Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell faces a "political purgatory" similar to the fate of Gaurav Sharma, commentator Shane Te Pou believes.
Uffindell was reinstated to National's caucus on Monday after an investigation cleared him following allegations from when he was at university. He had been stood down since August 9.
Speaking to Breakfast, Te Pou said Uffindell will "be sent to political purgatory as a backbencher in Tauranga" despite being cleared.
"I think his fate will be pretty much like Dr Sharma, he'll be like a mushroom shut in the dark, and probably never to be heard of him."
Fellow commentator Matthew Hooton, also on Breakfast, agreed: "If National forms the next election, he's (Uffindell) not going to be in the cabinet and then towards the end of the next National government he might sort of be a junior minister."
Te Pou also said that the investigation's findings being announced on the day of the Queen's funeral was "about trying to bury this", and National leader Christopher Luxon will have to change his position on not releasing the report, the executive summary, or the investigation's terms of reference.
READ MORE: Luxon says Uffindell 'deserves a second chance'
"There's got to be a level of transparency in all of this.
"I think this is about the concern that New Zealanders have and I think his own caucus have about Luxon, he's just not agile enough and I think that some of these issues will come back to revisit him."
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