Party of bullies

Back in June Sam Uffindell was elected to parliament in the Tauranga by-election. Turns out he's a bully who beat a kid with a bed-leg at school:

The National Party’s newest MP, Sam Uffindell, was asked to leave his exclusive boarding school after viciously beating a younger student late at night.

Uffindell only offered the man an apology last year, 22 years after the attack, and nine months before he publicly announced his political aspirations.

[...]

The victim, who was 13-years-old at the time, was left with severe bruising and significant trauma.

Police were not involved. Instead, Uffindell was disciplined alongside three other teenagers who joined in on the beating, and asked to leave the school, Auckland’s King’s College.

Uffindell characterises this as "just being silly and playing up". Which is typical for bullies, and tells you everything you need to know about the man. The kicker is that the National Party knew this "and were grateful he had disclosed it to them", but they selected him anyway. They think someone who got together with a gang and beat a kid with a bed-leg is fit to be an MP. And then he gave his first speech about cracking down on crime...

Well, maybe we should. Beating someone with a bed leg is assault with [a] weapon. It has a penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment, which makes it a category 3 offence in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act. And since the penalty is more than 2 years, s25(2)(b) means that charges may be filed at any time. And from the Stuff report, it seems there's no shortage of witnesses. If National wants to have any credibility on crime, maybe it should start by expunging the criminals from its own ranks, rather than selecting and covering up for them...