It took the former minister three days to inform the public after handing in his resignation on Friday. The opposition wants to know why, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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An ‘animated discussion’ turns physical
Fifteen months into its term, the coalition government has its first ministerial resignation. Andrew Bayly, MP for Port Waikato, announced he was stepping down from his portfolios on Monday after admitting he’d “placed a hand” on the upper arm of a staffer during an “animated discussion” last week. He described his behaviour as “overbearing” and “inappropriate” but denied it had been an argument or that he had touched the staffer’s arm with force, the Herald reports.
The staffer’s complaint was the second about Bayly’s behaviour in four months. In October a winery employee made a written complaint about a visit by Bayly that left him feeling “degraded, embarrassed and deeply disrespected”. Bayly apologised for calling the worker a loser while making the L sign on his forehead, but denied telling him to “f**k off”.
Why the wait?
Given Bayly’s incident with his staffer was last Tuesday, people are asking why it took so long for him to announce he was stepping down. According to a timeline issued by the prime minister’s office, the complaint was made on Wednesday and Bayly tendered his resignation on Friday. Asked why the public was only informed three days later, Bayly said he “would have had difficulty” doing an interview on the topic any sooner. That’s not good enough, argues RNZ’s Jo Moir. “Difficult as it might have been for Bayly, it is hard to reconcile that he has ‘taken personal responsibility for what has taken place’ when he gave himself three days to recover from the fallout… before fronting up to the public,” she writes.
Opposition leader Chris Hipkins focused his firepower at Christopher Luxon, arguing that he’d been too slow to act. “We’ve now got ministers sacking themselves when the prime minister should have shown leadership and done that months ago,” he said. At a standup, the prime minister said he wanted Bayly to have time to inform his family and affected staff. All told, the PMO had “been pretty quick to move as fast as we have within the week. It’s pretty impressive.” Both he and Bayly refused to give any more details about the incident in question.
Another lesson in how not to behave at work
While we await further reporting on what exactly transpired last Tuesday, Bayly’s press conference demonstration of how he “placed a hand” on his staffer will have to suffice. As Madeleine Chapman writes on The Spinoff, the action in fact “looked eerily like a grab”. Either way, Chapman asks, “surely ‘don’t touch your colleagues’ is a pretty foolproof north star for MPs?”
She continues: “It may seem like a reasonably small action as far as physical altercations go, but anyone who has that urge when ‘animated’ is a constant risk. Bayly may not know this about himself but the prime minister certainly should.”
