Melissa Lee and “stupid comments”

Well it’s been all over the media today. Melissa Lee’s inexplicable comments about south aucklanders being less likely to come and commit their crime in Mt. Albert if we build National’s proposed motorway! The comment was made during a candidates meeting, while the meeting was heated and the comment was spur of the moment it is still an incredible offensive and foolish thing to say.

The clearest way of pointing out how bad the comment actually was is to quote her own party Leader John Key: When questioned about Lee he replied it was a “stupid statement to make”.

A ‘stupid statement’ indeed. Lee in one fell swoop has pretty much condemned her campaign for the Mt. Albert seat to failure. The worrying thing for Key and the reson he has made such a strong statement is the threat that this By-Election is dragging the National Party into the mud. Key will be hoping that the Lee saga, which also includes allegations of using public funding to produce National Party adverts through her film production company, will not begin reflecting negatively on the whole National Party.

Lee will have been told to keep her mouth shut as much as possible and concentrate on just losing gracefully, by getting a respectable amount of the vote. While this strategy concedes the Mt. Albert seat, it will protect the government itself from sinking lower under the flak caused by Lee.

Melissa Lee will be deeply regretting her comments I am sure, but that does not detract from the fact that she made them. Guyon Espiner predicts that she will now become a bit of pariah in the NAtional Party in the future and has blown any chance she had of a Cabinet posting. Dissapointing for National as they had pushed her as one of their bright stars for the future.

Lee has apologised repeatedly for her comment, but as Audrey Young points out:  Even then it was one of those half-hearted apologies – if anyone took offence. Manukau’s seasoned Mayor Len Brown appeared with her on Morning Report when she gave the apology and was pretty gracious. Sensibly David Shearer has not jumped on the comments, instead relying on others to continue raising them, instead he is able to run the line that he is concentrating on “the real issues”.’

EDIT: Will be interesting to see the interview (Shearer, Lee and Norman) on Close Up at 7.