Campbell and Hooton on do nothing Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 26th, 2010 - 23 comments
Categories: john key, national/act government, unemployment - Tags:

I can’t work out how to embed audio alone, so here’s a YouTube of Andrew Campbell and Matthew Hooton on the Key Government. Both agree that this government has done little and doesn’t appear to have a plan.

Campbell sums up Key’s record: “The NDU yesterday issued a challenge to the Government to do a stocktake on the Prime Minister’s much-heralded Jobs Summit. Well, there would be nothing to stocktake. What we’ve seen all of last year from John Key and the National Government is a series of set pieces, of photo opportunities, of the veneer of caring and do something. But, actually, more often than not they did nothing”

Indeed.

23 comments on “Campbell and Hooton on do nothing Key ”

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  1. James Barber 1
    26 January 2010 at 9:55 am

    Unforetunately this government has done ALOT and does HAVE A PLAN.
    It’s just plain evil.

    1. Remove mandatory Bio-fuels
    2. End 10 year moratorium against new thermal power stations
    3. Make complaints under the RMA cost $500
    (so only businesses can afford to make such complaints)
    4. Manipulate the NZ public on the use of sow crates(by calling for a review of the pig code in the year it was already set for review, but not change the law which allows continued abuse of farmed animals).
    5. Increase top-up payments for ACC physiotherapy
    (as a disincentive against people hurting themselves?????)
    6.Remove ACC coverage in cases of suicide.
    7. Commit to an emissions reduction target which was labeled inadequate by the international community.
    (resulting in the Guardian article slamming our 100% pure brand)
    This has put our tourism industry, worth 9.4% of GDP, at risk,
    8. Change the focus of NZAID from eliminating poverty to promoting economic growth.
    (so subsidised flights in the pacific can count as part of our aid program)
    9. 90 day period with new employees, where you can be dismissed with out being given any reason.

    Ok, does anyone have anything else?????

    • BLiP 1.1
      26 January 2010 at 10:42 am

      National Ltd® has been very busy on the environmental front too. Since November 2008 its:

      – defended internationally the importation of rain-forest-wrecking palm kernel and stood silent while Federated Farmers called Greenpeace “terrorists’

      – removed a proposed ban on incandescent lightbulbs

      – reversed a moratorium on building new gas/oil/coal power stations removed bio fuel subsidy

      – removed regulations for water efficient new housing

      – renewed leases on sensitive high country farms which were meant to return to DOC

      – proposed mining of national parks

      – gutted the home insulation scheme

      – pulled $300million out of public transport, walking and cycling schemes and added it to a pot of $2billion to ‘upgrade’ state highways

      – changed the law to provide billions of dollar in subsidies for polluters via the ETS casino

      – begun a process of gutting the Resource Management Act to make it difficult/impossible for the public to lodge appeals against developers and removed the rights of councils to have general tree protection

      – removed the ability of Auckland to introduce a fuel levy to fund planned public transport upgrades

      – left electrification of rail network up in the air without promised funding commitments

      – removed the Ministry for the Environment’s programme to make Government Departments ‘carbon neutral’

      – removed funding for public tv advertising on sustainability and energy efficiency

      – pulled funding for small-town public litter bin recycling schemes

      – and now has senior ministers supporting the bulldozing of Fiordland.

      Not many incentives for job creation in that portfolio.

      • Bored 1.1.1
        26 January 2010 at 1:22 pm

        Too true BLiP. I was fishing up near Woodville, the Mangatainoka and the Manawatu had black river beds despite reasonable flows, a tell tale sign of too much effluent from agricultural run off, mainly dairying. This is an area you could get a bag of spuds elected in if you pinned a blue rosette on it. Basically in big black eco words it said f**k the environment!

        So for your list above on environmental issues we can expect the Nats will give further carte blanche to the grass miners, the hole diggers and the dump it where ever industries, not to mention the trucking people taking stuff to be dumped. The buzzards will never pay the true cost (unless they can pass the clean up fee on to you and me).

  2. ghostwhowalksnz 2
    26 January 2010 at 10:16 am

    Add to Hooten & Campbell, Rodney Hide who says hes ‘sleepwalking’.

    But there was time to rewrite the regulations on Ministerial allowances for housing & vehicles

  3. randal 3
    26 January 2010 at 10:48 am

    how come nobody picked up on hootons remark that working for families is communism by stealth.
    on that line then every single person receiving working for families money is a communist.
    hooton has a whole repertoire of stock phrases that sound like he purchased a job lot from the john birch society.
    time to pin his ears back methinks.

    • bobo 3.1
      26 January 2010 at 1:36 pm

      Hooten saying oh well its just Labour people losing their jobs mostly, is way out of touch, alot of middle management and highly skilled overqualified people are out of work probably too embarrassed to even sign on to the benefit currently living off any savings they had, which I guess he assumes vote national..

      And no one in Labour seems to attack Bill English’s catchline : “oh they weren’t real jobs anyway”.

      Labour has had its year “time out” in the naughty chair in the public minds, I want to see more attack from them this year because this sleepwalking Gov is having it way too easy, compare it to poor Obama who looks like he could be a 1 term wonder but America was in far worse shape to begin with.

      • rainman 3.1.1
        26 January 2010 at 2:07 pm

        It’s not embarrassment. It’s because WINZ doesn’t have any interest in engaging until you’re on the bones of your arse. Although that might be behaviour by design, of course.

    • felix 3.2
      26 January 2010 at 2:10 pm

      on that line then every single person receiving working for families money is a communist

      Nah, they’re all victims of communism.

  4. tc 4
    26 January 2010 at 10:56 am

    Perhaps the MSM is waking up to the fact that by being objectively critical of NACT people may just tune in and keep tuned in…..good for ratings and business……maybe there’s hope after all.

    • Craig Glen Eden 4.1
      26 January 2010 at 12:22 pm

      Have to agree with all above accept the changes to Physio, that in my view is the one and only good thing they have done. That was a true rort and Physios made hay while the sun shined. Notice to this service was used/ exploited by the wealthy.
      The other interesting thing is Key was a sleep at the summit as the picture shows, he actually nods and wakes himself up.
      I was bemused on two accounts. One he was so new in the job but it was obviously taking its Toll. Two none of the media even commented on it.

      If this had been Helen we would have had it played time and time again and all sorts of muck would have been thrown as to why she was tired.

      Key is lazy and weak its only a matter of time before the worm turns.

  5. randal 5
    26 January 2010 at 1:49 pm

    hey bobo.
    obama looks like he is doing it hard but the people of America really like him.
    on the other hand everybody think quay is the goods but the he is about to get derailed shortly.

    • Zaphod Beeblebrox 5.1
      26 January 2010 at 2:21 pm

      You know a government’s in trouble when they start resorting to tough-on-crime stunts. Next we’ll see a bit of political triangulation where they pick on an easy to pick on minority group (property developers, banks, SOEs, immigrants low paid workers) followed by a few media stunts like John Key skydiving, charity walk or perhaps a high profile wager with Kevin Rudd. Gives the meda something to talk about.

      • mike 5.1.1
        26 January 2010 at 4:40 pm

        Yep ZB they are really in trouble. Im surprised there hasnt been a snap election called yet…

        • Zaphod Beeblebrox 5.1.1.1
          26 January 2010 at 6:55 pm

          Nice sarcasm. I’d describe them as slightly low on ideas at the moment, not really in that much trouble yet.

    • bobo 5.2
      26 January 2010 at 7:17 pm

      Randel I just hope Obama doesn’t end up a lame duck president like Clinton did and isn’t America in worse shape now than they were in 98 so I guess the public will be less patient for change and blame who ever is in charge? America has outsourced so much over the past 30 years and become such a service based economy I cant see where their growth for jobs will come from in the near future without another bubble or reliance on borrowing.

      • lprent 5.2.1
        26 January 2010 at 7:18 pm

        What about Bush? That was a really lame duck pres…

        The master of the inappropriate response.

        • bobo 5.2.1.1
          26 January 2010 at 7:43 pm

          Bush jnr got what he wanted passed though, the war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, he couldn’t think of much else to do for the rest of the 8 years 🙂

          The American system does seem to be in a constant hung parliament though, with it’s senate and congress it seems impossible to get any landmark policies passed within a reasonable time frame. I just hope Obama can scrape the Healthcare package through, will be his legacy if he can without watering it down so much its just the same thing as it is now.

  6. Kevin Welsh 6
    26 January 2010 at 6:27 pm

    I was watching SunRise this morning and in the interview with Linda Clark, she admitted that the media had been soft on Key since the election and couldn’t believe that the media had not questioned Key on why he lied about the SAS.

    Hopefully the MSM are finally “getting it” and we can see Key taken to task a lot more this year.

  7. Jimnald 7
    26 January 2010 at 10:55 pm

    Relentlessly focused on jobs? Really? Who is … not the Government?

    More and more people I know are made redundant, agreed to go part-time as a work arrangement to weather the storm for the coming months, or have taken wage cuts/freeze.

    One of my friends said today he should be saving up to take a one-way ticket out of the country on one of Air New Zealand’s new beds in Economy class!

    The Job Summit ’09 now looks like it was a Joke Summit.