New Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell has admitted to being a "bully" in high school and says he may have hurt other people mentally and physically but concedes he is not the same person today.
It comes amid revelations he was involved in a school assault which saw him being asked to leave Auckland's King's College when he was 16.
The incident had not been disclosed to party leader Christopher Luxon or deputy Willis. They were only recently informed.
It was in 1999 when Uffindell was in fifth form and the end of the year when a group of teens ran into a dorm of third formers.
"We raided them with three other students and I punched a student numerous times in the arm and the body and they were hurt during that experience and subsequently I was asked to leave Kings' the next day," he said.
"I was effectively a bully and I was a mean person. There will be other people as well at high-school that I have hurt one way or another. For those people I want to apologise for that."
He said he wasn't proud of his behaviour but felt he had matured and developed empathy over the years, empathy he said, he didn't have as a young person.
"I am a long way from the person I was 20-odd years ago."
"I'm really not proud of who I was as a young person. I'm a greatly-changed person and I'm trying to use my position for good."
"This is by far the worst incident I was involved in at school," he said.
Uffindell ashamed
Uffindell said he is sorry he caused the victim to suffer more emotionally as a result of him becoming an MP and also said he would welcome any other victims to come forward.
"To other people I might have hurt, I'm sincerely apologetic, I'm ashamed of that person I was when I was younger and I'm trying hard to atone and be a responsible person that leads a good life and sets a good example for other people.
"I was a 16-year-old and I made a big mistake. I've got young children and one day they will be at school, and if stuff like this happened I would be very upset."
Aside from the assault revelation is concern over Uffindell and the National Party's choice to keep the incident hidden ahead of the Tauranga by-election.
He said "in hindsight" Tauranga voters should have known about the incident.
"We would have been better to get that out earlier," he said.
Luxon said at a media conference on Tuesday, “it would have been good if the Party had been able to inform me properly”.
He said there’s an initial screening of candidates which included good reference checking.
READ MORE: Luxon supports Uffindell, says he should have been told about attack
“Then it goes into what’s called a selection panel and in that selection panel all of those people were fully aware as they weigh up a series of candidates and they can choose to let them go through or not let them go through.
“And there was deep exploration of this issue with Sam with that selection panel,” Luxon said.
He said he has confidence in new party president Wood who he said had been “critical to making sure we’ve got proper deep reference-checking and actually been driving a lot of the improve process”.
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