded him into his inner core, the top three. Politically, this is really an unsound move by a political leader. With Ross being senior whip, he is supposed to be directed by the leader to pull MPs into line, to do the leader’s bidding, and to do this without necessarily knowing the deep and dark details underlying the leader’s moves.

In effect, with Jami-Lee Ross becoming a central figure, knowing all the details, the dirt, the strategy and tactics, it centralised too much power into the whip position and elevated a real danger of a whip using the position for his own gain. To reiterate, this appears a seriously stupid move of Bridges and Bennett to pull a whip in on their machinations. And, in a significant contact’s view, it appears they risked this because Jami-Lee was pulling in the donor money.

Jami-Lee Ross had been on the rise for a time. Former Prime Minister John Key promoted him to the whips office. Then PM Bill English secured Ross’s rise by maintaining and elevating his whip role. Bridges and Bennett further empowered Jami-Lee Ross by cementing him into the whip position, a move that suggested National’s power-politicians were well satisfied with his service.

It’s hard to tell how far back it was when Jami-Lee Ross began to record Bridges. And, at this juncture, it’s difficult to know if he recorded Bennett as well. The public is left to fathom whether it was when his affair with the National MP went sour and perhaps Ross sensed Bennett having become close to her.

In any event, when Jami-Lee Ross fell out with his colleague and lover, sources say Bennett played a crucial role in the analysis of his conduct, in particular women who had allegedly been burned by Ross. Two women, contacts inside National state, were staff of the National Party leader. The MP (whom Ross had a three-year affair with) and the two staff members are said by National Party contacts to be the subject of NewsRoom.co.nz’s investigation into Ross’ activities, an investigation that is believed to have spanned up to one year in duration. Evening Report raises this aspect as the public interest demands to consider whether it is reasonable to believe that two staffers in the leader’s office never told nor informed Bridges, or the chief of staff, that they were cooperating in a media investigation into the leader’s chief and senior whip?

Contacts state that Bennett gained the women’s confidence, received information so it could be prepared as part of a disciplinary process. Did Bennett choose to engage media with this information? If so, once media received the information, what involvement did the deputy leader have or continue to have, or engage with, the complainants and media?

Sources inside National state Bennett then seeded info about Jami-Lee Ross having had an affair. They point to her having hinted at behaviour unbecoming of a married member of Parliament during an interview before TV, radio and print journalists. Did she do this without Bridges knowing or being forewarned.

If true, in effect, this would have driven the narrative ahead of the leader. If so, it is reasonable to fathom that a senior politician would know Bridges would be forced to defend the character-attack campaign that appeared orchestrated and designed to destroy Ross. Amidst the firestorm, National MP Maggie Barry spoke out against Ross with significant indignation. This will have been digested by the public that National had expelled a human predator from its midst. It also gave the impression National’s female caucus members were unified. However, respected MP Nikki Kaye kept out of it. Why?

Next, Bridges was forced to field political journalists’ questions about breaking the old convention that you keep affairs and family issues under the covers.

Bridges was then compelled to inform media that he had “told off” his deputy leader for giving credence that an affair had been ongoing between Ross and a Nat MP. This made Bridges look even weaker.

The future of National’s leadership

National Party contacts suggest Bridges is positioned where he will be forced to absorb the political fallout for what is seen by some as a character assassination campaign gone wrong. One contact states that once Bridges is rendered useless, and the issue dies down, Bennett herself will be well positioned to remove Bridges as leader in 2019.

It is reasonable to form an opinion that senior National MP Judith Collins will also be available if the leadership were to fall vacant. Her popularity is again on the rise.

At this juncture, for Bridges and Bennett, it appears wise for them to expect more National Party dirt to emerge before the end of the year. Evening Report’s sources say: “ample dirt lingers just below the surface.”

For a party that once stated it had no factions, it certainly seems its personality factions are now in all-out political warfare.

Judith Collins’ star has been rising since she returned to the front-bench in opposition. And it has been bolstered by a favourable Colmar Brunton Poll. It’s fair to suggest she has laid heavy hits on Labour’s Housing Minister Phil Twyford. As a consequence, her standing within the caucus has improved. On investigation, it is clear she has not had the loyalty of Jami-Lee Ross since he was promoted by John Key. He, along with Mark Mitchell, then supported Bill English for the leadership. Bennett and Mitchell are politically close. It does appear that moves by some media to connect Jami-Lee Ross’ revelations with a Judith Collins plan as not based on fact.

While there’s an expectation among interested public that Collins will be the next leader, she will need the support of what’s left of National’s social conservatives and those loyal to Nikki Kaye.

For Collins to succeed, she will have to be seen to inoculate the party from damaging information that may be in the possession of Jami-Lee Ross. All the while, she, like Bennett, needs Bridges to continue to fail as a leader.

It is fair to accept, the recordings and damaging information are now with Cam Slater and Simon Lusk. It is also reasonable to suggest that Bridges is a disappointment to some who once supported his bid for leadership. Cam Slater is clearly appalled at what he refers to as a “hit job”.

Slater is adamant that he is not motivated by an agenda, nor by a pitch by a fiscal conservative faction to gain leadership of the National party. Rather he said, he is motivated to help an old friend who the current leadership moved to destroy. He added on his blog-site, if the current leadership continues “to lie” he will continue to reveal the truth.

Meanwhile, Jami-Lee Ross is being reassured and cared for by a mutual friend of his and Slater’s who is a pastor with the Seventh Day Adventists.

Contacts say, with regard to Jami-Lee Ross and his National Party former lover and colleague, the three year affair was a relationship that in the end didn’t deliver what either banked on – despite promotions and connections and having benefitted politically from their association.

It’s fair to say, Jami-Lee Ross was out of his experiential depth and in part abusive from the point of view of how to handle political power, networks and consensual relationships.

Two other women who laid complaints about Ross, worked in the leader’s office.

Bridges is adamant he didn’t know about the abuse of power nor the complaints. Did Bennett know? At what point was she privy to the information?

One National Party contact said: “It defies reasonable belief that Bridges didn’t know.”

It is right that Bridges has initiated an inquiry into National’s culture. But that in itself falls short or what the public interest demands. Why? Because the inquiry reports back to Bridges, who as leader may well be one of the protagonists. Also, the report will not be released to the public which leaves it as a golden prize, the holy grail, for any journalist and, irrespective of who it damns or exonerates, will become a currency for any MP with leadership ambitions.

As it now stands, Bridges’ worst nightmare must be not knowing what Jami-Lee Ross recorded and at what point did he begin taping the National Party leader’s conversations.

If those recordings contain further embarrassing or damaging content and references, then he will be finished as leader. Bridges, as leader, even if he has a clear conscience, must be wracking his memory as to past conversations and comments while knowing the conversations may be in the hands of people with whom he has lost their trust.

And the question remains unanswered: Was Paula Bennett recorded as well?

If her actions are found by inquirers to have led an orchestrated political response to Jami-Lee Ross’ revelations, whether that be at the behest or otherwise of the current leader, then this will destroy any higher ambitions that she may have ever contemplated.

It follows, that if the report concludes that the rot inside National extends to its current leadership, then it may well be that Judith Collins will become the leader of the National Party, unopposed.

Whatever the future holds for the National Party, it is in everyone’s interests that an independent judicial investigation into this National affair be conducted in a spirit of openness and propriety.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Evening Report invites any individual connected to this analysis to have a right of reply. Footnote: Interview between the author and Jami-Lee Ross on his role as a new National Party MP (August 13 2012):