New Zealand member of Parliament Jami-Lee Ross has been controversially detained under the "Mental Health Act" after revealing explosive scandals within the opposition National Party.
Ross was the senior whip of the National Party, the biggest party in New Zealand politics, and claims to have dirt on a number of his colleagues, including former Prime Minister John Key.
National Party leader Simon Bridges accused Ross of leaking information about his excessive travel and limousine expenses. However, at least one pundit believes Ross was not the leaker. Bridges stood Ross down from Parliament shortly afterwards for "health reasons", implying that Ross was mentally unfit for the job.
Ross did not go quietly. He released a secret recording of Bridges discussing the possibility of giving two parliamentary seats to Chinese candidates in exchange for a $100,000 donation from businessman Zhang Yikun. The donation was illegally divided into smaller donations to conceal the identity of the donor, according to Ross.
Yikun is connected to the Chinese Government and was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for work involving China-New Zealand relations. The Chinese Communist Party government responded to the accusation of interference in the New Zealand's election by saying "it has no intention and has never intended to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries."
Bridges described one of his colleagues, Maureen Pugh, as "f**king useless" and made racist comments about Indians, in the recording. Ross also claimed to have a number of other secret recordings of private conversations with his colleagues in Parliament.
Ross was expelled from the National Party, but refused to resign from Parliament, which would have triggered a by-election.
He denied leaking Bridges' travel expenses but did admit to leaking an anonymous text message, from the leaker. In the text message the leaker claimed to be a National MP that supposedly had mental health issues. Even suggesting they could become suicidal if an investigation into the leak wasn't called off. The next day, speaker of the House Trevor Mallard, from the governing Labour party, called off the investigation.
Ross' phone records were examined by investigators but he was found to have leaked the text message to a different journalist and a different news outlet, than the expenses leak. The lack of conclusive evidence against Ross suggests he could have been falsely accused of both the expenses leak and the mental health issue.
Twitter pundit "Kermy" (who previously broke the story of a sex scandal at a Labour party youth camp), claimed the expenses leaker was really Labour MP Clare Curran, who had pretended to be a National MP to avoid detection. Curran had admitted to being under "intolerable" pressure after being exposed in a scandal of her own involving the improper appointment of the Chief Technology Officer and the use of a private Gmail account to avoid official information requests. Mallard shielded Curran from tough questions over the scandal and is believed to have a close relationship with her.
Ross appears by no means innocent either. He was forced to admit to having two extra marital affairs, with another married MP and with a staff member in Bridges office. He has also been accused of sexual harassment by four women and he used intimidating tactics against political rivals in his own party.
Ross claims he was pushed out of Parliament on medical leave in a attempt to silence him, but when he continued threatening to expose scandals including widespread extra-martial affairs among other Members of Parliament, he was forcibly detained in a secure psychiatric facility. If Ross was detained against his will for political reasons and to prevent further scandals being exposed, rather than a genuine mental health reason, it would have chilling implications for freedom of speech and democracy in New Zealand.
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