Answers still needed from Key

Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, June 19th, 2009 - 20 comments
Categories: blogs, john key, richard worth - Tags: ,

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 something where there is no great mystery. The other part of me thinks that that if Key had handled questions over this differently, there wouldn’t be a mystery in the first place. Therefore he needs to clear it up.

My view is that Worth was forced out as internal affairs minister because Key had just had enough of his trouble-prone MP; he was fed up with the distraction, had probably sought assurances from Worth that there was nothing more in his private life to embarrass the government and been assured that was the case, when it clearly wasn’t…

…The problem is that Key felt the need to distance his loss of confidence in Worth from the police investigation into a Korean business woman’s complaint of sexual offending. So he told reporters that he had lost confidence in Worth for unspecified reasons unrelated to the investigation and that he couldn’t go into those for fear of “contaminating” the police investigation.

Now that Worth’s gone from Parliament for good, it seems that there is no real fear of this being the case but Key has decided that as a private citizen Worth is entitled to his privacy…

…Frankly, that doesn’t wash. Worth was a government minister. He was effectively sacked – for unspecified reasons. We are entitled to know that there was not a more serious reason behind his sacking and that there is no suggestion of a sweetheart deal to keep it quiet if Worth resigned. I don’t believe for a minute that’s the case but all this faffing around over whether or not the reason will ever be revealed will give rise to all manner of conspiracy theories… Key is quite within his rights to deal with the matter in the way he has. But he might come to regret not handling questions differently down the line.

The question isn’t ‘why should Key tell us?’. It’s ‘why shouldn’t he?’ We’ve been given no good reason. He should come clean with the public.

20 comments on “Answers still needed from Key ”

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  1. Graeme 1
    19 June 2009 at 2:26 pm

    For some reason, Tracey Watkins’ blog is hidden away deep within the Stuff website, far from the other blogs.

    The blog is a DomPost blog rather than a Stuff blog.

    Doesn’t make much sense to me, either.

  2. Ianmac 2
    19 June 2009 at 2:26 pm

    I wonder if John Key panicked at the outset and made a nonsense decision and that all that followed was a consequence of that first step. Thus is it better to come clean and face the ridicule/loss of confidence OR should he just clam up and leave it all as a mystery?

  3. Maynard J 3
    19 June 2009 at 2:27 pm

    Yeah what is with that? Espiner protecting his turf? (just joking, Colin!)

  4. Maggie 4
    19 June 2009 at 2:44 pm

    Tracey spent far too much time around last year’s election fawning over John Key to have much credibility left.

    • Murray 4.1
      19 June 2009 at 2:48 pm

      I guess if she fawned over phill goff (heaven forbid), she would have heaps of credibility

      • Ianmac 4.1.1
        19 June 2009 at 2:53 pm

        Or her “fawning over John Key” failed to win her a job with Key’s increased Publicity Department.

      • Maggie 4.1.2
        19 June 2009 at 3:35 pm

        Murray, given that Goff wasn’t a party leader at the last election, fawning over him was hardly an option. Fawning over HC was likely to get your head bitten off.

  5. Merlin 5
    19 June 2009 at 3:08 pm

    I thought all the punters out in punterland were picking her to get a job in his office.

    Anyhoo, she makes good points. All so easily cleared up. No good reason not to do it.

  6. terry 6
    19 June 2009 at 3:22 pm

    the question shall be asked until answered….it may die down….but when the police have done their thing…it is back on page one……

    key has bad political management…….bill seems to standing in for him more and more….

  7. josh 7
    19 June 2009 at 3:28 pm

    i saw on the front page of the christchurch press earlier this week that the lawmakers want to drop the sex education at schools to the age of 9. personally i think thats a bit young to be teaching vonurable children about those sorts of things but i guess nz politicians seem to like them young these days. im speaking for all children when i say that they arent interested in your dirty little sex industry.

    • Marty G 7.1
      19 June 2009 at 3:34 pm

      josh; why don’t you make your own blog and write about it then, rather than trying to thread-jack ours?

      I know I shouldn’t respond but here’s the facts: sex education doesn’t increase sexual activity, sex education does lead to higher use of safe-sex methods, kids are going into puberty at younger ages, the sex-ed for 9 year olds will be at basic levels and it’s better they are given a good education in it than just what they pick up on the play ground, it’s got nothing to do with the sex-industry, nothing.

  8. Merlin 8
    19 June 2009 at 3:36 pm

    I just really don’t understand the Right’s defending of this. It’s not OK for a PM to keep the reason for sacking a minister secret. It’s just not.

    • Anita 8.1
      19 June 2009 at 4:45 pm

      It depends on the nature of the reason as the individual’s privacy is important.

      It would be, for example, ok IMHO to say “the Minister has recently been diagnosed with an illness which it is believed will soon cause significant impairment, and chose to resign before it interfered with work. I am confident that the Minister’s work was not in any way affected before the resignation. Yes, given the gravity of the impairment I would have have sacked the Minister if there had been no resignation.” It would not, however, be ok to discuss the detail of the illness and the impairment.

      I wonder if Key is bad at drawing and maintaining those lines: that once he started to give the ok bit of the explanation he wouldn’t be able to stop at the line, and then stay stopped. One thing that struck me about the whole Worth saga is how many times Key let slip just a little bit more, and more, and more. If he had drawn a line and stuck to it he would have looked strong and the media would’ve stopped trying to get just another little bit more.

  9. Maggie 9
    19 June 2009 at 3:37 pm

    It’s all b/s. Today’s kids should learn about sex behind the bike sheds like my generation did.

  10. Maggie 10
    19 June 2009 at 3:38 pm

    Do schools still HAVE bike sheds?

  11. Pascal's bookie 11
    19 June 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Do schools still HAVE bike sheds?

    Yep, the teachers need somewhere to smoke.

  12. Idiot/Savant 12
    19 June 2009 at 4:01 pm

    Key’s reasons are information held by a Minister. We can OIA them. Interestingly, if we do so, we apparently have more right to an answer (and an explanation for a refusal) than an MP asking a Parliamentary Question does.

  13. Craig Glen Eden 13
    19 June 2009 at 4:34 pm

    Josh intermediate kids get taught pubertal change, they don’t get sex education!

    Most parents who get funny about this litle topic don’t want to talk to their kids about wearing under arm hygiene, the female menstrual cycle and boys with wet dreams.

    So don’t panic despite what Radio Rhema tells you budy sex education in primary schools isn’t happening and as Marty said stop trying to change the thread.

    Ianmac you could be right maybe Key got to clever and it has all just unraveled.
    What ever the reason it is certainly going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

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