Media pile pressure on MPs' misbehaviour and missteps

One MP’s past misbehaviour put pressure on National - then another claimed bullying was rife in Labour during what turned into an expectedly turbulent week in party politics for the media. But even before all that hit the headlines, the media made a big deal out of minor political missteps that few people cared about.

“We thought we were going to be talking about the National Party and the terrible week they've had. But then Labour has had this grenade dropped onto them by one of its backbench MPs,” said RNZ’s political editor Jane Patterson, kicking off Morning Report’s new political editors' panel to wrap the week's political news. 

“The public could be forgiven for having whiplash between the two parties,” TVNZ’s Maiki Sherman told 1 News viewers on Friday, reflecting on a week that ended with headline-making revelations about one backbench MP - just as it had begun with revelations about another. 

But the allegations against Sam Uffindell were old and very specific and some were denied by him. Dr Sharma’s blanket claims of bullying in Labour and Parliament were current but scattergun. 

“Next week the spotlight’s really going to be on the culture of the parties,” Stuff’s political editor Luke Malpass told Morning Report on Friday. 

But it was already. 

Last Sunday the National Party had its AGM in Christchurch, attracting about 700 delegates.  

Leader Christopher Luxon confidently told reporters it was “leaving its baggage behind ... after a period of dysfunction.” 

A new president was elected to replace long-serving Peter Goodfellow, blamed by many for failures in the election campaign and the selection of candidates in recent years who turned out to be unfit for the job. 

“They had that just horrendous ability to sort of bring in misfits and deviants,” Benedict Collins said on TVNZ’s Q+A reporting on the new broom Sylvia Wood, an HR professional. 

But the next installment in that saga was only a day away. 

Last Monday Stuff reporter Kirsty Johnston broke the news that the party's newest MP, Sam Uffindell, had assaulted a fellow pupil back in his school days. Wood was part of the panel that picked him even though he declared the incident and National’s top tier was not told about that skeleton in Uffindell’s boarding school closet.  

RNZ revealed further allegations of out-of-control and menacing conduct by Uffindell at Otago University which also came as news to his leader, after which National hired Maria Dew - the QC who reviewed scandal-hit broadcaster MediaWorks last year - to investigate. 

There was clear public interest in the truth about all this, but also a moral question for the media: was it really fair to reveal potentially career-ending misdemeanors of a teenager and young-adult by someone who's now pushing 40? 

Opinions aired in the media ranged from “heads must roll” to “boys will be boys”. Those will be repeated or revised depending on what actions National eventually takes and what the Dew review reveals.  

But even before this scandal raised awkward questions for Christopher Luxon, his leadership was being questioned by some in the media over pretty minor missteps - including the Te Puke Hawaiian holiday, apparent flip-flopping on tax policy and even his favourite Lunchmoney Lewis song.

For candidly engaging the media by belting out a bit of Bills Luxon was punished with mocking comparisons to David Brent, the manager and would be muso out of The Office, a British TV show that’s now more than 20 years old. 

Some commentators even claimed these and other recent gaffes meant National, a bit like NZ Rugby, might just have picked the wrong leader of the pack (though Ian Foster forced the critics words back at them with a famous Ellis Park win this weekend).    

“In today's politics perceptions over substance are all that matters,” veteran side-switching former cabinet minister Peter Dunne wrote last week. 

“It's why the prime minister can get away with empathetic sadness about the numbers of people sleeping in cars, but Luxon risks being backed into a corner by that social media embarrassment,” he wrote, referring to the Te Puke / Hawaii slip-up. 

“He quickly needs to find issues he can get alongside New Zealanders on - and be seen to be backing them, Dunne said. 

But it was already too late for that already according to Matthew Hooton’s New Zealand Herald column last week. 

The PR man - and former adviser to a previous National Party leader Todd Muller - said Luxon may have passed his peak of popularity already. Hooton claimed 150,000 “low-information voters” who previously preferred National had “headed home to the comfort and safety of Ardern for the winter (even though) the government couldn't run a bath”.

Some other pundits even claimed some in National (but naming no names) were sounding out deputy Nicola Willis as a Razor Robertson-style option for 2023. 

In his weekly online newsletter, former Herald editor Gavin Ellis reckoned our political reporters must be jealous of the ‘heads must roll’ momentum sports journalists had been able to generate lately over All Black coach Ian Foster. 

“The media wolf pack smelled blood ... but that sense of smell is not so well developed that it can differentiate between a mortal wound and non life threatening gash and a paper cut,” he wrote. 

And while Ian Foster had inflamed reporters and fans by claiming last weekend's mauling in Mbombela was actually the best performance of the year, Christopher Luxon really had led his party's best performance since it went into opposition in 2017. 

Former Stuff political reporter Henry Cooke pointed out in The Guardian the Luxon-led party is polling at “almost twice what his predecessor managed and raking in donations”.

“His parliamentary office is well run despite the straitened resources of an opposition that small - a crucial factor in making the media take you seriously,” he said. 

Whether the media taking Luxon seriously is significant is another matter - but after the latest 1 News opinion poll last Monday they were talking him up as the next prime minister. 

“The tide has turned,” TVNZ’s political Jessica Much-Mackay said, beamed into an augmented-reality debating chamber showing what it would look like if there really had just been an election. 

But it was just one more poll of 1000 people simulating an election result. The real one will be decided by almost 3 million voters in about 15 or 16 months from now. 

In the Herald on Sunday this weekend, Business Editor at Large Liam Dann said the "parliamentary soap operas ... are side-shows."

"They won't decide the next election. It will be the economy, as it always is, that determines who forms the next Government. And that could still go either way," he wrote.

By that time social media gaffes, short-lived policy presentation flubs, this week’s poll results and even the current allegations of misconduct surrounding backbenchers will not be front of mind for many people ... outside the media, at least.