When MPs' private lives become public property

Don Brash

It went off like a grenade lobbed into a pond. The prime target was immediately stunned but the ripples took time to spread. The upshot, thus far, has been an extraordinary admission by National Party leader Dr Don Brash that his marriage is in trouble and he needed time out to work through difficulties with his wife of 17 years, Je Lan.

Noises coming from National suggest Brash's leadership may be in jeopardy, amid allegations of an affair with Diane Foreman, deputy-chairwoman of the Business Roundtable and head of investment company Emerald Group.

It was two Tuesdays ago, question time in the house. Brash, buoyed by a long run of hits landed on the Government courtesy of the election overspending and Taito Phillip Field scandals, rose to his feet to twist the knife another notch.

Regarded as a liability in the cut and thrust of the house, observers had noted an improvement in Brash, an indication here and there of a fledgling ability to think on his feet as National's attacks on the Government for spending of public money on its pledge card gained traction week after week.

But not this time. The Government had realised the damage being done, not just by the Field matter but also the overspending issue.

National was enjoying its best run of hits in opposition since "Paintergate". The negative headlines were impacting on the polls. Labour decided to hit back by alleging National was in the pocket of the Exclusive Brethren but also with a strategy not seen in New Zealand politics since Sir Robert Muldoon impugned Labour MP Colin Moyle in 1976.

The strategy was not without significant risks. MPs would ankle-tap Brash with personal, sniping innuendos in the house to unnerve him, put the opposition off its attack, and so ease the pressure on themselves.

Like a seasoned boxer who knows the value of pre-emptive strikes, cabinet minister Trevor Mallard hit before Brash had opened his mouth.

"How's Diane this week," he called.

Brash looked dumbfounded.

If the aim was to undermine his confidence, it worked. Long seconds passed before Brash got to his question about whether Prime Minister Helen Clark's handling of the "Taito Phillip Field affair" showed she had come up short in the 1999 pledge that her Government would "restore public confidence in the political integrity of Parliament and the electoral process".

No sooner had Brash uttered the word "affair" than Mallard interjected: "Speaking of affairs!".

The Speaker, Margaret Wilson, ordered Mallard to "please contain himself", only for fellow cabinet minister, former teacher David Benson-Pope - who had suffered a mauling in the house at the hands of National over allegations of bullying, and going into female dormitories and a shower block during a school camp in 1997 - to take over.

Brash (attempting to press the Prime Minister about election overspending): "Does the Prime Minister not yet understand ... "

Benson-Pope: "Tell us about the Business Roundtable."

Madam Speaker: "Order! Continue please, Dr Don Brash."

Brash: "Does the Prime Minister not yet understand that displays of hubris and arrogance on her part are diminishing public confidence in her and her Government by the day; and when will she and her ministers start to show the public the respect they are due?"

Benson-Pope: "What is the member's relationship with the Business Roundtable?"

Labour's tactic was foreshadowed by comments Clark made the day before in her regular Monday morning media interviews to the effect that if it was war National wanted, war it would get.

There was an atmosphere of expectation in the house when Mallard and Benson-Pope made their snide interjections. Labour's MPs would almost certainly have been briefed on the plan at their caucus meeting hours earlier.

Clark's resolve may have been hardened after she was questioned by TVNZ on her way to the caucus meeting about a malicious rumour regarding her husband, Peter Davis. Labour suspects National Party involvement in spreading the rumour. Mallard upped the ante the day after slinging his innuendoes, telling the house he'd had "a gutsful" of having his integrity impugned and being called corrupt (regarding the pledge card spending). "If members opposite, or National Party members outside tell lies about us, we will tell the truth about them," he threatened.

It is likely Labour's goal was no more than to put National off its attack but a chain of events beyond the Government's control then took over.

Brash is said to have chosen to tell the caucus there were problems in his marriage because he believed the media was about to ask about rumours of an affair with Foreman.

Forewarning his caucus resulted in MP Brian Connell, unhappy after being given a low party ranking, to put Brash on the spot by challenging him to confirm whether he was having an affair and commenting that if he was, he was unfit to be leader. There are those in National with leadership aspirations, each with their blocs of supporters, but insiders don't believe Connell was pushing any other agenda other than that of the disaffected moral conservative he is. Connell, who has been disciplined by Brash for getting out of line, has said he held concerns about his leader's personal life and its political implications given Labour's threats, but had not set out to undermine him.

The leaking of the caucus row and Brash's subsequent public announcement of marital problems has put his leadership on the agenda.

Brash has failed to convince many of his colleagues he has the political guile required of a successful leader. His ineptness in dealing with interjections in the house underlines that, says a closely-connected National source.

"He stopped and looked appealingly at the speaker. A very experienced politician would blithely ride over that. Why give it credence by pausing for it? That certainly set the scene [for what followed]"

A more wily politician would never have announced, as Brash did, that his marriage was in trouble.

It would have been denied, said the source, despite honesty, integrity and being a political outsider being marketed as Brash's assets. "You can get away probably with one affair. It's difficult to get away with two."

Brash admitted in his biography to having an affair with Je Lan who was his executive assistant at the Kiwifruit Authority. He separated from his first wife in late 1985 following the affair and married Je Lan in December 1989. They have a teenage son together.

It was unlikely any affair would become news, says the source. Nothing could be proved and there is little media appetite for such matters.

The last such scandal former Prime Minister David Lange's affair with his speechwriter Margaret Pope (whom he subsequently married) was widely suspected but only became public after Lange's wife, Naomi, telephoned a newspaper.

What strategists see as Brash's political naivety may be reflected in an apparent susceptibility regarding women.

Herald writer Carroll du Chateau remembers accompanying Brash to a meeting of North Shore business people. It was four years ago, he was 61, a list MP heading for the Opposition leadership.

Brash was speaking to a group of about 50 North Shore Nats when there was the kind of ripple of attention you get when a seriously rich or sexy person enters a room. The woman was Diane Foreman.

Attractive, blonde and wearing fishnet tights, Foreman stood out like an Esquire model among this crowd of suits.

She sat down on the floor in front of Brash and watched, rapt, while he made his speech. He could not have missed her.

The National source says the timing of the Brash scandal "is just perfect" for the Government which was desperate for a circuit breaker.

"If you are sliding in the polls, and Labour has been doing quite badly regarding the [election] spending ... then the best way is to have an almighty diversion so you don't sink any further."

Yet, the political risks in the snowball set rolling by Mallard and Benson-Pope's barbs are not all National's. Labour would have been delighted to put a spanner in the works of its opposition, relieved to get its election spending off front pages and is unlikely to have an iota of sympathy for Brash's current plight. They will, however, be aware of the potential downside. There may be a backlash from voters who think it unfair Brash has felt forced to air private matters.

Of greater concern to Labour is that it may result in Brash's replacement, a more effective leadership and, thus, a more formidable rival come election time in 2008. Brash was back in the public and media gaze yesterday, putting himself about at a flea market in Sandringham and in Onehunga.

Asked if the personal issues were affecting his leadership, he said: "That is a question for caucus to make a judgment on. The caucus is comfortable with my leadership and I am going to lead the National Party as long as I continue to enjoy that support."

He thanked his colleagues for giving him "some much needed family space". But for National, this episode will reinforce the view of those who see Brash as too flawed politically to lead. It is suggested that a lack of a clear successor is keeping him in the role, more than the Government's recent run of calamities.

There is support for the economically savvy, media-astute John Key, but there are also questions about whether he is ready. More of an obstacle for Key is deputy leader Gerry Brownlee who has ambitions, as does the once-tried Bill English who has been one of his party's most effective MPs in opposition.

Whatever route is chosen, National must quickly decide whether it can afford the major diversion of a reshuffle and the breather that would give a Government that is squarely on the back foot.

- Additional reporting Carroll du Chateau, Audrey Young