John Key discovers new word. Country celebrates.

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 17 comments
Categories: humour, john key, Satire - Tags: , , , , , ,

This morning the DomPost ran an article by Tracy Watkins about several ministers misusing their ministerial credit cards for personal entertainment. They obtained the information by doing OIAs (Official Information Act requests). Now I’ve come to expect that NACT ministers will do (in John Keys words) “stupid” things in office. But what I found significant was that John Key appears to have discovered the use of a new word “disappointment”. This is a major advance for the NACT political vocabulary.

Previously he has been known to extensively use the word “relaxed” about most of the antics that his ministers get up to. However he has been known to use the word “concerned” on very special occasions – most notably when Richard Worth left office and eventually parliament for unknown reasons.

However we appear to be entering a new epoch where the Prime Minister is taking his duties to the country more seriously. He is now “disappointed” in the behaviour of his ministers using credit cards provided by taxpayers to pay for drinks and lunch. However since I think that he is in charge of his ministers, perhaps he should start getting disappointed in his own performance as well.

Labour leader Phil Goff said the improper use of the cards and the failure of Ministerial Services to challenge questionable spending indicated bad management by Mr Key.

“You can’t use your government credit card to buy wine for your National Party mates and put it on the governments bill. That’s quite clearly improper. John Key promised high standards from his administration. He now needs to deliver on that.”

Indeed…… Speaking of that copyrighted phrase, it will be interesting watching DPF spin this on behalf of the government.

The ministers in trouble are Phil Heatley the housing minister, and Gerry Brownlee, the minister in charge of mining conservation lands and large lunches. Gerry has surrendered his credit card, which will be a great relief to all taxpayers.

But it is good to see our current Prime Minister slowly expanding his vocabulary. Soon he may be able to articulate what he means for some of his great ideas in documents longer than small slogans like “3000 jobs from cycleway” and “north of fifty dollars a week in tax cuts” so we will be in a position to evaluate how well he is doing his job. But in reality one shouldn’t expect so much from our clueless prime minister.

17 comments on “John Key discovers new word. Country celebrates. ”

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  1. Rich 1
    23 February 2010 at 12:23 pm

    Strikes me that Brownlee could just have claimed that all that lunch was for his personal feeding and nobody would have ever suspected.

    [lprent: Cruel – but probably an accurate observation. He could try this high protein diet that Lyn has got me on… ]

  2. Santi 2
    23 February 2010 at 12:30 pm

    Acutually, what does Key do? Lazy to te extreme, he seems.

  3. gobsmacked 3
    23 February 2010 at 12:35 pm

    Phil Heatley, quoted in the Herald:

    “I should have known the rules much better around the credit card use, and it has cost me dearly.”

    Cost you what, Phil? Money? No. Your job? No. The Herald goes on:

    “Mr Heatley said he was doing a good job of overseeing his ministerial portfolios, including fisheries, and had not considered resigning.”

    I don’t think it’s a resigning matter myself, but spare us the violins, Phil. Doing a quick mea culpa is hardly a punishment.

    • Clarke 3.1
      23 February 2010 at 12:52 pm

      Of course it’s cost him dearly – apparently he had to repay the $70! And nothing defines a true Conservative like money – actually having to give money back to the taxpayer must have cut him to the quick.

  4. Pascal's bookie 4
    23 February 2010 at 12:37 pm

    Mr Brownlee said he had now returned his ministerial credit card “so there can be no future confusion over what is and is not ministerial business. I accept I have made a mistake and I have apologised to the Prime Minister”.

    ieck.

    it’s all fun and games making teh funnies about how conservatives tend to have a few bats free in the belfrey,

    and/or Freud camping in the back passage and what have you,

    but I’m not sure what’s weirder.

    Key treating his Cabinet like children, or his Cabinet treating him like daddy.

    • Tigger 4.1
      23 February 2010 at 1:07 pm

      You’d think they were puppies that peed on the rug… I can imagine he smacked them on the nose with a newspaper and put them outside for the night.

  5. Craig Glen Eden 5
    23 February 2010 at 12:37 pm

    Lprent you forgot Sloppy. Personally I think Sloppy describes these people better. Mr Sloppy leader of the sloppy and stupid cabinet.

  6. randal 6
    23 February 2010 at 1:08 pm

    new words eh?
    how about unambitious?
    (rod oram; rnz this morning).
    this is administration is fast becoming a government of small change artists and imcompetent air heads.

  7. Santi 7
    23 February 2010 at 1:31 pm

    And Farrar, National’s number 2 spin doctor, continues to earn his salary by defend the government.

  8. tc 8
    23 February 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Behold our fearless and respected PM….how many of his ministers have been caught either ignoring his directives, like free spouse travel o’seas, or pretending they made a mistake.

    All this and he’s re-written rules to accomodate Blinglish and co……all bow down before your leader says the PM…..certainly say the cabinet but where are crosby textor to comply.

  9. Andrew Geddis 9
    23 February 2010 at 3:35 pm

    @Santi: “And Farrar, National’s number 2 spin doctor, continues to earn his salary by defend the government.”

    At the risk of being, you know, fair to DPF, his comment on this was “This is basically unacceptable, no ifs, no buts.”
    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/02/ministerial_credit_cards.html

    And yes, yes – I know that had this happened under Labour it would have been evidence of the end of civilisation, but he DOES support National, you know!

    • lprent 9.1
      23 February 2010 at 5:45 pm

      Thanks for the link. I tend to not read much at KB these days. I did a scan today as I wrote the post, but obviously didn’t scroll down far enough.

      Don’t have the time to get around all of the blogs, email and facebook links I’d like. It interferes enough with work time already. KB has gotten a bit turgid without the dog-whistling available to the opposition, and the uber-partisan way that the sewer section operates means that the material in the posts doesn’t get turned over and examined in any detail. It is all a bit boring.

  10. Anne 10
    23 February 2010 at 5:21 pm

    This National cabinet would collectively be one of the wealthiest ever, yet some rip off the tax-payer by way of accomodation rorts, and others illicitly use government credit cards for personal spending. Do they get sacked? NO WAY.

    A former Labour PM donated a painting for charity. She was too busy running the country (heard that recently?) so she arranged for someone else to paint it for her. After all it was in a good cause. She was bawled out by all and sundry as though she had committed the ultimate in crimes. In another era when physical force as a form of punishment in schools was acceptable, an ex-Labour cabinet minister administered his version that wouldn’t be acceptable today. He was hounded out of office and parliament altogether.

    Talk about double standards!

  11. Anne 11
    23 February 2010 at 5:42 pm

    I should have included the fact that the Labour cabinet minister was hounded out of office… about twenty years after the incident occurred.

  12. aj 12
    23 February 2010 at 6:24 pm

    I guess they feel emboldened by the fact that blinglish goes the full monty when it comes to claiming allowances

  13. Anne 13
    23 February 2010 at 7:53 pm

    Saw Phil Heatley on TV tonight all but weeping into his hankie with remorse. What’s the bet the real reason was because he’d just had a bollocking from JK who probably told him to “go front the media and lay it on with a shovel.” Bear in mind this is the same cabinet minister who was implicated in the accommodation scam and who subsequently expressed his “deep remorse” only a few short months ago. He’s got a very short memory hasn’t he…

    Btw, is he related to the ultra rich Craig Heatley who – together with Alan Gibbs and a couple of others – bankrolled Act into existence and kept them solvent for the first few years?

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