Analysis - It should have been a good week for National. A successful party conference at the weekend followed by a poll showing Labour at its lowest ebb since 2017.
Then, on Monday, Stuff reported the new MP for Tauranga, Sam Uffindell, had taken part in the beating of a 13-year-old at Kings College in 1999.
Sam Uffindell's near-immediate removal from National's caucus has raised further questions over candidate selections, party leadership, and culture. Photo: Supplied / Hagen Hopkins
Uffindell was 16 at the time. The victim said unscrewed bed legs were used in the beating, Uffindell said he couldn't remember whether they were but admitted using his fists.
He was "asked to leave" Kings College, effectively expelled, and continued his studies at St Paul's College in Hamilton.
The undisputed facts were all there. Uffindell, in his own words, described himself as a bully and a thug at school.
He said he had apologised to the victim in 2021, more than 20 years after the assault, and denied it had anything to do with his political ambitions.
He said he had learned from his mistakes during his teenage years and was now a changed man.
National's leader Christopher Luxon didn't know about any of this until just before the story broke, nor did his deputy Nicola Willis.
That was a story in itself. Uffindell had disclosed it to the party's selection panel and was chosen anyway. His campaign chair, senior MP Todd McClay, knew about it and told Luxon's staff, but it wasn't passed on.
Tauranga voters didn't know about it, and Luxon said they should have.
National's leadership was now in sharp focus. Luxon and Willis acknowledged the seriousness of what Uffindell had done but supported him. Willis said he was not the same man he had been in his teens.
Luxon, according to the Herald, had effectively "thrown him to the wolves" and told him to clear up his own mess. He had to agree to every interview media outlets asked for, and he did.
He was being given a second chance, and the media wasn't calling for his head.
The Herald said in an editorial what Uffindell had done was repugnant "but not unforgivable given his sincere apologies".
Stuff's political editor Luke Malpass said while there was no ambiguity about the brutal and unacceptable nature of the boarding house assault there was a legitimate question about second chances.
"A lot of people, males especially, can be abominable in their teens before growing into responsible adults, who seek to atone for what they've done," he said.
When RNZ spoke to people in Tauranga most of them were prepared to forgive and forget.
If it had ended there Uffindell would have survived a horrible few days and learned a lot about politics, and perhaps himself.
It didn't, because RNZ broadcast an interview with a woman who was one of Uffindell's flatmates in Dunedin in 2003, while he was a student at Otago University.
She spoke of heavy drinking and drug use, of the flat being trashed, and said Uffindell had hammered on her door screaming obscenities and telling her to get out.
Fearing for her safety she climbed out a window and ran away.
Her father, who went to Dunedin the next day to help her move, told RNZ the flat had been wrecked.
Uffindell, in response, admitted drinking and smoking cannabis while he was at university. He said there had been "a falling out" between flatmates. He denied the woman's allegations.
Luxon said the allegations were "seriously concerning" and Uffindell was stood down from caucus. Luxon appointed Maria Dew QC to investigate and determine the facts. That's expected to take about two weeks.
Calling an investigation gave Uffindell and Luxon the relief of not having to keep answering questions but didn't stop the flow of awful publicity around the MP.
The Otago Daily Times published photos of the filthy Dunedin flat Uffindell and five other students occupied in 2004. On prominent display was a coat hook with women's underwear hanging from it.
Third-year University of Otago student Sam Uffindell in the kitchen of his environmentally hazardous Dundas St flat. The drain visible outside the back door previously poured toilet waste into the back yard. Photo: Otago Daily Times / Gerard O'Brien
Health inspectors said it was a haven for vermin and disease. The flatmates were taking part in a competition for the city's filthiest flat, the report said.
Willis, asked to comment on the display of women's underwear, replied "Yuck".
Has Uffindell been fatally tainted by his past? The Herald's Thomas Coughlan thought so. In an article headlined 'Why Sam Uffindell is toast' he explained his reasons.
"Uffindell has broken laws the party wants to defend and strengthen, he has spurned the opportunities the party exhorts people to maximise, and is a living refutation of the doctrine of personal responsibility the party purports to exist for," Coughlan said.
"Worse still, Uffindell is the embodiment of the Labour-Green caricature of National as a silver spoon caucus of mendacious patricians whose idea of 'consequences' in public life depends on the accused's clubbability, rather than universal principles."
Coughlan said Uffindell's only conceivable future in Parliament was either to never talk about law and order, or to discuss and be honest about the way his experience had informed his attitude to justice.
"Neither of these paths appear open to him. A Tauranga MP can hardly keep silent on law and order, and National's current policy platform gives little opportunity for Uffindell to expound on justice without looking like a hypocrite."
Coughlan concluded that if the investigation substantiated the allegations "Uffindell will be forced to go".
National's leader Christopher Luxon has plenty to weigh up after the Sam Uffindell saga. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
It would have to be conclusive for Luxon to decide that Uffindell has to go, and he won't want to do that because it would create even more problems.
He could ask for Uffindell's resignation, and if he didn't get it expel him from caucus. That would be really messy and it would be surrounded by a vast amount of bad publicity.
A resignation would mean another by-election in Tauranga, and the Uffindell story would just go on and on.
This week, it sucked up all the oxygen that National could have used to keep up its momentum after the annual conference and its new policy designed to get young people off benefits and into work, and the poll that showed National and ACT had enough support to form a government.
The 1 News Kantar poll was a strange one. The main parties had each lost two points since the last poll in May, pushing National down to 37 per cent and Labour down to 33 per cent.
In the personal popularity ratings - the preferred prime minister poll - Jacinda Ardern and Luxon both dropped three points. Ardern was down to 30 percent and Luxon to 22 percent.
ACT gained four points to 11 percent, although the party had not appeared to do anything to earn the sharp rise. It could have been a natural correction to the low rating in the previous poll.
Whatever the reason, it was enough to push the combined support for National and ACT to a level which would give them a total of 62 seats in Parliament, enough to form a government, while Labour and the Greens would have 55.
It's difficult to define what's going on with this poll but it does continue a trend of the right gaining ground while Labour slides down.
That trend will be worrying the government because it will need to reverse it before the end of the year so it doesn't go into the summer recess behind National. And it doesn't want to start an election year on the back foot.
The latest poll continues a trend of falling popularity both for Labour and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Ardern had an explanation that's starting to sound familiar. "We've been through a tough time as a nation… there's a lot for us to do and that's what I'm focused on."
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson also used the tough time angle, adding that it was winter and a lot of people were sick.
He's right in that it's a miserable time of year, but Labour's going to need a stunningly good summer to turn the polls around.
On Thursday it was Labour's turn to have to deal with an MP problem, and this one was extraordinary.
Hamilton West MP Gaurav Sharma wrote a column which was published in the Herald. In it he claimed MP-on-MP bullying was rampant in Parliament and was facilitated by those supposed to prevent it.
The low-profile first-term MP accused the Parliamentary Service of working hand-in-hand with the offices of party whips and leaders - including the prime minister's office.
Hamilton West MP Gaurav Sharma with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Photo: Twitter / Dr Gaurav Sharma
He said that in his experience when MPs raised serious concerns about colleague's behaviour, the service stonewalled the conversation and passed it on to the party whips. The complaining MP was then "gaslighted and victimised further".
Sharma clearly believes he's been bullied but didn't explain how or by whom.
His very unusual way of going public won't have pleased his colleagues. Those spoken to said they didn't know anything about his issues and none said they had experienced any bullying.
Labour's chief whip Duncan Webb confirmed his office had been working with the Parliamentary Service and Sharma "to address employment matters" in his office.
Labour's Chief Whip Duncan Webb. Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
The Parliamentary Service denied disrupting the complaints process.
Labour will do its best to shut this down before it gets out of control. On Friday morning, RNZ's political editor Jane Patterson said Sharma appeared to have gone to ground.
Other political news this week included:
Parliament passed legislation repealing the three strikes law, which automatically hands maximum sentences to criminals who commit three serious crimes. It was created by the previous National-led government and was an ACT Party initiative. Those two parties opposed the repeal. Justice Minister Kiri Allan said discretion was being returned to judges. "All of the same measures that are required by the three strikes regime will still be available to judges once the repeal takes effect," she said.
The Firearms Prohibition Order Legislation Bill was passed into law with the support of all parties on its third reading. It gives courts the power to ban anyone convicted of specific crimes - including murder and some family violence offences - from accessing or using guns. Courts will be able to impose a firearms prohibition order, or FPO, which lasts for 10 years.
*Peter Wilson is a life member of Parliament's press gallery, 22 years as NZPA's political editor and seven as parliamentary bureau chief for NZ Newswire.
