Ross reneges on resigning

The Herald reports:

Rogue National MP Jami-Lee Ross has admitted having affairs with two women – one of them an MP – and says there will be “challenging times ahead” in his marriage.

On the day he was expecting to stand down from his Botany seat, the MP is also now vowing to stay in Parliament and dish the dirt from under the political bed-sheets. …

He fired a warning to the party, saying he could also dish the dirt on a lot of the activity that he took part in as chief whip.

“There is a rot in the National Party. People on behalf of the leadership get asked to do things so the leader is kept clean.

“I was asked to help exit Todd Barclay because he was becoming difficult for Bill English. Bill English was kept clean. Paula Bennett was pulling the puppet strings. But recordings about him came out and ended up in the media.”

He said he had a number of text messages between himself and John Key about a donation that had become difficult.

“I was asked by John Key to go in and talk to the donor and see if there was something about the Labour Party that we could find out. John Key and I ended up discussing that later on in text messages.

“The National Party has now decided to smear my reputation as much as possible. I simply can’t run in a byelection on that basis. I’ve decided it’s more important to continue talking about the National Party.”

Jami-Lee continues to blame everyone but himself for the damage he has done to himself.

I expected he would renege on his vow to resign and fight a by-election. He was obviously going to lose and he has now made himself unemployable so trying to stay on as an MP is his only source of income.

He will dish dirt. He named the women he had affairs with, which is again very low. He wants to pull the temple down.

National should trigger the waka jumping law. Not to try and stop him dishing dirt. He will do that regardless. But so Parliament isn’t degraded for the next two years. Yes they will be embarrassed a bit by doing this as they opposed the law. But ACT opposed the law last time yet used it to get rid of Donna Awatere-Huata.

They need to give him 21 working days notice so if they get the notice out on Tuesday, they can vote to expel him after 21 November.