For what it’s Worth

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, December 5th, 2012 - 23 comments
Categories: john key, richard worth - Tags:

John Key on whether Brendan Horan has the moral right to stay in Parliament: “I don’t think he would do if Winston Peters can really put up the arguments that he is that whatever he (Horan) has done is so bad that he deserves to be expelled from the party and has really bought (sic) Parliament into disrepute, but the issue is: can and will he prove that?”.

So, if you can work out what Key’s saying, it’s that Peters has to explain why he has fired Horan.

Can anyone say: Richard Worth?

Worth wasn’t just some nobody backbencher. He was a Minister of the Crown. Key drummed him out of the government and out of Parliament, and never ever told us why. Worth reminds the only Minister of the Crown ever fired without an explanation being provided to the public.

Please, let there be some journo or MP worth their salt who will repeat the above quote (or a more lucid version) back to Key and challenge him to apply the same standard to the Worth case. Unfortunately, it seems no-one in that stand-up thought to ask, but there’s plenty of opportunities in the next few days.

23 comments on “For what it’s Worth ”

  1. Blue 1

    Please, let there be some journo or MP worth their salt who will repeat the above quote (or a more lucid version) back to Key and challenge him to apply the same standard to the Worth case.

    You’re shit out of luck with the journos, they have the brains of goldfish. Perhaps an enterprising Green MP might take it up and spoonfeed the little darlings some quotes.

    • Populuxe1 1.1

      And for some reason the extreme left wonders why the media takes a somewhat jaundiced view of them. Quelle surprise. 

  2. I hear that Worth was drummed out of Parliament because [defamation protection filter on] while he was overseas he presented an invoice to the Malaysian Government for reimbursement for services [super duper filter on] #####.  [all filters off].  Key needs to get real.

    • toad 2.1

      My inside info is that it also had something to do with Worth being [deleted] when he was meant to be in a meeting at Parliament.

      I suspect there were multiple reasons, but poor form that Key never came clean on them.

      IrishBill: Let’s be a little more circumspect, eh?

  3. xtasy 3

    John’s “worth” or John’s “warts”, I ask!

  4. CnrJoe 4

    Worth was found to have ##### whilst remaining a $$$$4 – this wasn’t enough however to give Key the chance to buy back the %%@#$ so the worst best option he had was to remove him.
    You can have yr philters back now Mickey.

  5. Cato 5

    Why did you write [sic] when it seems you were transcribing a television interview when you could have just wrote “brought”? It wasn’t like you were transcribing from some written text produced by Key. Its not really typical to transcribe slight pronunciation errors – which goes against the principles of quiet copy editing.

    I mean, in substance your point is good but it’s at least somewhat marred by what looks like a petty editing decision. Don’t you think that that kind of gratuitous disparaging contributes to The Standard’s reputation as a cesspit when it comes to dialogue (justified or not).

    [Key clearly said ‘bought’, not ‘brought’. If you wanted me to try to interpret his words rather than transcribe them, I could have cleaned up the whole sentence into something resembling normal English syntax. Eddie]

    • Te Reo Putake 5.1

      “Don’t you think that that kind of gratuitous disparaging contributes to The Standard’s reputation as a cesspit when it comes to dialogue (justified or not).”

      No, because Key’s mangling of the English language is well known and topical and also because the Standard cannot rationally be considered a cesspit. Most comments are well written and well moderated. Your experience at other sites may vary.
       

    • felix 5.2

      It’s pretty important when quoting people like Key to quote what they actually say.

      They have a nasty habit of pointing to their odd little turns of phrase as evidence that they didn’t really say what you thought they said.

      • Te Reo Putake 5.2.1

        “I’ve lived a long time, I’ve been distorted, I’ve been misrepresented, and I’ve been quoted accurately – which is perhaps the most appalling.”

        Peter Cook.

        • Tigger 5.2.1.1

          Uh you should be thanking Eddie for making sense of Key’s manglish, god knows I couldn’t.

  6. aerobubble 6

    Key is incompetent, out of his depth again. Mad b*st*rd keeps mutter abut Labour and Green policies like they were going to be implemented very soon. Key is a gibbering wreak.

    Obviously, as a Labour MP on breakfast TV pointed out, we don’t want leaders brow beating their list MPs into towing the line but we also don’t want flawed opposition MPs remaining to give disgraced and hopelessly tired governments extra time in power (the whole point of Key’s hand out to Horan).

    Its obnoxious and sad how pathetic Key has become.

    • MrSmith 6.1

      “Its obnoxious and sad how pathetic Key has become.”

      And it’s only going to get worse for Key, Kim@com the gift that keeps giving will now be suing the GCSB as well as the police, is there a chance they could get Key called to the stand.

      • Treetop 6.1.1

        And do you think that ALL information archived/held at GCSB and NZ Police will be forwarded onto the Dotcom legal team?

        • MrSmith 6.1.1.1

          I have no idea Treetop, but Kim has a couple of very cunning Lawyers working for him and they will have a goal in mind monetarily, plus if they get the chance to make Key perjure himself in court then I suspect Kim might also shout another firework show for Auckland.

  7. tracey 7

    Of more interest is why Mr Key didn’t suggest that Peters could have avoided all this decision-making and ethical dilmena if he had just not bothered to read the evidence presented (as he did with banks).

    • Treetop 7.1

      Will Key read all info from GCSB and NZ Police re Dotcom just to make sure that GCSB and NZ Police do not drop Key in it?

      I have to give it to Justice Winkelmann in trying to get to the bottom of GCSB and NZ Police incompetence.

      • aerobubble 7.1.1

        Do you think that the former minister of mines moved sideways rather than giving up her ministerial titles, was foreshadowing Key’s own need to stay PM while passing on the
        security service ministry?

  8. I saw an interview with John Campbell a couple of weeks back where he attributed the recent success of his show to revisiting issues. Campbell Live has found that viewers want updates and want to see stories through to an acceptable conclusion. A story may continue to unfold over a matter of days, weeks, or even years.

    The success in revisiting stories could apply in cases like this. Too often, a politician makes a statement (like Key’s one above) that at the time seems acceptable, but in the light of further information, becomes questionable (in terms of hypocrisy in this case). If politicians could be brought to task on this, then it would cut down on them making such statements in the first place.

    The question, is how do you bring a politician to task on theses issues? Especially when it’s deemed to trivial for, and not fair to ambush them, in a prepared interview.

    Paddy Gower has proven himself effective in a stand-up situation. The means he has to go to can often be on the questionable side. But if a politician is prepared to make an off-the-cuff statement that in the light of day appears hypocritical, then I say sic ’em Paddy!

  9. Tracey 9

    Well, they did give coverage to Shearer’s stunt yesterday and played quite a bit of Key’s campaign nonsense about oz drift BUT our PM just said

    yup, they’re right, we have to work harder on that” and it seems t work…

    At the moment the Nat plan to compete with aussie higher wages (espesh minimum wage) is to, lower our wages…

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