Audrey Young: President's resignation won't end Labour's crisis

Labour president Nigel Haworth has resigned as questions mount about the party's handling of sexual assault allegations. Photo / Greg Bowker

COMMENT:

The resignation of Labour Party president Nigel Haworth may have come sooner than expected but the resignation itself was inevitable.

It won't however cauterise the weeping wound for Labour.

The admission by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Newstalk ZB on Tuesday that she was more inclined to believe the young people who have made complaints to the party about sexual assault than her own party officials was incredible.

Haworth probably should have gone right then.

Ardern's comments came on top of her failure on Monday to express confidence in him over the handling of the complaints.

It was also the day she says she first realised that the complaints were of a sexual or physical nature.

What is entirely believable is that Monday was the first time Ardern had read a first-hand account of a young woman describing in graphic detail an ordeal she said she went through at the home of a Labour staffer in February 2018.

Until Monday, most of the public reports had been somewhat blunted by being second or third hand and most of it had been about the flawed process that the party called an investigation.

With at least seven complainants, some of whom are talking to National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett and the media, the Prime Minister and her office lost control of the issue some time ago.

By Wednesday, the need for a resignation must have been clear to Ardern's advisers even if it was not to Haworth.

An open letter by the complainants pleading for Haworth's resignation and Ardern's intervention will have had an impact.

It forced her to do what she should have done long ago – demand to see the actual allegations that had been being made to the party.

The resignation of the president today rather than in four weeks' time, and the apology by Ardern, will not give the Prime Minister and her office control.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was forced to demand to see the actual allegations that had been being made to the party. Photo / Mark Mitchell

But it should begin to restore faith in her by the young Labour members. She would not give a fig about the condemnation of National but the open letter will have stung her.

It won't end the issue.

National is on the case which is unusual in these types of issues. Normally Labour and National do not take advantage of an internal scandal in the other's party, knowing that it will almost certainly be their turn next.

For example it was New Zealand First, not Labour, which rubbed salt into National's wounds over the Jami-Lee Ross scandal.

But the fact that young Labour members went to Paula Bennett meant the old rules do not apply.

Bennett doubled down on Wednesday, alleging in Parliament that Ardern's most trusted advisers and Finance Minister Grant Robertson knew a lot more about the allegations than has been admitted.

They and Finance Minister Grant Robertson will be the new targets in this running wound.

LABOUR