Two face
politicans
john key
What does Key’s promise mean?
Key is already qualifying a promise he’s made on Maori water rights. Does the promise mean anything at all?
Welded to National
The meeting between Key and the Maori Party leaders last night reached it’s predictable conclusion. From his point of view Key has played this brilliantly.
“Opportunistic”
I don’t know which is stranger, a currency-trading capitalist denigrating people for maximising their economic opportunities, or claims dating back to The Treaty being passed off as somehow superficial.
Key’s press release on exodus to Australia
With news that there are now more Kiwis living in Australia than either Christchurch or Wellington, here’s “John Key’s” latest press release on the topic.
A quick question
The Nats are going to terminate the benefits of those who fail or refuse drug tests. I have a question…
National has no intention of ever enforcing ETS
As many of us expected, National has no intention of ever enforcing the ETS in the area where it makes the most difference to NZ emissions – agriculture.
Sale of the century
So – what kind of person does well out of asset sales?…
What did Key really know about Dotcom?
We know that the Police overstepped their authority following their Hollywood wannabe raid on Dotcom’s home. They used invalid warrants to take property of Dotcom’s that they weren’t entitled to, and gave that data to the FBI. Now, we learn that Key’s office was involved in advising the Department of Labour on shutting down a leaked email.
Stealing Heritage – Scott free
ImperatorFish: The Dog Has Eaten John Key’s Budget Surplus
The right may talk up the virtues of self-responsibility, but when it comes to the failure of the Key government to achieve even modest targets, there’s always someone else to blame. It’s all Labour’s fault, or it’s all because of the earthquakes, or it’s all because of Europe.
Caption Contest
Policy on the hoof
John Key wants to debate school league tables. Presumably he thinks that this will do the double whammy of getting middle class parents back on his side in the education debate, and distract from asset sales. But he’s not checked with his Minister, or the Ministry of Education, or presumably read any of the official advice about how damaging league tables would be.
Know when to fold ’em
Key’s ditched the surplus target that was so important a month ago – yet another casualty on the way to the brighter future. The Queen may have asked him why he didn’t see European contagion coming. Shearer is right – Europe is an excuse for a government that has run out of ideas. Labour does have a fresh approach – we need to hear more.
Peters smacks down Key
John Key started preparing the ground to work with NZF, looking to forge a “Save Super” platform for 2014. But Winston Peters smacked him down hard.
Key on the Nation
Well, the same old lines just aren’t working now. Maybe its a factor of having 3 journos interviewing him, but they are just rejecting Key’s spin outright – they know that the lines are fundamentally misleading, so they just brush them off and ask tougher questions. He’s getting his arse kicked on everything from schools to the economy. I predict this’ll be one of Key’s last long-format interviews.
Admitting that austerity has failed
Austerity has failed in both the UK and NZ. But at least Cameron’s Conservatives have the wit to realise it, and the courage to act.
Can you jump a shark in that pool?
The Nats’ succession problem
John Key’s days are numbered. His personal popularity is falling. His brand is tied to unpopular asset sales and a pokies for convention centre deal that is now subject to an Auditor-General investigation. He’s not winning the next election. So a change of leader is coming: pre-election or post. But who can succeed him? Parata? Collins? Joyce? They’re all shot.
SkyCity enquiry
The Auditor-General has announced an enquiry into John Key’s SkyCity deal. The deal should now be put on hold while the enquiry goes ahead.
Trouble? No! Look at Nice Mr Key
National have not had a great year, but the class size fiasco last week has raised the bar on their awful. Worse: the nice man Mr Shearer first raised their stupidity on class sizes, and their poll ratings have dropped noticeably. So it’s time to roll out their big gun again: a charm offensive from the nice man Mr Key.
What price an apology?
Parents and teachers are calling for Key to apologise over the stress and anxiety that Key’s government has caused them over the last 2 weeks. Want to guess how Key handled it?
The super disaster
On Superannuation Key is in a very strange position indeed, where keeping his word is doing him more harm than breaking it. It’s a disaster for the country.
Body of evidence
Nats try and fail to inoculate Key from Budget mess
The Prime Minister chairs Cabinet, which signs the Budget off policy by policy. A competent Prime Minister would be intimately familiar with the major policy changes. So, it was very interesting to see Audrey Young’s ‘insider’ piece on the education debacle yesterday. Chock full of tidbits supplied by Murray McCully. All the blame sleeted home to Bill English and Hekia Parata. Crucially, John Key barely mentioned.
Caption contest
The politics of reproduction
The Nats have a thoroughly unhealthy obsession with the politics of reproduction. They’re talking about “stopping ‘unfit’ parents reproducing”, but Paula Bennet let slip the real agenda months ago.
Class sizes don’t matter?
Abbott does a runner
Tony Abbott fled from the Australian Parliament on Wednesday. He was trying to avoid his vote being recorded if newly independent Craig Thompson supported the Coalition on a closure motion. Running away won’t help Abbott whose numbers are at record lows as Labor improves. Instead of a leadership spill in Labor we could see one in the Coalition.
ImperatorFish: Key’s Secret Super Plans
Why does John Key appear so confident that we are not facing a future superannuation crisis? It seems unlikely that the government would allow a cull of the elderly, due to the usual complaints from liberal hand-wringers. So where are the solutions to the problems caused by an ageing population?
Selective memory
Things Key can’t remember: Position on Springbok tour: subject of mass protests under his idol, Muldoon. Position on the anti-nuclear issue: cornerstone policy of 4th Labour government, also triggered the schnapps election that brought down his hero. Things Key can remember: Never claiming the child tax rebate for his paper-run. Which is true because the rebate wasn’t introduced until Key was 17.
Polly Parata
Hekia Parata is demonstrating how political lines endlessly repeated can go horribly wrong if you have nothing else to say. Her Polly Parrot repetitions are wrongly-based, and the longer she and Key go on about how fewer teachers and larger classes is going to improve the quality of teaching the worse its going to get for National. The hubristic Parata has galvanised and united the education sector and more backdowns are likely, both in policy and politics.
Banks’ vote protects him from Jones-like accountability
Labour’s got its Auditor-General inquiry into Jones’ approval of Yan’s citizenship. We’ve seen this movie before. In a year, the report will recommend better procedures but nothing more. Jone will be reinstated. The politics is more important. Shearer’s shown he has the power to control his senior MPs and set a high standard of accountability. When will Key match that standard and stand down Banks?
See no evil
There was a time when John Key used to promise solutions to any problem you could name. Or he would act sympathetic and concerned by the consequences of his government’s own policies. But the broken promises and falseness wore thin. Key’s new tactic is simply to pretend that problems don’t exist. Apparently, that’s called leadership in National Party circles.
Your choices for PM: a thinker or a ‘glib performance artist’
Colin James contrasts Shearer with Key: At a post-budget standup on Thursday he lacked leader-like fluency, deferring readily – and necessarily – to finance shadow minister David Parker who had his lines off pat.This factor should diminish over time as Shearer settles – though don’t expect him to become the sort of glib performance artist John Key has become. Shearer is too earnest and too aware of complexity.
Spin update
Just as a quick update on my pre-budget Spin v reality about a Government that has the worst growth record of any since before Michael Joseph Savage, and has a 52% increase in unemployment despite more than 1,000 NZers leaving for Australia each week.