Former United Future leader Peter Dunne is labelling the National Party's handling of Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell's past "naive".
Revelations this week that newly-elected National MP Uffindell violently assaulted another boy while attending Auckland's King's College have heavily called into question the party's vetting processes.
National leader Christopher Luxon has said Uffindell disclosed the assault to the party's selection panel and a vetting process was carried out - but Luxon himself was not informed of the incident.
Dunne told The Project on Tuesday he didn't believe National had handled the situation well.
"What normally happens is, at the time someone nominates or is nominated, they need to disclose any events in their past that are likely to be embarrassing - or potentially embarrassing - to them or the party," Dunne said.
"What appears to have happened in this case is that he made the disclosure, the selection panel said, 'Oh, that's OK' and they didn't do any more about it… very naive to think it wouldn't become public and not come up with a strategy for dealing with it."
Uffindell said the attack was the "stupidest and dumbest thing" he'd ever done and that he was incredibly remorseful, but Dunne said it looked like he was only making those statements "because he's been found out".
"I think that, had they had a better strategy - a more proactive disclosure at the time he was selected as a candidate, certainly before the by-election… that would've been a more up-front and open way and I suspect people would've said, 'Oh, that's OK - it's a long time ago,'" Dunne said.
Dunne wasn't the only one calling National's processes into question, with political commentator Ben Thomas saying Luxon not being informed of the assault was a failure.
"The vetting seems to have worked in the sense that the pre-selection panel… discovered through his disclosure the events at King's College," Thomas told RNZ's Nine to Noon. "But I don't think the purpose of vetting is then to just keep these things to themselves," said Thomas, a former National Party press secretary.
Under heavy criticism, Luxon said on Tuesday he was standing by Uffindell - until further allegations of bullying behaviour emerged that night. Luxon subsequently stood Uffindell down pending an independent investigation.
The second round of allegations came from a former flatmate of the MP who lived with him in 2003. She detailed alleged aggressive behaviour and excessive drinking by Uffindell at university.
Uffindell has denied the latest allegations.
On Wednesday, AM host Ryan Bridge asked Luxon what action he would take should the investigation substantiate the allegations.
"I'm really not going to get into that right now," Luxon said. "What I really want is an independent investigator who's highly respected to hear both sides of that story - I owe that to the alleged victim.
"Equally, I also owe it to Sam given his dispute of those events and, until I get those findings, I can't speculate on that."
