Heather du Plessis-Allan: National needs to say they'd sack Rob Campbell

Author: Heather du Plessis-Allan,
Publish Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2023, 7:26pm

National’s performance on the Rob Campbell issue is an example of why it’s level pegging with Labour in the polls, and why there are questions about the leadership of Chris Luxon.

Because National seems scared of having an opinion.

Asked by Mike this morning whether Rob Campbell would be fired by National, the party's Public Service spokesman Simeon Brown couldn’t say yes.

He made excuses, he hid behind the process, but he couldn’t say “Yes, Campbell should be sacked.”

Of course Rob Campbell should be sacked if he won’t apologise, and National should be the ones who want it the most.

Campbell came very close to accusing National of racism over their Three Waters policy, even named checked their leader directly, and clearly broke the rules around his job. But still, they seemed too afraid to say they wanted him gone.

Contrast that to David Seymour from ACT, who was straight out of the blocks. Wanted Campbell fired, had a good argument for why he should be fired, which was that allowing him to stay would tell all the other public servants this kind of political bias is just fine.

And then he also did his research. There is no process like National keeps saying there is. The relevant law says “The responsible minister may, at any time and entirely at his or her discretion, remove a member of a Crown agent from office”.

Same thing just happened with National’s Three Waters policy.

We were all waiting for it, it’s one of Labour’s biggest problems right now.

But National slips it out on a Saturday where it basically gets buried by the weekend’s news, as if they don’t have the courage of their own convictions.

That's why ACT is polling around 24 times higher than 2017 and why National is at last count 10 percent lower.

If Chris Luxon’s National wants to convince voters to back them, they need to back themselves and grow a spine.

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