There are so many things wrong with the PMs months and months and months worth of harassment, it is difficult to know where to begin.
- The first is that no woman should have to put up with being repeatedly touched when they don’t wish to be touched.
- The second is that the Prime Minister of all people should never touch anyone without clear consent.
- The third is that no worker should be forced to put up with harassment in the workplace.
- The fourth is the gross imbalance of power between a Prime Minister and his security detail and a young woman working in a cafe.
- The fifth is that this has been going on since the election last year.
Vernon Small is devastating in his criticism..
Like most of us, Key likes to be liked – only more so. He might at some unconscious level have felt, given his “celebrity” status, that Amanda Bailey would have enjoyed the attention; could tell her mates “hey the prime minister is a regular in our cafe and has a running gag with me where he pulls my hair”.
Except on all the evidence she made it clear she didn’t and he not only didn’t pick up the signals but decided to shoulder past them in an appalling error of judgment.
Amid a welter of selfies, and an election campaign that defied the dirty laundry aired in public, it is easy to see why he and his Government have come to believe their own infallibility. When confidence is justified by consistently high polling it is easy to miss the signs of your own over-confidence.
And there have been indications aplenty of that in the few short months since the election, including an increasingly cavalier attitude to media questioning and public debate.
A surplus this year has gone from a touchstone of the Government’s economic performance to an artificial target akin to landing a 747 on a pin head. The public have no right to know the details of when troops leave for Iraq, even when the Australians reveal it for all to see. A promise of more spending in Northland becomes a casual “maybe” once the bridge building promise backfires. Transport Minister Simon Bridges seeking information from officials for what was a blatant political promise over the bridges was waved away and the Cabinet Manual dismissed as a mere guideline of correct procedure.
Using the GCSB to promote Trade Minister Tim Groser’s bid for the WTO job? Nothing to see here. The public just don’t care.
The latest surveys suggest all of these, and the ponytail incidents, have not damaged National’s standing a jot.
In truth it is too soon to tell. These things tend to build until a dam breaks, rather than play out as a linear erosion of support.
Too often the media are accused of a crying wolf over so-called “tipping points” for a government.
But this past week has definitely been a tipping point for Key’s personal mana.
What the Prime Minister did isn’t just illegal, or creepy, or beneath the role of leader of our country – it cuts to the very core of his privileged view of the world. This story has resonated the way it has because the tens of thousands of NZers who go to work each day and get abused and bullied and harassed saw the truth in what was said of the PMs behaviour and they have reacted angrily.
To appreciate how serious this is, look at how the Press Gallery are now speculating on the leadership.
The last Herald poll was taken before the full story had been released, watch for the next two to see if Key’s teflon has finally been scarred.
Good piece. When it’s taken into account that New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key actually changed the tactics of his ‘horsing around’ strategy to blame his wife, Bronagh, the cover of ‘I didn’t know she didn’t like it’ completely evaporated at that point. Yet, the serial harassment/assault/belittling of a person by the country’s second top official continued.
Where is the Governor-General in all this? Who fires the Prime Minister? The Attorney General, Chris Finlayson, a Minister in Key’s Cabinet?
For a cutting satirical take, see: A Serial Ponytail Yanker’s Lasso of Truth Interview at: http://snoopman.net.nz/?p=2727
@ Snoopman . You ask ” Where is the Governor-General in all this? ”
Exactly . Where is jerry ?? Until the American Corporates re name our country ” The McDonalds Islands ” the Crown and HRH QE 2 are our heads of state . So where is jerry ? I’d a thought some journalistic investigating would be nice to see what our Queens rep thought of stuff and things, but no . Why is that ??
One has to admit; there have been some pretty catastrophic shit storms sweeping over our beautiful country of the last one hundred years, starting with the WW1 debacle yet no mention of what the Crown had to say about , well, anything really . ( Apart from that fantastic piece by Chris Trotter suggesting the crown is in fact a mad pack of bastards and ancient Israelites . ( WTF ??? )
I’m going to ask jerry . I’ll write a letter and ask what he thinks . I’ll keep you posted .
Key = Global clown.
not holding my breath for the polls to show any change…
The PM is a reflection of the non-human business environment (money trading) that he was brought up in. Autocratic, egotistical and rich, now believing he is better than others who are just playthings, not people. We have a ‘casual and playful’ Prime Minister which is embarrassing and dangerous. Yet it does explain why Key and the government acts the way it does. i.e. A general lack of care and respect for others who aren’t rich or famous.
I found a new term today that begins to explain much about those with money, holding positions of political power. The Plutocrat. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/plutocrat
Good find Detrie, – Plutocracy, a Government of the rich essentially is what Key has fostered.
As you would expect of a multimillionaire to run a state in which the wealthy rule. He is driving us into a civil war between the rich and the deprived.
France 1886?
Plutocracy:
1. Government by the wealthy.
2. A wealthy class that controls a government.
3. A government or state in which the wealthy rule.
Yes ..but the point is Keys going down…..he’s fading like a ghost that’s had one too many years on this planet and going where ghosts go after they’ve had enough…
Like a drunk who’s so sloshed he keeps suckin on the bottle thinkin there’s more when its empty , y’know…you get the picture…
History. Goneburger.
And for those Key sycophants – total abject obliteration of their dark and murky little worlds….like the orcs who fell into the big cracks opening up when the eye of Mordor was destroyed…
For those of us who have long labored under the pernicious evil and lies from this man…a day so rapturous , a day of hope and light….and a day of remembrance upon liberation that we should never , ever take it for granted it cant happen here again.
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