Uffindell allegations taken 'seriously' - Luxon awaiting investigation results

National Party leader Christopher Luxon says work has already been done to reset the culture within the party and in improving its candidate selection process.

Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell was stood down Tuesday night after RNZ revealed allegations of aggressive and bullying behaviour from a former flatmate.

A woman who flatted with the Tauranga MP at university in 2003 told Morning Report Uffindell was an aggressive bully who once pounded on her bedroom door, screaming obscenities, until she fled through her window.

In a statement issued late Tuesday night, Uffindell denied claims he engaged in "intimidatory or bullying" behaviour, but said there was a falling-out between flatmates.

The allegations follow revelations that Uffindell, as a teenager, beat up a younger boy at Auckland's prestigious King's College boarding school and was asked to leave.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon told Morning Report the situation was frustrating.

"I know it's frustrating, frustrating for me, frustrating for a lot of National Party members and supporters."

The fresh allegations against Uffindell were being treated "really seriously", Luxon said.

The King's College bullying incident had been disclosed in Uffindell's candidate application and was treated as a "red flag", he said.

"What we had as of before the allegations that have come out last night was a situation where Sam actually declared the issues from King's College up front in his application form.

"It was treated as a red flag [and] there was deep referencing of other aspects of his life since those events and the determination was look, a 38-year-old man is different from a 16-year-old bully and he genuinely felt like through those references and checks that he had reformed and changed as a person," he said.

"I think the reality is that for Sam as he declared the events around the King's College incident there were consequences whether they were the right ones I can't speak to, I can't speculate to, I wasn't there but that doesn't preclude the fact that we are a party of law and order and that we've had an MP involved in completely unacceptable and unlawful behaviour."

It was too early to say when Uffindell would be made a minister if the National Party were in government, he said.

"If you've got someone who has declared an issue in their past and they have reformed about it, we should take a second chance on them," he said.

He said he was aware of the party's questionable track record of candidate selection but the Party had made "tremendous progress" in the last seven to eight months.

"We're working hard on making sure that we have really good candidate selection processes, Sylvia Wood and I have worked hard on that over this period of time.

"We've got much more rigourous vetting and referencing processes but we're also reliant on candidates to be really transparent about their past behaviour as well."

Work was underway to reset the culture within the party and there would be a more diverse group of candidates at next year's election, Luxon said.

National Party police spokesperson Mark Mitchell said caucus members were told on Tuesday there were fresh allegations against their colleague Sam Uffindell.

Mitchell told Morning Report he understood Uffindell denied the basis of the fresh allegations against him from a former-flat mate.

"We're now faced with a second allegation, it is an allegation, Sam has, from what I understand, said that 'no that didn't happen'."

However, it was important a full investigation was completed into what happened, Mitchell said.

The investigation into the new allegations against Uffindell was expected to take two weeks.

National Party President Sylvia Wood said Maria Dew QC would conduct the investigation.

The party only became aware of the new allegations Tuesday night and details of the investigation would be finalised over the next few days, she said.

Wood declined further comment while the investigation was under way.