As you know from reading this blog the Rodney selection has already been delayed until 14 March so an audit of membership can be conducted. It is my understanding that many of the 250 so-called sign-ups by Brent Robinson have been disqualified for various reasons including not residing in the branch boundaries or not actually knowing they were members. I predicted this and so it has come to pass.
The shoddy dealings by people who should know better have made a mess of the Rodney selection process. As previously mentioned Brent Robinson tried rigging selection by running a fundy take over of the electorate so he can win. He has been caught out and is suffering as a consequence.
This was a naive mistake by a political novice, so Brent can probably be forgiven, especially if he withdraws from the race and spends the next three years rebuilding his credibility.
One of those inept manipulators was the Electorate Chair who was so blatant in his machinations that at the last meet the candidates meeting he was spoken to by a senior party official about his personal selection of loaded questions for the candidates rather than using a random method of question selection as is usual practice. That senior party official acted with integrity in challenging the Electorate Chair.
Unlike Brent though, Scott Simpson should have known better. He has arranged for the stacking the regional delegates in collusion with others in the regional heirachy, so Scott loyalists from South of the Bridge and East Auckland electorates like, Pakuranga and Botany with no real link to Rodney were loaded into the Regional delegates. This blog has resisted the temptation to publish the list as the stacked delegates were not aware of the skullduggery going on. It must be noted that this is within the rules, ironically the sames rules that Scott Simpson helped draft so that Brian Neeson could be spiked and bring John Key. At least two previous Regional Chairs that I know of acted completely different when it comes to the selection of delegates.
The National Party normally has a transparent and honest approach to selection, but that has been rorted in this situation. This blog suggests the selection should be restarted, or at the very least stacked regional and local delegates replaced with long serving national members from the Rodney Electorate, Deputy Regional Chairs and electorate chairs from the neighbouring electorates. That was certainly the practice of my old man and of Alistair Bell when they were Regional Chairs.
This would be in line with the process in the entirely above board and honest selection process in Palmerston North. They had 45 local delegates and 5 from each of the three nearest electorates. What happens now in Rodney should copy what happened in Palmerston North and mimic the actions of previous honest Regional Chairs.
The party , yes that means you Peter, really needs to clear up this selection otherwise it is going to keep looking like a complete bugger’s muddle.
