\n He
\n took his forced resignation in February hard, employed an employment lawyer, employed a KC, filed an Official Information Act (OIA) request and finally this week broke ranks with the Prime Minister.\n <\/p>\n
What he wants is to clear the record about what happened in his office in February. He says he didn\u2019t assault a staff member. He enthusiastically grabbed the staffer\u2019s upper arm in conversation.<\/p>\n
He says he wouldn\u2019t have resigned if he wasn\u2019t stitched up. He says he was told there was a formal complaint against him (which the OIA has proved there wasn\u2019t). He was told two other staff members corroborated the allegations (again not true, he says).<\/p>\n
He tried to meet with the \u201cassaulted\u201d staff member to clear the air. He was told the staff member was on stress leave. <\/p>\n
In fact, the \u201cassaulted\u201d staff member wasn\u2019t even worried about it, according to what Bayly reckons he said when they were finally able to meet hours before the resignation announcement \u2013 too late to avoid it.<\/p>\n
Bayly says he didn\u2019t resign because he\u2019d done wrong. He resigned because he didn\u2019t think anyone would believe his story if three other people told a different story (which he now knows there weren\u2019t).<\/p>\n
The good news for the National Party is that Bayly is going out of his way to keep the PM out of this. This has come out while the PM was out of the country. <\/p>\n
Bayly doesn\u2019t blame Christopher Luxon or the PM\u2019s staff for the stitch-up. He blames the Department of Internal Affairs, which manages whichever staff member witnessed the \u201cassault\u201d and whinged about it, and whoever then gave Labour a heads-up.<\/p>\n
The bad news is not everyone can be counted on to be quite as charitable to the PM\u2019s office and the PM. They were the ones who told him it was \u201cvery serious\u201d when it wasn\u2019t. They were the ones who, in my view, managed a fast resignation.<\/p>\n