Reading the Herald on Sunday piece about this senior political figure in the domestic violence dispute, I’m surprised his party hasn’t made him step down yet.
I know that he has a right to fair process in the legal issue but from the facts that are public, it’s hard to see how he hasn’t crossed the moral line of unacceptable behaviour for a person in his position (you’re probably well aware of what that position is by now, especially with Whaleoil all but spelling it out, and if you don’t know, sorry, we can’t breach the suppression order). Slashed tyres, physical attacks and intimidation, an affair with a “politician” (which I guess means an MP) while the wife was away nursing her sick father, allegations of spying with video cameras, bodyguards, one with a conviction for failing to provide the necessities of life to a child … it’s all a pretty sleazy picture.
I would have thought that the party leader would have moved rapidly to a) establish the facts b) distance the party from this time-bomb, especially given recent events. And frankly, I would encourage the leader to do that because I don’t want to see more of the limited space in our national media that is set aside for politics taken up with sleaze, rather than substantive issues.
I don’t agree with the Herald on Sunday’s speculation that other parties might use parliamentary privilege to attack on this in Parliament next week. There’s no mileage for other parties in getting involved. But I do think that unless it is nipped in the bud the issue of the fitness of this man to hold a senior position in a political party will fester and, when everything does get out in the open, it will be a needlessly large distraction from the important issues (unemployment, climate change, the reinflating housing bubble etc) that we urgently need to be debating in this country.
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