Tizard accused of arrogance over walk-out

Judith Tizard

Government minister Judith Tizard has been accused of arrogance after walking out of an Auckland Central candidates' debate, leaving the other candidates and the audience bemused and booing.

Ms Tizard left the debate at the Forde's Frontbench pub in Anzac Ave, saying her time would be better spent at cottage meetings and giving street corner speeches in Pt Chevalier.

She left Stuart Nash - Labour's Epsom candidate - to take her place.

Ms Tizard told the Herald her walk-out had been "in good humour" but she decided the meeting was "silly" after realising most of the crowd were already aligned to a candidate.

The National Party candidate for Mt Roskill, Dr Jackie Blue, said it was an appalling display of arrogance.

"I was appalled with Judith Tizard's arrogance and contempt for local meetings. If you give a commitment to attend, then you do so and you represent your party with pride.

"You don't storm off in a huff because you think you are more important than those who came to listen to you."

Mr Nash said he had gone to the meeting for a beer and to watch "our very hard-working member for Auckland Central".

"Judith could perhaps have handled the situation a bit better, but she has been campaigning very hard and did have another meeting she had to go to. I think she decided her efforts were best spent in other areas of the electorate. So I deputised."

Mr Forde, the owner of the pub who is running as an independent in the electorate, was shocked at Ms Tizard's behaviour.

"It was disappointing. I was amazed at the performance and slightly shocked that that was my constituency MP. Poor old Judith Tizard. She did stand out, but for the wrong reasons."

He said he was not aligned with any party: "My motto is a little bit left, a little bit right, but nobody left behind."

Ms Tizard first ran into trouble when Mr Forde said there were no media present. She asked what the point of the meeting was if the media were not there.

Yesterday she said she had misunderstood Mr Forde's announcement and thought he was saying media had been banned.

Ms Tizard, the Associate Arts Minister, said she was shocked media would be banned from a candidates' meeting.

"I was very anxious not to stand up some elderly friends who had put on a function for me to meet some of their friends," she said. "It was all perfectly good-humoured.

"We have had five candidates' meetings and I have been to four. They become silly, really, because usually there are as many members of the public there who are not aligned with candidates as candidates themselves."

Told Dr Blue had said she was arrogant, Ms Tizard laughed and said: "Jackie needs to get a sharper nose as to what is useful and what is not. With respect to her, I didn't think speaking to a bunch of her supporters was that useful."

She said fellow candidates Pansy Wong and Nandor Tanczos were not there. The only other Auckland Central candidates were Mr Forde and Act's Helen Simpson.