Simon Bridges cannot be trusted

You may recall former National Party leader Simon Bridges gaining a lot of public attention last month after claiming he was a witness to a gang fight. The former Crown Prosecutor made a huge song and dance about it all over Facebook and Twitter while also attacking the Government with allegations that Labour was allowing the gang problem to get out of control.

Bridges dominated the news cycle for weeks with his political attacks and elaborate story telling, and even after the Police went public to categorically state that there wasn’t a gang fight as Bridges alleged, he continued to assert that a violent incident had definitely occurred at the Tauranga hospital carpark.

However what was even more of a political misstep was that after a few days of Simon Bridges doubling down and digging himself into an even deeper hole, the current leader of the National Party also got in on the act by trying to back up her embattled MP, which in hindsight was indeed a very foolish thing for Judith Collins to do.

In June, Newshub reported:

National leader Judith Collins defends Simon Bridges from 'extraordinarily unkind far-left' over gang fight claims

Bridges has the support of his boss, who told Magic Talk the backlash was a result of "the freedom that the far-left gives itself to be extraordinarily unkind". 

Collins says she believes Bridges that a violent gang fight occurred in the car park. 

"Simon's father is clearly very unwell and if Simon says he saw a gang fight going on, and his wife saw it too, I believe him. I can't understand why people would think that someone would make that up," she said. 

"I also find it just deeply offensive that people who came in after or didn't see it suddenly say they know what happened when they weren't there. If he says it happened, in my opinion it did."

 

Unfortunately for Collins’ credibility, a report into the incident has found that the 'extraordinarily unkind far-left’ were absolutely correct to call Simon Bridges a liar, because there was in fact no gang fight at all. It was a completely made up scenario by a politician who has a history of lying…a fiction so that Bridges could score cheap political points with the get tough on crime crowd.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Investigation documents on Simon Bridges' hospital gang brawl claims released

An investigation has found gang members were not involved in a carpark scuffle at Tauranga Hospital last month.

The incident gained national attention after Tauranga MP Simon Bridges said on social media he witnessed a fight between gang members at the hospital on June 12.

Bridges' account of events differed from other witnesses who told the Bay of Plenty Times gang members were not causing trouble and a separate incident over a car park had taken place. Police also had no details of gang members being involved.

The timeline was released to the Bay of Plenty Times under the Official Information Act. The health board would not release video footage, citing privacy reasons.

Between 2.14pm and 2.58pm, a patched Mongrel Mob member and a person in a brown hoodie helped a female jump-start her car parked outside the emergency department.

By 3.11pm all people involved had driven away. The DHB report states this was "not deemed an incident as neither security, nor the hospital co-ordinator were aware of anything untoward".

Get that...a gang member at the hospital was helping a woman to start her car, and Bridges embellished that good deed into a gang fight where someone was being badly beaten up. This just goes to show what a terrible judge of character Crusher Collins truly is, especially now that a thorough report into the incident has been released which categorically shows that Bridges was lying simply to gain attention, a bit like a petulant child.

But what’s really off about all this is that the mainstream media isn’t going to pressure Collins into holding Bridges to account for his calculated deceit. Instead, all we’ll get is this one NZ Herald report that's behind a pay-wall, which is a clear sign that the biased MSM is trying to bury the story.

In contrast, if a left-wing politician had been caught misleading the Police about violent gang members, the MSM would be dragging on them for months. In fact with blood in the water, they wouldn’t stop until there was a resignation.

If the shoe were on the other foot, Crusher Collins would be demanding that charges be laid against a politician who was clearly wasting Police time by making false statements.

What this goes to show is just how terribly duplicitous National Party politicians really are, especially when it comes to all things concerning law and order. According to them, the rules of accountability simply don’t apply to the right wing. 

Despite this injustice, the court of public opinion won't be so kind when judging the corruption of Simon Bridges, who has most definitely brought Parliament into disrepute and therefore should resign for his continued and unrepentant dishonesty.