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Brain fade: an incomplete history of Key’s selective forgetfulness

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:18 am, October 5th, 2012 - 57 comments

Frankly Speaking has a nice compilation of some of John Key’s “brain fades” in the last couple of years. Funnily enough, it tends to be that the things he forgets are his direct linkages to government embarrassments – Dotcom, SkyCity, the new BMWs, the Mediaworks bailout, the credit downgrade. To Frank’s list, you can add the Tranzrail shares and probably many more.

One video exposes Key, GCSB’s & Banks’ Dotcom lies

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:35 am, October 4th, 2012 - 115 comments

Watch this video of John Key being interviewed by the media on January 24th. 1: Key is clearly well-briefed on Dotcom. 2: he knows that Dotcom is a resident, so why didn’t he raise that a month later with GCSB? 3: How did Key know that Dotcom was a resident and GCSB didn’t? 4: Banks has told media he had dined at the mansion with Dotcom – months before denying remembering that meeting.

Planet Key receding from reality at light speed

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:03 am, October 3rd, 2012 - 37 comments

Law enforcement on Planet Key must be a strange business: “Mr Key says he called in the police on the teapot tapes because he wanted to find out if there had been an offence. He argues Dotcom is different, because his Government has already admitted what it did was unlawful.” So, what do the Planet Key Police do they do when they catch a crim? Tag him and let him go?

Update: Breaking news – we all expected this didn’t we – Key was briefed on the Dotcom case in February.

Key changes tune, orders GCSB review

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:15 am, October 2nd, 2012 - 71 comments

Last week, Key tried to tell us that the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom – which he, the minister, we’re supposed to believe wasn’t told about for 8 months – was down to one agent’s ‘brain fade’. Uh huh. So, why has he now appointed a senior public servant to review and reform GCSB? You don’t do that when the problem was one person’s human error.

[Update: Lol at Key. Police are launching a high powered inquiry after he said there was no need for one]

On Planet Key, the market always provides

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:16 am, October 1st, 2012 - 16 comments

We’re told 36,000 workers are needed for the Christchurch rebuild. But since the earthquakes began 2 years ago, 9,000 people with the skills needed for the rebuild have left New Zealand. We’re making no effort to keep the skilled workers we have but the Government thinks those 36,000 workers will just magically appear when needed.

Roofpainter II: Son of the bride of the monster roof painter

Written By: QoT - Date published: 7:00 pm, September 30th, 2012 - 126 comments

David Shearer still doesn’t get why judging beneficiaries from across the road isn’t compatible with leading the Labour Party.  QoT perseveres in trying to explain it to him, using short words.

Shearer Says

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 5:03 pm, September 28th, 2012 - 60 comments

David Shearer’s weekly e-newsletter, this week on privatisation, jobs, and Dotcom.
We’re happy to post similar newsletters from other opposition leaders – our email is on our contact page.

What does Key have to gain by lying?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:52 am, September 27th, 2012 - 138 comments

John Key put on a display of incompetence in the House yesterday over the Dotcom spying affair. He claimed not to know a laundry list of basic facts that, if he didn’t know them before, he bloody well ought to have been briefed on by now. In some instances, his memory failed him over Dotcom. Yet he then showed he could recall exchange rates from 20 years ago. I think he’s lying. The alternative is too scary.

Many questions left unanswered in Banks affair

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:54 am, September 26th, 2012 - 43 comments

“Ignorance gets us nowhere”, it’s National’s new slogan and it certainly applied with Key’s feigned ignorance in answer to questions on Banks’ corruption last week. Key’s behaviour is jeopardising our reputation as a democracy that doesn’t tolerate corruption. And he’s got a lot of questions still to answer. Two particularly interesting angles are what exactly […]

John Banks Body

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:33 am, September 24th, 2012 - 7 comments

I did not have relations with that police report!

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:24 am, September 21st, 2012 - 51 comments

What exactly did John Key mean when he said on 31 July – “That is my reading of the police report”?

Banks and Dunne vote down minimum wage

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:49 am, September 20th, 2012 - 51 comments

David Clark’s private member’s Bill to increase the minimum wage was voted down 61 to 59 last night. Shame on John Banks and Peter Dunne.

ImperatorFish: Next Week’s Q&A

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:05 am, September 19th, 2012 - 7 comments

Shane: …he revealed a meat cleaver from beneath his suit jacket and charged into the front row of the audience yelling “die, you meddlesome crones!” Had he not tripped and fallen over there could have been a bloodbath. Isn’t that a serious incident?
John: That may be the view of some people. But I’ve sought an assurance from Gerry, and he has told me he did nothing wrong. If a minister tells me, “This is my position, and this is what I’ve done,” I accept their word in good faith, unless it’s proven otherwise.

Journey to Planet Key

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 6:40 am, September 19th, 2012 - 58 comments

In the House yesterday, Metiria Turei threw National’s ‘Planet Labour/Planet Green’ line back at Key, asking if ordinary people get to break the law too or if that privilege is reserved for ministers on Planet Key. Like all little bullies, Key couldn’t take it back. He lashed out and, like Romney’s fatal gaffe the same day, it exposed something of Key’s real world view.

Media: call it as it is

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 11:56 am, September 14th, 2012 - 6 comments

It’s a regular gripe of mine about our media that they don’t establish facts. I don’t find the “he said, she said” reporting style in the slightest bit helpful, and indeed encourages us, the public, to see all news as gossip and reduces our respect for our system.
So when John Key says that “John Banks hasn’t broken the law,” he’s lying: tell us that.