Morrison’s Showergate continues

A witness to the original sexist joke, William Hunt, has contacted us with more information following the Herald’s coverage of the incident this morning.

Like us you might be wondering why an Auckland paper ran a story about a Wellington mayoral candidate, while the Dominion Post doesn’t even bat an eyelash.

It might be, as Scoop detail, that the paper has an inherent bias towards Morrison and against Celia Wade-Brown. Or it could be that Morrison lied denied to the Dominion Post that anything happened at all in the first place, before witnesses came forward and we broke the story last Tuesday.

William Hunt writes:

It has not been published that at the Massey University mayoral debate organised by the Chamber of Commerce last week, I got on the microphone at question time and related precisely the events that happened at CQ Hotel; and then I started to ask if Mr Morrison thought this was appropriate and acceptable behaviour, especially for a man who considers himself a suitable mayor for Wellington, capital of NZ:

Someone turned my microphone off! I was reprimanded by the MC, but then someone called out: “Let him answer the question!” and Morrison mumbled that I was having a cheap shot at him. Then someone else said: “So you don’t deny it then?” but the MC went to another question.

After the show, Morrison came to me and said: “Look, I apologize to you; I should not have said that; I got a bit carried away; I am a sportsman and we do tend to say stuff like that.” (As if that excuses him?!) And I said to him: ‘Well, I appreciate your apology John but I urge you to contact the Dominion and ask them to give you the opportunity to apologize to the public, and to Abby Cormack.” He walked away, but came back again with his campaign manager and again said: “Look, I’ve apologize to you, please accept it and …” So I told him that only a public apology would do. They left, obviously not very happy.

To me, this should not be over; because he originally denied the sexist comments to the Dom Post! Michael Forbes (a Dom Post reporter) told me this initially, when he said he could not print my story. I have an email from him saying Morrison denied it to them before you or the Herald published anything!

He could be the next Mayor and I find that kind of untrustworthy behaviour unacceptable, and very worrying coming from a supposedly respected member of our community.

What has emerged throughout the campaign is a pattern of Morrison blaming others for the strife he creates for himself. He blamed Salient for misunderstanding his attempt to have extra ballot boxes removed from Victoria University, he blamed his wife for his plagiarism of Kevin Laverly’s speech, then there was that time he confirmed non-existent plans for a Lord of the Rings museum, and now this.

Apart from Morrison’s weak apology to Hunt, I haven’t seen any evidence of a public (or even private) apology to the model, let alone Rotary, the hotel, or other attendees for his gross joke. The model, Abby Cormack, shouldn’t have to ask Morrison for a public apology. He should stop making excuses, own up,  and come forward himself and apologise for his offensive and unacceptable comment. We’d be happy to post it when he does.