National leader Christopher Luxon admits his party needs more diverse candidates but denies there's a "systemic cultural problem" after allegations of bullying emerged against one of his MPs this week.
It was a week of damage control for Luxon, with rolling revelations about his newest MP, Tauranga's Sam Uffindell, playing straight into criticisms that he leads a party for the elite.
Revelations that Uffindell violently assaulted another boy while attending Auckland's King's College heavily called into question the party's vetting processes.
That was followed by another round of allegations from a former flatmate of Uffindell who lived with him in 2003. She detailed aggressive behaviour and excessive drinking by Uffindell at university, prompting Luxon to stand him down pending an independent investigation.
Uffindell has denied the most-recent allegations.
It's not the first time the National Party's selection process has been scrutinised in recent years. It came under fire following multiple high-profile departures of MPs including Hamish Walker, who leaked COVID-19 patient details to the media, and Andrew Falloon, who sent unsolicited sexually explicit images to young women.
Candidate Jake Bezzant also left the party last year after serious allegations emerged from an ex-girlfriend.
When Luxon was asked on Saturday why National continued selecting unsuitable candidates, he told Newshub Nation the party didn't have a "systemic cultural problem".
"What we are very excited about is, in the last seven months, we have re-tooled our candidate selection process. We have 90 percent of the people reaching out to us, wanting to explore candidacy, who we've never met and they come from all walks of life," he said.
But Luxon admitted the party needed to do more when it came to diversity.
"What I can reassure you is: as we've been working incredibly hard on our candidate's college, taking a lot of time to get people to know us and the reality of the job… I am highly confident we're going to have outstanding diverse candidates for 2023," he told Newshub Nation host Simon Shepherd.
"We want a National Party that represents all communities."
Addressing the Uffindell allegations directly, Luxon went on to say he set high expectations of candidates.
Uffindell had disclosed the school assault to the party's selection panel and a vetting process was carried out - but Luxon himself was not informed of the incident.
"In this case, as I said before and through the course of the week, if I had known about the King's incident earlier - I would've wanted that in the public domain after Sam had been selected so that the voters could make their own determination about that," Luxon said.
Asked if Uffindell was toast, Luxon said no.
"We have a situation with a new set of allegations that have come forward on Tuesday. I take those very seriously… Equally, Sam refutes those allegations or the serious aspects of those allegations - and he deserves natural process as well."
Luxon said he would make a decision about Uffindell's future once the independent investigation had concluded.
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