New Zealand's Prime Minister Has Neither Courage Nor Wisdom

Ardern Lacks Decisiveness and  Moral Courage

There is something rotten in the senior echelons of NZ's Labour Party.  The malodorous stench offends the olfactory senses far beyond Shakespeare's rotten state of Denmark. 

Two things stand out.  The first is that the senior leaders, including politicians, have given effective consent for "valuable" staff members to break the laws of the land and engage in sexual predation. 

The particular story coming in to the public eye has been written up by Alex Casey, a Senior Writer for The Spinoff.  It is inconceivable that such egregious breaking of the criminal code has been allegedly covered over.  The perpetrator remains a high official in good standing.  Our readers can appraise themselves of the details.  Just be prepared to be both offended and ropeable. 

Secondly, the perp works in the PM's office.  So far Jacinda Ardern has failed to fire the creep.  Ardern is too weak to act; rather she goes into a tear jerking soliloquy about how frustrated she is with the process.  Pathetic. 

Jacinda Ardern has responded to a series of questions relating to this story at her weekly post-cabinet press conference this afternoon. She said:

• That she was “incredibly frustrated” and had “expressed complete dissatisfaction” about the process undertaken by the party.
  
• The individual has not been on the parliamentary precinct for five weeks and will remain off-site until at least the completion of the QC report.
  
• That the QC would report directly to her, rather than the NZ Council.
  
• “Differing accounts have been relayed to me” about the nature of the allegations; but that she had been advised initially that there were no complaints of a sexual nature.

All this codswallop when she has absolute rights to dismiss said staff member for any reason whatsoever--as explained by David Farrar.

He cites the standard employment contract used for staff members working for the party leader (that is, Ardern).  He then summarises:

• As you can see the employment of a staff member can be terminated by the party leader, under “breakdown of relationship”. This doesn’t need an inquiry, a disciplinary process, a finding of misconduct. It just needs the party leader to decide they no longer have trust and confidence in the staffer.

• Note this is a process that can only be initiated by the party leader under 22.3(b). Not the chief of staff, not Parliamentary Service, not the external political party.

• It is quite commonly used. For a number of reasons a party leader will sometimes find they don’t want someone to continue working for them. It doesn’t mean the person is guilty of anything, or has even misbehaved. It just reflects that the leader has to be able to only have people working for them they are entirely comfortable with.

• Jacinda Ardern has the sole ability to effectively activate this clause and remove the staffer from Parliament. She is aware of the dozen complaints against her staffer. She is aware at least one of them is of sexual assault. She is aware at least four parliamentary staffers have said they are scared to be around her employee.

• She does not need to make a determination as to what happened. She does not need to have an inquiry. She doesn’t need formal complaints. She doesn’t need the Police. She doesn’t need to believe or disbelieve the allegations. She certainly doesn’t need the Labour Party Council involved. She can simply decide that she no longer wants the staffer to continue working for her.

• Her insistence that this matter is nothing to do with her is patently false. She has a remedy open to her. It is inconceivable she has not discussed with her senior staff whether to use this clause. It appears she has made a conscious decision not to use it, because the staffer is so valuable to her.