Simon Bridges believes he and Paula Bennett are safe as leader and deputy leader of the National Party, insisting they handled the Jami-Lee Ross saga “right”.
Appearing on Breakfast this morning, Mr Bridges categorically rejected prioritising his MP and the party’s reputation over the group of women who made the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Mr Ross.
In the clip, Mr Ross can be heard talking to the National leader and deputy about taking personal leave at start of October. (Source: Other)
His appearance came shortly after a recording of a conversation he had with Mr Ross and Ms Bennett at the start of October was leaked to the media , in which the leaders offer Mr Ross “the lightest possible way out”.
The trio discuss whether family or medical reasons will be given as the explanation for Mr Ross’ leave as the National Party’s leaders promise not to reveal the nature of his alleged wrongdoing.
An overview: The feud between rogue MP Jami-Lee Ross and National leader Simon Bridges
"And it (medical reasons) means everyone will back off you too - the media and all that sort of stuff," Ms Bennett can be heard saying.
Mr Bridges said the 20-minute conversation occurred about a week after they had initially met with Mr Ross and outlined the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.
“I obviously was dealing with a very complex, serious situation, I was balancing and trying to factor in the right thing in terms of inappropriate behaviour and destabilising conduct and the specialist medical advice I had, (around) health issues,” he said.
Mr Bridges denied a cover up, after not making the allegations public when he forced Mr Ross to take leave.
“The allegations that it was some cover up or something, given the health issues here and the seriousness of them and the specialist medical advice, I was never going to be able to talk openly about this.”
"So, I just don’t accept that point at all.”
He also vehemently denied prioritising his MP and the party’s reputation over the women who made the inappropriate behaviour allegations against Mr Ross.
"I utterly reject that, I was trying to deal with these various things that were complex and in a way that had some promptness and some immediacy, both in terms of the workplace that we have but also in terms of very serious well-being, health issues."
"Working my way through those, I got it right.”
"I was, as I said to you, balancing those complex issues and I know that I dealt with them, National dealt with them the best way in the circumstances.”
Mr Bridges did accept fault for publicising the allegations against Mr Ross at the press conference where he revealed that an investigation had found Mr Ross was likely to have leaked his expenses.
"That tape was something like half an hour before the press conference, I’ve accepted, and I regret, and in fact I’ve talked about being embarrassingly wrong to do that," he said.
"Since then actually I learnt my lesson, I’ve been scrupulous in respecting the privacy and issues of all concerned, including Jami-Lee Ross."
"We got it right, we dealt with the serious inappropriate conduct, I dealt with it within 24 hours."
On the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Mr Ross, Mr Bridges was reluctant to use the word harassment, saying they weren’t at the level of a formal complaint.
"I don’t want to use the word harassment, because I don’t know if legally speaking, you would say it was at that level," he said.
Mr Bridges said he and Ms Bennett were safe in their leadership roles because "the caucus understands exactly what’s happened here."
"They know we didn’t act out of self-interest, we acted in the interest of everyone concerned here as complex and difficult as that was."
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