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On 20 March, Key made this curious remark, regarding Shearer’s stuff-up over his undeclared New York bank account,
“You don’t get cut any slack from the Labour Party when you say (you’ve made) a mistake but when they make one they don’t want anyone to have a look at it.”
Acknowledgement: Radio NZ – IRD knew of Shearer account, but not Parliament
There are two points of interest regarding that remark,
1. “…but when they make one they don’t want anyone to have a look at it.”
Not true.
As Vernon Small wrote in the Dominion Post on 21 March,
He was right to front-foot it by doing the rounds of the press gallery to disclose his blunder and face the music. It would have played must worse if he had left it until the next register of pecuniary interests was published.
Acknowledgement: Fairfax media – Shearer’s bank blunder threatens chances
Yet again this is another prime example of Key willfully mis-representing facts to suit his own purpose. His ability to “bend the truth” is unparalled by any other Prime Minister, whether Labour or National.
Shearer actually fronted to journalists and made a candid admission of his stuff-up.
When is the last time Key or Banks did the same?
2. ” You don’t get cut any slack from the Labour Partywhen you say (you’ve made) a mistake…”
Why should Labour (or any other Party) “cut any slack” for the National-led government?
Did National “cut any slack” for Labour when Helen Clark was Prime Minister? No, the Nats were relentless in their disparagement of Labour. In fact, they were often quite brutal,
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Acknowledgement: Scoop – Showers latest target of Labour’s nanny state
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Acknowledgement: Scoop – National launches its Food in Schools programme
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(Note: National never proceeded with it’s “Food in Schools” programme, and the policy was quietly dropped soon after they were elected into power in November 2008. see: Govt guarded on free school meals)
And this little ‘beauty’ in abusing Labour, in this January 2008 speech by John Key,
” Under Helen Clark and Labour, our country has become a story of lost opportunities.
Despite inheriting the tail wind of a strong global economy, Helen Clark has failed to use that momentum to make significant improvement in areas of real importance to New Zealanders. She has squandered your economic inheritance by failing to build stronger foundations for the future.
Tomorrow, Helen Clark will tell us what she thinks about the state of our nation. In all likelihood, she’ll remind us how good she thinks we’ve got it, how grateful she thinks we should be to Labour, and why we need her for another three years.
Well, I’ve got a challenge for the Prime Minister. Before she asks for another three years, why doesn’t she answer the questions Kiwis are really asking, like:
- Why, after eight years of Labour, are we paying the second-highest interest rates in the developed world?
- Why, under Labour, is the gap between our wages, and wages in Australia and other parts of the world, getting bigger and bigger?
- Why, under Labour, do we only get a tax cut in election year, when we really needed it years ago?
- Why are grocery and petrol prices going through the roof?
- Why can’t our hardworking kids afford to buy their own house?
- Why is one in five Kiwi kids leaving school with grossly inadequate literacy and numeracy skills?
- Why, when Labour claim they aspire to be carbon-neutral, do our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate?
- Why hasn’t the health system improved when billions of extra dollars have been poured into it?
- Why is violent crime against innocent New Zealanders continuing to soar and why is Labour unable to do anything about it?
Those are the questions on which this election will be fought.
Helen Clark thinks she can hoodwink Kiwi voters into giving her another three years to answer these questions. Well, I say she’s had nine years, she’s had her chance and she’s wasted it. The truth is that as time has gone on, Labour has concentrated more and more on its own survival and less and less on the issues that matter to the people who put them there.”
Acknowledgement: National Party – 2008: A Fresh Start for New Zealand
So when Key whinges about the Labour Party not cutting him “any slack”, Key might consider that he gave as well as he got when he was in Opposition.
That is the role of Opposition – to criticise, challenge, and question. The alternative would be a quick trip down the road to join the club of authoritarian regimes.
By the way… how is John Key’s list of criticisms that he levelled against the Labour Government on 29 January 2008,
- Why, after eight years of Labour, are we paying the second-highest interest rates in the developed world?
- Why, under Labour, is the gap between our wages, and wages in Australia and other parts of the world, getting bigger and bigger?
- Why, under Labour, do we only get a tax cut in election year, when we really needed it years ago?
- Why are grocery and petrol prices going through the roof?
- Why can’t our hardworking kids afford to buy their own house?
- Why is one in five Kiwi kids leaving school with grossly inadequate literacy and numeracy skills?
- Why, when Labour claim they aspire to be carbon-neutral, do our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming rate?
- Why hasn’t the health system improved when billions of extra dollars have been poured into it?
- Why is violent crime against innocent New Zealanders continuing to soar and why is Labour unable to do anything about it?
Except for interest rates (which is not controlled by governments – which Dear Leader should have known), none of John Key’s list above has improved in any measurable manner.
He’s probably forgotten it by now.
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Disclosure
This blogger is not a member of the Labour Party, nor has any preference in who leads that Party.
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= fs =
Pretty much why I don’t think the bank account brain fade will end up hurting Shearer a whole lot. That plus the fact that Banks was the one that decided to have a go at Shearer over it, rather than Key. While it blunts Labour’s ability to attack the government on one front, it opens it up for assault on another. It also helps that Shearer handled it as best as anyone could have.
Parliament operates at the level of an intermediate school playground.
How anyone can have any faith in any of the so-called leaders or the policies they promote baffles me, though one obvious explanation is that rather a lot of people actually believe the nonsense churned out by mainstream media.
I normally take little notice of anything any parliamentarian says. Indeed, the key to sanity is to avoid their inane utterances as much as possible. However, they are a source of occasional amusement.
On the other hand, the destruction the maniacs in parliament (and local government) wreak upon society and the environment is no laughing matter.
It will be interesting to see how much damage the climate chaos the maniacs in parliament have promoted over many decades [via CO2 emissions] does to NZ’s biggest industries over the coming months, and how long it will take for the general populace to realise that they are government by ‘idiots’ who operate at the level of an intermediate school playground.
I’m not holding my breath for people to wake up.
Key’s January 2008 speech evokes a strange mix of feelings between vomit inducing and laughable. The aftermath of a bad acid trip I guess. Experiencing the worst effects must be those who were infatuated with this pusher and voted for him, especially those who did so twice, and finally sobered up to their ever bleak reality. For those of us sober not to have fallen for his mind bending psychedelic lies, the massive failures on all the points he mentioned comes as completely no surprise but only expected.
Frankly, I have no faith whatsoever in the idea that someone who has proven they are a pathological liar with an ambiguous wealth of $50+ million would declare all his financial interests. After all it was he and his ilk in the shady, dubious underworld of global finance that played a leading role in creating the financial calamity that engulfed the world.
The situation strongly suggests this government is only intent on operating this country as a captive market for corporate interests, particularly overseas ones as evidenced by the TPPA and support for overseas investments. NZ National Party is a misnomer a more appropriate name is NZ International Inc.
Key and this government must be top contenders for the worst PM and government in this country’s history. Time, policies and blunders will only guarantee that top spot.
That is exactly what they’re there for.
You absolutely nailed it.
I would also like to point out that nowhere on that list of ‘questions that the election will be fought’ does it mention state assets. Yet to listen to him now, you would think it was the only question asked of the voters in 2011.
I don’t care if the leaders of National, ACT, and even the Maori Party are seen to be dishonest, scheming idiots. I do care when our supposed leaders give ammunition to the other side. Shearer is the gift that keeps giving, and does basically nothing to hold the government to account. Does he still think he’s in his old job and he has to make peace with Key and deliver humanitarian aid to Tories? Grrrrr. He doesn’t even have the self awareness to see what a liability he is.
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