Clinging to an Incredible Story

What If Jacinda is not Lying?

By Christie
Te BFD

Over at Kiwiblog, David Farrar has written a succinct account about what it would take to believe that Jacinda Ardern did not know about the alleged sexual assault carried out by a member of her most trusted staff, and the list really does make it hard to believe that Jacinda knew nothing about the accusations before reading about them in The Spinoff on Monday.

This is what you need to believe, to accept that she is telling the truth.

• That no-one at any stage before this week informed her that a member of her staff had been accused of rape or sexual assault
  
• That her Chief of Staff who knew, never told her
  
• That her office director, who knew over eight months ago, never told her
  
• That her Chief Press Secretary, who knew, never told her
  
• That her closest friend and colleague, Grant Robertson, who knew three months ago, never told her
  
• That she took advice on an e-mail sent two months ago accusing the staffer of sexual assault, but never actually read the e-mail
  
• That she didn’t read a single newspaper item or listen a single radio or TV broadcast or read a single story online over the last five weeks which mentioned the allegations included sexual assault
  
• That the daily print out of political newspaper clippings to her, somehow omitted all the ones which mentioned the sexual assault allegations.
  
• That she never once asked a member of her staff what exactly were the allegations against the person who worked for her, after he stopped coming to work five weeks ago
  
• That when she said she told the Labour Party Council a month ago they are not the appropriate body to investigate a sexual assault, she was using that hypothetically and had no idea that was one of the complaints
  
• That when Mike Hosking asked her on the 6th of August about “this bloke who may or may not have sexual assaulted someone” she didn’t hear the question properly
  
• That despite the fact some of the complainants had gone to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition with allegations about a member of her own staff, she never sought details from anyone at anytime about those allegations – she just relied on a verbal assurance from the party president

She really didn’t know?

She clings to the story that she really, really, really didn’t know… and that, when she asked if the complaints were sexual in nature, she was told that they were not.


Now there are only two possibilities here. Either she is lying, or she isn’t. Really, there is little middle ground, and it is very hard to believe that, when a member of her own staff went on leave pending an investigation into his behaviour and a QC was called in, she didn’t ask for full details of the complaints surrounding him. Quite frankly, it beggars belief.

Okay, so on the evidence so far, most of us believe that Jacinda has deliberately misled the media and the public about her knowledge of what are serious accusations against a member of her own staff. This, in itself, is probably enough to justify calls for her resignation; after all, if a prime minister is caught lying to the public, her credibility is irrevocably damaged and she will never hold any respect again.

But if by any chance, Jacinda is not lying, I don’t think her position is a much better one.

When the sexual attacks happened at the Young Labour summer camp last year, it seems that everyone accepted that Jacinda had been kept in the dark. While this was never a good look for Jacinda, it was a possibility; after all, no one could ever describe her as a strong prime minister and her difficulties in coping with the job are well known. I have heard on a number of occasions from staff in the halls of power that Jacinda regularly storms out of meetings in tears, and all the real work is done by Andrew Little and David Parker. Jacinda is used as a figurehead to smile, hug people, do photoshoots and wheel out the baby every time a crisis looms.

When you look at her premiership in that way, it is not impossible to imagine that she was deliberately kept in the dark about the allegations against one of her own staff, and because of her nervous nature, she didn’t ask too many questions, and that the answers she was given were designed merely to appease her and keep her quiet.

It was a stupid move, of course, because something was going to bring the whole house of cards down around their heads eventually, but Jacinda, nervy and struggling to cope, just needed to be patted on the head and told that everything was fine.

But that doesn’t give us much confidence in our prime minister either, does it?

Trying to give Jacinda the benefit of the doubt doesn’t improve matters. She is treated like a doll by the Labour party (you will note that she always refers to them as if she had nothing to do with them when, last time I looked, she was the Labour leader) and they just completely ignore her and do what they want. If she asks any questions, they just lie to her.

Imagine doing that to John Key, Bill English… or Helen Clark.

Whichever way you look at it, the truth about our prime minister is not good. Either she is lying to the public, or she is so weak that she is continually manipulated by people in her own party who are supposed to report to her and be accountable to her.

Either way… what a rotten house of cards this government has turned out to be.