John Key is whinging about how labour isn’t focusing on the “big issues”
But he and his government have been avoiding the big issues for years.
That’s not surprising given how badly they do on these big issues. But it’s still pitiful to see them whinging about it.
I was wondering why Key’s team weren’t trying to milk his upcoming hardtalk interview for PR like they have with his other international media appearances.
I guess now we know…
Selwyn Manning’s sources in the National party have confirmed John Key is considering leaving parliament next term even if National wins.
That’s not surprising: Key clearly wants to leave a popular legacy and the hard right agenda National has planned if it wins will make such a legacy unlikely.
Turns out John Key quite likes making jokes about his DPS entourage.
I wonder if he finds it even funnier that we’re the ones picking up the $800k bill for them.
Judith Collins has broken protocol to defend John Key’s overuse of the DPS.
Looks to me like the threats they’re most concerned about are the threats to brand Key.
And they’ll pick and chose the rules they want to defend it.
John Key’s vanity has cost us another $800k
And the nats have the gall to tell us to tighten our belts?
What a joke.
In 2008 John Key attacked the Labour government on high prices and low wages.
In 2011 he’s telling us the government can’t help.
So what’s changed?
National Party blogger David Farrar is whining about the “politics of envy”.
He seems to think we shouldn’t be mean to Key because he’s rich and making us poor.
Cry me a river.
Fancy suits for John.
User pays family court for us.
A UMR poll shows that 40% of Kiwis support paying an earthquake levy to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild. 22% prefer more borrowing, and 29% want spending cuts. Asked just whether they supported or opposed a levy – 57% supported it. Yet the Nats are choosing cuts instead.
Our PM in the company of his peers?
Last week, Key says Kiwis “have to tighten their belts, we have to do the same”. More job cuts for public servants. This week, buying 34 $200,000 limos for him and his mates to replace 3 year old ones. How many teachers would that employ?Not the cars that need replacing after 3 years. It’s this government. Good on Goff for giving up the limos.
When a millionaire director and a foreign corporate wanted millions in tax breaks, Key jumped to it. When SCF collapsed the investors got an average of $60K, no questions asked. But when it comes to helping the ordinary families of Christchurch and the West Coast, the Nats are nowhere to be seen once the cameras are gone.
Crushless Collins’ double-bunking money saver costing $2.6m.
Shock! Paying someone else to build and operate our schools won’t save money.
Nat-appointed public service chiefs paid to air-commute. Pay cuts for frontline.
Key smiles at launch of new science ministry, waves in $3m of science funding cuts.
Is it just me or is the idea of our Prime Minister joking around with Tony Vietch (a guy who threw his fiance […]
At this stage in the electoral cycle, government support parties are usually looking to try to differentiate themselves from the main governing party. They need to do this to show they still hold true to their own values and have a separate identity that is worth voting for. The Maori Party is doing to opposite.
Remember back when Labour was in power and the Right had this myth that dole numbers had only dropped because Labour had moved people to other benefits? It wasn’t true but that didn’t stop John Key saying it during one of the 2008 debates as he promised to get more people into work. Now, 2 years later, 83,879 more Kiwis are on benefits.
OIA papers show Key blocked lowering the drink-drive level fearing an anti-‘PC’ backlash. Officials warned “Drivers with a blood-alcohol content of [80mg], who are legally entitled to drive, are significantly impaired”. But Key’s office was worried about votes. So Joyce kicked for touch – commissioned 2 years of research. While we wait, more lives are lost.
The Herald has used the OIA to get hold of emails Peter Jackson sent Gerry Brownlee during the Hobbit shakedown. They show that the Actors’ Equity blacklisting was not a threat to the film staying here – yet Jackson and Brownlee told us it was to justify handing Warners $34 million and rushing through an anti-worker law.
Rortbuster Pete Hodgson unveiled yet more information about Pansy and Sammy Wong’s business activities in China on the taxpayer dime in Parliament yesterday. It’s damning material. The Auditor-General had decided not to investigate but there’s every chance she will now or that the Police will.
Why are we waiting for Pansy Wong to resign from Parliament for her corrupt use of her MP’s perks or, failing that, for the Nats to evict her? The theory is the Nats want to avoid a by-election over summer. As Trevor Mallard puts it – Key wants to have his Hawaii holiday in peace. But the NBR’s Matt Nippert has other reasons for Wong’s soft treatment.
John Key proved one thing this week. When it comes to international affairs, he’s full of s**t. Despite all his claims about being best buds with Barack Obama, he didn’t even get an invite to meet him from top U.S. diplomat Hillary Clinton. He probably didn’t help future chances either by referring to Hillary as “President Clinton”. You sure are a class act John.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to New Zealand this week, bringing the customary promises of good will and better relations between our two countries.
The big question is however: Will Clinton be bringing the overdue White House invite for our Prime Minister? John Key has claimed after all he and Obama are best pals… and he can pick up the phone anytime. Now’s the test.
The Hobbit Enabling Act is meant to do is say ‘you’re an employee if you are called an employee in your contract, if not, you’re a contractor’. But it doesn’t say that and it doesn’t override the Bryson case that caused the ‘uncertainty’ Warners supposedly feared. Now, nobody knows what the law actually is. Well-founded disagreements will mean court cases.
From Stuff: A meeting between Warner Brothers and senior government ministers has ended, with studio executives asking for larger incentives to keep The Hobbit movies in NZ. The two-hour meeting, which included New Line Cinema boss Toby Emmerich, ended with no resolution to the Hobbit standoff…
After days of trying to read the media and rumour mill tea-leaves on the Hobbit it was time to do some fact checking.
It turns out this has been a hard lesson in how the international film industry works.
Fran O’Sullivan reckons the Government will offer tax-breaks to keep the Hobbit in NZ.
But it also looks like they’ll try to keep claim it’s about the (settled) dispute.
If that’s the case there’s some truly gymnastic spin to look forward to this week.
Nat 49.5%, Lab 36.5%, Gre 8%, NZF 2.5%, MAO 2.5% ACT 0.5%
Highest Labour vote since Helen Clark was PM. Lowest ACT vote in many many years. Key’s still holding the Nats up high.
Be captivating…
We’ve had a lot of coverage of the issue of TVNZ’s bigoted host but I want to chip in with a few points: Paul Henry’s ‘apology’ is in fact a calculated dog whistle to bigots, the blame for Henry goes to a deeper rot in TVNZ, and we have seen prove positive of John Key’s complete inability to lead and stand up for what’s right.
Actors Equity have the Aussie actors’ minimum standards up on their site and they look pretty minimal.
So what’s all the fuss about and why is John Key suddenly interested in getting involved in an industrial dispute?
After all he’s previously claimed it’s “not appropriate” for the government to intervene in other disputes.
So he’s apologised to the Governor General personally but not to the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who he has described as […]
Leaked notes from a meeting between Peter Shirtcliffe and Wayne Eagleson have revealed backroom dealings to kill off MMP.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the party of big business and the big-business-backed anti-MMP lobby would be colluding.
After all, it’s in all of their interests to take power from the voters and put it back in the hands of the elite.
Key is strongly backing Hide.
That might be because he doesn’t want to deal with the ideologues who would replace him. Or it might be because Hide knows where the skeletons are buried.
Either way Key’s going to find it harder and harder to distance himself from the mess.
John Key has tried to use the ACT fiasco to take a clumsy swing at MMP.
I guess he reckons it’s just too hard to rip voters off when you have to chase a party vote.
