Goff was on Q & A yesterday arguing that he couldn’t stand Darren Hughes down because this would prejudice the outcome of the police investigation, and various pundits and commentators have argued that standing down a politician before they’ve been found guilty of anything denies them natural justice and holds them to an impossibly higher standard than other members of society.
All of which is rubbish. When the director of a hospital, or a police commander, or the principal of a school is informed by the police that one of their staff members is being investigated they stand their doctor/policeman/teacher down pending the outcome, especially if the undisputed facts around the charges cast grave doubts on the judgement of the accused person – they may even be sacked prior to charges or a court trial. The same standard applies throughout society. If a company director learns his accountant is being investigated for fraud they don’t just leave them in charge of the company books on the grounds that it might prejudice the investigation if they don’t. That’s just silly – no one else holds themselves to this arbitrary standard of justice that Goff has just invented.
hmmm… if there was an accusation, and no associated police investigation? then yes, no stand-down.
but the presence of an active police investigation, one that had been in place for a fortnight, kind of makes the risk to reputation more important than keeping someone sitting in their office.
Comment by Che Tibby — March 28, 2011 @ 9:04 am
Goff didn’t tell the public for 2 weeks – on principle. When it became public he told the public – on principle.
Comment by NeilM — March 28, 2011 @ 9:07 am
Goff went a little further than that … it also wouldn’t be fair to the complainant. This is one way it differs from standing down a doctor or teacher: people generally don’t go searching out those who’ve complained about them.
I had heard that Goff did poorly on Q+A. Watched him while eating breakfast this morning. I thought he did really well. Which isn’t to say Holmes did poorly in any respect, but he didn’t get the better of Goff, who was entirely unflustered and said what he wanted to say how and when he wanted to say it.
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — March 28, 2011 @ 9:26 am
Um, I wonder if David Parker felt his “natural justice” was denied when he was stood down from his portfolios (IIRC, at his request) the day Insinuate magazine’s allegations about his financial probity went live?
@Graeme Edgeler: Goff may well have “said what he wanted to say how and when he wanted to say it” (I’ll agree to disagree on that, but move on), but that doesn’t prevent “it” being ten pounds of bullshit in a two pound bag. (And, no, I was rather unconvinced by his concern trolling of the complainant.)
Comment by Craig Ranapia — March 28, 2011 @ 9:47 am
I’m not sure if Goff saying what he wanted to say to Little via Q&A is any significant achievement.
Comment by NeilM — March 28, 2011 @ 9:53 am
Quite so Craig, and if charges are laid against Hughes and a successful prosecution results, Labour is going to look even sicker for having closed ranks around him whilst showing no compassion to the complainant.
Comment by Inventory2 — March 28, 2011 @ 9:56 am
Yes, plenty of people complain that he got dumped just because the terms “naked gay 18yo” got bandied about. I would suggest it was the “police complaint” term that sharpened the focus…
Comment by garethw — March 28, 2011 @ 10:03 am
I agree with your post Danyl.
Standing him down from his position, until the police investigation is played out, is not a sentence.
Sentencing him without awaiting the police investigation would be denying him natural justice. If the investigation totally exonerates him, then not reinstating him would also be denying him natural justice. Where it will become difficult is if the police investigation does not result in an attempt to prosecute, but does reveal “dubious” behaviour. However, we’re not at that point, yet.
Comment by Richard — March 28, 2011 @ 10:22 am
@Richard, Goff can’t reinstate him. Once he’s gone from parliament, the only way he can get back into parliament is by being re-elected at the next election.
IMHO, Goff should have put him on leave with full pay as soon as he became aware of the seriousness of the allegations, and he should still be on leave now, not resigned from parliament, so that he can be reinstated if he is found to be as innocent as Goff apparently believed he was.
Comment by kahikatea — March 28, 2011 @ 10:41 am
@kahikatea
True — which just shows what a total shambles Goff’s and Labour’s response has been.
Could he also get back in by his replacement resigning and then being cycled back on via the list? I’m not sure if that is possible.
Comment by Richard — March 28, 2011 @ 11:05 am
Richard, only if he’s included on the list when it’s rewritten, which he won’t be.
L
Comment by Lew — March 28, 2011 @ 11:27 am
Lew, if they did want to reinstate him (which they might not want to do), then what is stopping them rewritting the list so that he is there?
Other than the internal labour politics of list writing, of course.
Comment by Richard — March 28, 2011 @ 11:31 am
Could he also get back in by his replacement resigning and then being cycled back on via the list? I’m not sure if that is possible.
It is not possible (until a new election is held).
Comment by Graeme Edgeler — March 28, 2011 @ 11:35 am
It is not possible (until a new election is held).
Fair enough — it is hardly an age until that happens, anyway.
Comment by Richard — March 28, 2011 @ 11:50 am
Would standing Hughes down have made a dramatic difference to the interim result here – Hughes’s resignation? Suppose Hughes was stood down pending a Police investigation and this was announced by the Leader of the Party. There would have been heaps of speculation which would have probably flushed out many of the rumours which fueled the hysteria of last week. The media momentum generated might still have ended up with Hughes (and/or his colleagues) concluding that the next move was his resignation from Parliament. Would we then be attacking Goff for not demanding that resignation immediately or would we be saying that he had played a bad hand as well as could be expected? Sometimes these situations are not winnable.
Comment by Tinakori — March 28, 2011 @ 12:01 pm
Tinakori:
If the calculation is that Hughes standing down would have still led to an actual resignation, then this means that correct call would have been for him to resign in the first place. Before it was forced.
It is all about making the political calculations correctly and taking the right (or least bad) decisions.
Comment by Richard — March 28, 2011 @ 12:09 pm
@Tinakori #15: I tend to agree. The police investigation is three weeks old. If Goff announced it right away and stood Hughes down there would have been at least three weeks of this stuff going on, followed by Hughes’ resignation. I am not saying that it would have been the wrong thing to do, but I doubt if the net outcome would have been much better.
Comment by DT — March 28, 2011 @ 12:09 pm
This may all be moot, has Hughes actually resigned yet?
Press releases are not worth a pinch of sh*t. Until the speaker has the written resignation he is still an MP and still getting paid. Perhaps a journo might want to look at that.
Comment by Barnsley Bill — March 28, 2011 @ 12:44 pm
They didn’t need to say they were standing him down pending a police investigation. They just needed to say that he was on leave for personal reasons and leave it at that until/unless the story comes out. That way they would have had the chance of the whole thing blowing over, but in the event of it coming out they could say they had taken it seriously from the start.
Also, the idea that homophobia plays any serious role in this bemuses me. If Hughes had been involved in any situation which resulted in an 18 year old woman being naked on the streets, surely that would have been even worse?
Comment by helenalex — March 28, 2011 @ 12:53 pm
Why would it be worse? If even half the rumours are true this is going to be the worst scandal labour have ever been involved in.
Does anybody know when the new police commissioner takes over? Based on a decade of “not in the public interest” calls from Howard and co what confidence can we have that they will not keystone another investigation?
Comment by Barnsley Bill — March 28, 2011 @ 1:18 pm
Yes, Richard, you may be right and the best option politically would have been for Hughes to have resigned from Parliament prior to any of the matter becoming public. In that case it would have been preferable for Hughes to do so unilaterally. The leader would not then have had to make a decision. If, on the other hand, Hughes had been told by his leader that walking the plank was the only option Goff might then have been vulnerable to attack from within his own caucus for not sticking up for one of his MPs, especially if there was no other information available to the caucus or in the public arena at that time to provide some context for the decision. On balance and with the marvelous benefit of 20/20 hindsight that was probably a better political risk for Goff to have taken.
Comment by Tinakori — March 28, 2011 @ 2:00 pm
@Tinakori ” The leader would not then have had to make a decision. ”
I rather think you inadvertently have nailed it.
Comment by Hamish In Auckland — March 28, 2011 @ 2:23 pm
One final thing that I think that Goff should have made clear, is that not asking someone to stand down or resign (even temporarily) until allegations have been corroborated or unless it meaningfully impacts on the persons ability to do their job, is a core part of Labour’s political ideology: ie, the labour movement, workers rights etc. Suspension without proof is not acceptable in a workplace unless pretty important unusual circumstances are at play. On the other hand, dismissing someone because of a rumour is more akin to what the 90 day law was set up for. It might have been a chance to delineate these differences if Goff had been more loquacious.
Comment by DT — March 28, 2011 @ 2:25 pm
D T wrote: “Suspension without proof is not acceptable in a workplace unless pretty important unusual circumstances are at play.”
even if it’s suspension on full pay?
Comment by kahikatea — March 28, 2011 @ 2:29 pm
@Kahikatea. Thats right, even on full pay. Because (unless the person is unable to perform their duties properly) in most circumstances suspension is a disciplinary action. Without wrongdoing it is unwarranted. It is better to assign different duties to the individual to put them out of harms way, rather than suspend.
Comment by DT — March 28, 2011 @ 2:43 pm
Suspension without proof is not acceptable in a workplace unless pretty important unusual circumstances are at play.
That’s right. And in almost every position of responsibility, being the subject of a police investigation is an unusual circumstance in which suspension is warranted. Why should MPs be exempt from this?
Comment by danylmc — March 28, 2011 @ 2:58 pm
DT: It is better to assign different duties to the individual to put them out of harms way, rather than suspend.
When somebody is an MP it is difficult to see how you can really assign “different duties” to him — either he is an MP or he isn’t. It’s not like you can re-assign him to a desk, where the public can’t see him and let him file old reports or something.
Re-assinging duties for an MP seems to reach its limit at “giving his portfolios to somebody else”.
Comment by Richard — March 28, 2011 @ 3:03 pm
That is true Danyl, and it is the problem with the argument. But given the way that Goff acted, I think that arguing this line would have been better than what he did run with – at least it would have been a way to relate it back to policy somehow (and industrial relations is a good area to try to turn the debate to). Goff probably wouldn’t have been able to do it though, so I guess I am just daydreaming.
Comment by DT — March 28, 2011 @ 3:03 pm
If a company director learns his accountant is being investigated for fraud they don’t just leave them in charge of …..
Pleeeease can someone teach Danyl how to sort out his use of the singular & plural. He does it all the time and it spoils his aim.
Comment by Galeandra — March 28, 2011 @ 10:00 pm
I’m trying to use apostrophes correctly but I’m dammed if I’ll stop using ‘they’ as a singular pronoun.
Comment by danylmc — March 28, 2011 @ 10:18 pm
Galeandra, it’s spelt ‘Please’.
For a grammar Nazi, you’ve got rather poor spelling.
Cheers,
TB
Comment by TBWood — March 28, 2011 @ 11:53 pm
“I’m trying to use apostrophes correctly but I’m dammed if I’ll stop using ‘they’ as a singular pronoun.”
Agree entirely.
Comment by annie — March 29, 2011 @ 8:13 am
It’d be fine if not for the mid-sentence switch from ‘his’ to ‘they’. It’s like the company director has suddenly either been neutered or cloned.
Comment by helenalex — March 29, 2011 @ 9:06 am
Call me clueless, but I’m wondering what this man has done wrong exactly. It seems to me from the little I know about all this, that the only thing he’s done wrong (strictly from a moral/ethical perspective) is claim to the media that he’s not gay (when, obviously, he is gay, or bisexual, or merely just curious). Maybe he thinks that to be gay, you have to be a total pansy like Chris Carter, practically drooling over every guy that you come across. Haven’t we moved on from this stereotype from a gay man in our society yet?
The other thing I’m wondering is if he’s related to my former boss. If he was, it would make a lot of sense. They both seem to be closeted gay gingas, anyway, so even if they’re not blood relatives, perhaps they’re related by spirit?
Comment by Betty — March 31, 2011 @ 1:47 pm