Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, June 24th, 2009 - 28 comments
Key’s excuse for not telling Parliament why he lost confidence in Richard Worth is that it isn’t in the public interest to say. So let’s think about this ‘public interest’ excuse. ‘Public interest’ is very rarely used; Trevor Mallard said he can think of two other times it has been invoked during his time in […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 45 comments
As widely predicted, Christine Rankin is continuing to cause embarrassment for the government. She is now succeeding in making the Prime Minister look weak, as despite blatantly ignoring his warnings, he seems unwilling to sack her. From John Key’s post-cabinet press conference just last week (15th June): Question: The families commission’s come out in support […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments
So 1,001,880 Australians visited New Zealand in the year to May, up 3.7% over the last May year despite the recession Yay? Well don’t pop the bubbly just yet. The total number of visitors fell 2.6% from 2,482,881 to 2,418,647. The decrease from other countries wiped out the gain from Australia. And here’s the important […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, June 20th, 2009 - 1 comment
Last night at the Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards the New Zealand Police and Porirua City Council won the Prime Ministers Award for Public Service Excellence for their collaborative ‘Safer Porirua’ project. John Key himself announced the winners at the awards dinner, and congratulated the Police and Porirua City for the success of the project. However, […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, June 19th, 2009 - 20 comments
For some reason, Tracey Watkins’ blog is hidden away deep within the Stuff website, far from the other blogs. Which is a pity because it’s where she writes her best stuff. Like this: One part of me thinks it’s bleedingly obvious why John Key lost confidence in Worth so why get in a stew about […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 am, June 18th, 2009 - 15 comments
Great quote from Gordon Campbell: “Faced with the dying embers of the Richard Worth scandal at his press conference John Key reached for gasoline” By being secretive, Key has given members of the media a huge incentive to be the first to find out the secret and publish it. Journalists and media outlets get their kudos […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 26 comments
What the hell’s going on with John Key’s leadership lately? He’s just chickened out of answering the traditional question from the Leader of the Opposition. He transferred his Prime Minister’s question down to the the Minister of Finance, making the whole thing rather absurd: Hon PHIL GOFF to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 30 comments
Some thoughts on Key’s continuing refusal to tell us why he fired Worth. First, it’s tautological to say that a Prime Minister fired a minister because he lost confidence in him. The statement provides no new information. Second, it is completely irrelevant that Worth is no longer an MP. The questions are about Key’s decisions […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, June 17th, 2009 - 52 comments
Duncan Garner said something interesting during the Mt Albert by-election special: “I’ll tell you why John Key came back from overseas… He came back to get the t-shirt that says ‘I’ve been Prime Minister’. It marries up with what failed National Party candidate Paul Henry said yesterday: “I have a slight nagging fear in the […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 pm, June 16th, 2009 - 51 comments
Key is obviously lying about having an unavoidable commitment in Taupo keeping him from Melissa Lee’s election night do. He would tell us what it was if it were true. He would have told journos at the start that he wouldn’t be there if there really had been some long-standing commitment. Truth is he abandoned […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, June 16th, 2009 - 49 comments
On the day Richard Worth was forced to resign as a Minister, Key explicitly told Parliament the criminal investigation into Worth was the reason why he couldn’t say what had caused him to lose confidence. Hon Phil Goff: Why did the Prime Minister attempt to keep the reasons for the resignation secret this morning? Hon […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, June 16th, 2009 - 54 comments
Here’s a tip for the child beaters at Family Fist – if you’re going to whip up a storm of fear and misinformation about a piece of legislation you don’t like, don’t peg your hopes on waiting two years for a referendum to get your revenge. That’s just enough time for your entire dishonest campaign […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, June 16th, 2009 - 45 comments
During his time in parliament Richard Worth has cost the taxpayer well over a million dollars yet John Key won’t even be straight with the public as to why he’s gone. First Key wouldn’t tell us because he claimed he didn’t want to contaminate a police investigation, now he won’t tell us because, having resigned […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:47 am, June 16th, 2009 - 18 comments
Analysis by Rhema Vaithianathan, which hasn’t itself been critiqued but has seen her subjected to the typical vicious personal attacks from National, shows that the supercity will have big economic costs for the areas of most of the existing councils: • Rodney: annual regional GDP falls by up to $74 million and 270 job losses […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, June 14th, 2009 - 61 comments
John Key invested a lot of political capital in Melissa Lee. She was his hand picked candidate for the showcase Mt Albert by-election (unceremoniously pushing aside local veteran Ravi Musuku). Winning Helen Clark’s old electorate would have been a hugely symbolic victory for National, and for a while they and their pundits thought it was […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, June 14th, 2009 - 64 comments
63% to 17%. That’s not a defeat. That’s a slaughter. An utter humiliation for the Tories. How will the Tories and their fanboys (Armstrong, Ralston, Laws, Farrar etc) spin it? Pretty obvious: It was Lee’s fault for the gaffes. It was Worth’s fault for the past fortnight. Mt Albert people are dole-bludging darkies (see Kiwiblog […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, June 13th, 2009 - 20 comments
I was shocked, shocked, when I pulled up Kiwiblog just now and there wasn’t a long post of quotes by political commentators on how St John had slain the evil Worth interspersed with ‘indeed’. Instead, there was a long post of quotes from the Herald on juries interspersed with ‘indeed’. I quickly discovered why. Worth’s resignation has not […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, June 12th, 2009 - 7 comments
No Right Turn has been investigating John Key’s baby: Back in February, Prime Minister John Key came up with a bold and radical plan to end the recession and create jobs: a cycleway the length of New Zealand. As it became apparent that the plan was not a joke, and was in fact being taken […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, June 12th, 2009 - 14 comments
Another bad week is about to end for John Key with a mammoth defeat of his handpicked Mt Albert candidate. What’s that now, four disaster weeks in a row? And another one to come next week when the House resumes and he has to face all those unanswered questions about why he sacked Worth. Gee, […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, June 12th, 2009 - 165 comments
I haven’t really wanted to get involved in the whole debate surrounding Richard Worth. It’s horrible and messy, and makes me feel sick every time I see fuel added to the fire. It was no surprise to see the creep Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) publish her name, but it was a surprise to see the […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:07 pm, June 11th, 2009 - 50 comments
Radio NZ is playing John Key saying that, following the letter from the woman in the sexual harassment saga, he has “washed his hands” of Richard Worth. It seems likely he will move to have Worth expelled from caucus. Good to see he chose a sensible path rather than the ‘attack the woman’ strategy the […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, June 11th, 2009 - 29 comments
On Monday, John Key promised he would make a ‘major tourism announcement’ today. Apparently, we’ve just had it. In a speech today, Key announced that during the Rugby World Cup in 2011, Queens Wharf in Auckland will be a temporary ‘live site’ (whatever that means) where there will be an opening ceremony. Apparently, it will […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 pm, June 10th, 2009 - 129 comments
So National’s latest tactic in the Richard Worth affair appears to have been to leak the identity of the first complainant against Richard Worth (the one with all the “textes”). Why do I say this? Simple. The story that broke on the TV news tonight first appeared earlier today on the website of National Party […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 pm, June 10th, 2009 - 73 comments
Yeah. Great honey-trap. – First, target a minister that doesn’t matter with a woman who is openly Labour – Second, delete the most offensive texts and don’t record any phone calls – Third, don’t go public, refuse Goff’s offer to raise it privately with Key – Fourth, raise the issue privately with Key once the […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:06 am, June 10th, 2009 - 108 comments
The Tories are throwing all the muck they can at Goff. Trying to get him to back off on the Worth thing. Their latest is that Labour is spinning out this presentation of texts to Key to drag the issue out. Thought I would take a leaf out of Eddie’s book and do a timeline. Clear it […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, June 9th, 2009 - 11 comments
Lynton Crosby of the political spinners Crosby/Textor, who ‘advised’ both John Key and Don Brash, has finally given up on trying to pursue a unwinnable defamation case against Nicky Hager and Radio NZ.The case appears to me to have been started largely as intimidation by the Crosby (and maybe the National party) to find out […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, June 9th, 2009 - 19 comments
The Herald asked this morning whose word was more credible on the Worth issue, John Key or Phil Goff. Their political editor Audrey Young has just answered the question for them. “One politician was bound to be deeply embarrassed today, Phil Goff or John Key. One would be right and one would be wrong. And […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, June 9th, 2009 - 23 comments
There was nothing in the Budget for productivity. Education, the foundation of producitivty, was actually cut when you take into account inflation and population growth. There was a bit more for a few more roads but shaving a few minutes of the commute has no effect on productivity. Yet Bill English is very keen for […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, June 9th, 2009 - 34 comments
I never seen a government crash so quickly, so hard. The Standard was saying before the election that Key was a two-faced facade and his government would push a rightwing agenda. The media chose to ignore the signs. Too caught up in the fun of getting their boy elected to care about what would happen […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, June 9th, 2009 - 35 comments
At his post-cabinet press conference, John Key continued to determinedly fly in a death spiral over the Worth affair. The journalists asked some probing questions on the sexual offending allegations and while Key still refuses to give us the full story, more details are emerging: Key has now confirmed that he did fire Worth, it […]
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