Prime minister side-steps ‘dying’ comment
John Key has tried to water down his comments that Wellington is “dying” and now says it is a city under pressure.
He told Takapuna business leaders last week: “The reality is even Wellington is dying and we don’t know how to turn it around.
“All you have there is government, Victoria University and Weta Workshop.”
Key says “Wellington is a dying city” while he’s choking Auckland and crippling Christchurch. Is there any part of NZ that he’s not currently assaulting?
Talking a city into demise might be a means to force an amalgamation like the Super City but it ain’t going to win you friends and doesn’t seem all that smart as the Tourism Minister, but what is most interesting and what will be troubling National is that these comments came out at all.
As far as I can see, these are second hand comments coming to the media from a private business meeting with the well to do and white on the North Shore. Such meetings are held under Chatham House rules where the PM gets to mouth off in freedom without the information going anywhere near the media. Yet this has, and that is what’s interesting.
Perhaps the shine is coming off Key’s casual ‘I’m-comfortable-with-that’ routine in the eyes of people who know that there has to be a plan and not some bored teenager shrug of the shoulders.
What else is Mr Key saying to other business leaders in private and why aren’t the media privy to these meetings? Unless they are family events, I think the PM should always have media present when he’s speaking, just because it’s invite only shouldn’t mean a damned thing when he’s saying things like this to one part of NZ and speaking through the other side of his mouth with the rest of us.
Seeing as Mr Key has such a bad memory, we can’t trust him to remember what he’s said, necessitating a reliable narrative of what has been said being the Journalist.
While Mr Key is apologizing for saying that the Capital City is dying, the PM is rushing new spy powers through Parliament.
What Mr Key entertains with his left hand, he is stealing with his unnoticed right hand.
Is there any part of NZ that he’s not currently assaulting?
He’s giving Northland a Holiday Highway and pretending it’s not an insult but the massive path we need to economic development. Does that count?
Totally agree with the spirit of your argument.
But Wellington City is dying. It used to offer a cultural bubble that gave it more in common with much larger cities overseas like Manhattan than the hinterland which began where the motorway diverged between the Hutt Valley and Porirua. I think a lot of its creative energy has fled despite being sold as an arts city. A lot of this has to do with accommodation becoming too expensive for anyone who doesn’t have a good income. I visit reasonably regularly and the only shops, galleries etc there are still the same ones that were there 10, 15, even 20 years ago. New businesses open and then close six months later. The only thing that changes is there is always more places selling coffee. Still a lovely city with a great waterfront, but creatively quite stagnant with a diaspara of its previous creative inhabitants.
Agreed. I left because it was hard finding a job and the accommodation is expensive. Still have a soft spot for the old hometown though.
Key knows Wellington is dying because like the rest of the country he’s one of the murderers killing it over the decades. You know what his prescription to “turn it around” is; investment and plenty of it, particularly overseas investment. Maybe the airport can be entirely privatised along with whatever other public assets there are. After his visit to China, the Chinese Government bagged thousands of hectares of prime forestry land why not add a capital city? It can be renamed Wellingtong. Or since he’s rather generous to Hollywood maybe sell it off to US corporates? Wellywood can be the official name.
Maybe another way Key wishes to “revitalise” the city is by giving generous subsidies to corporations to keep or move their head offices there?
Key said the comments were in the context of the departure of major companies from Wellington over 30 years, especially corporate head offices, based on his experience living in the city.
“That’s put a lot of pressure on the infrastructure of Auckland. We need to work on making sure that the proposition is for them to stay here in Wellington … the banks have migrated, the dairy board used to be here, Fonterra has migrated. That’s been the pattern of those corporate head offices.”
Wellington City has been dying since the central police station opened near Jervois Key (Quay), where Telecom was housed in twin towers. The cops don’t trust commuters anymore to resolve conflict – thats why they alwats look so ill-tempered.
Key has his bolt hole organised and really could not care less what happens to any part of NZ.
When large quantities of excreta starts hitting the rotating device (later this year or in 2014) you won’t see Key for dust.
Judging from his attitude, he has probably completely forgotten about Dunedin and Invercargill – both literally and figuratively.
Shonkey has never cared less about Wellington, or any other city or region in NZ apart from Auckland. As far as he’s aware, Auckland IS NZ.
Nor does he have to worry about offending anyone because the electorate of Wellington Central doesn’t belong to National. He’s already expressed his lack of love for Wellington before and according to the writer of this pro National Govt, pro super city editorial Key is “underwhelmed” by our Capital
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/the-wellingtonian/opinion/8592591/Editorial-Is-Wellington-off-the-pace
Key is completely clueless, as we know, so this latest oddball remark is nothing extraordinary. Its just number 543 in a long list of arse things he has said over the years. I hope my fellow Wellingtonians don’t take it to heart. We know what our city is all about. Who cares if he doesn’t. With any luck he won’t be around too much longer to whinge about us.
We’ve got a way bigger problem than Key anyway. We’ve got the Ohariu electorate and by voting Peter Dunne we’ve let the entire country down. Getting rid of Dunne should be our prime concern come 2014
Not just the MSM though, actual government recorders that record everything he says that’s part of his job as PM which will be available, uncut, on Government TV before the end of the day. Along with his government emails (make it illegal for the PM or any minister or political party to use any other email for official business) and phone calls.
Make it so that we have full knowledge of what the government is doing in our name.
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