October 06, 2022
No apology due for Seymour strategy
Former MP Shane Jones says ACT leader David Seymour set up his MP Karen Chhour for the attack.
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis apologised to Ms Chhour for his response to a question about Oranga Tamariki, where he accused her of seeing the world through a vanilla lens.
Mr Seymour was quick to demand an apology because of his MP’s Ngapuhi connections.
But Mr Jones says ACT’s efforts this term, including attacking Waipareira’s vaccination strategy by claiming it privileged Māori, have created a new level of division in New Zealand politics.
“Hey buddy. You uncorked the bottle. You let the puss flow and you’ve done it with a great deal of skill in terms of being a polemicist, so I think David Seymour set that lady up and she wasn’t really capable of looking after herself,” he says.
Mr Jones says if he was in Mr Davis’s situation he wouldn’t have apologised.