Key backs the bully, loses a good minister

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, August 19th, 2010 - 24 comments
Categories: act, john key, rodney hide - Tags: , ,

It’s clear now that John Key allowed one of the ministers he appointed to be bullied out of her job and replaced by a man chosen by Rodney Hide, and that he didn’t even ask Hide why. As more details emerge, it looks like Hide is the one in the wrong: he took sensitive ministerial documents out of Heather Roy’s office against her wishes and let his personal issues with her spill over into their ministerial work.

Will Key now discipline Hide and invite Roy, who has been acclaimed as a good minister in a bad bunch, back on board? Not likely. The guy’s barely awake these days.

But this story is far from over. And one of the issues is that the National/ACT confidence and supply agreement clearly states:

Heather Roy MP will be appointed to ministerial positions outside Cabinet. …

Mrs Roy will be appointed Minister of Consumer Affairs, Associate Minister of Defence and Associate Minister of Education.

It’s clear. The agreement says Roy is to be appointed a Minister. It doesn’t say the deputy leader of ACT is to be appointed. And that’s for a very good reason – if the agreement said ‘deputy Leader’ would allow ACT to make someone else a minister if they so choose, overriding the PM”s prerogative… kind of what happened.

Did neither Hide nor Key read the agreement before Hide and Boscawen muscled Roy out? If she argues she was forced to resign under duress, could she have a case to sue for her job back on the basis of the wording of the agreement?

24 comments on “Key backs the bully, loses a good minister ”

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  1. pollywog 1
    19 August 2010 at 11:17 am

    Hide and Key are so far beyond a joke it’s not even funny.

    I’m all for executing a brilliant Plan A with no Plan B as a back up. I figure, if you plan for every contigency you don’t need a back up, you just go through the motions and if needs be, adopt the exit strategy you’ve worked into Plan A.

    In some instances i’m all for winging it and making shit up as you go along. When you’re running a country though, you can’t just be flying by the seat of your pants from one crisis to another.

    You need Plans A all the way through to Z and back again. That Key and Hide don’t even have a Plan A worth shit, or a clue on how to get out of it when it hits the fan, is inexcusable and smacks of ineptitude.

    From Key to English to Joyce to Brownlee to Smith to Heatley to Tolley to Bennett to Te Heu Heu and lets throw in Hide’s mob and that Dunne bouffant, it’s been said we get the gov’t we deserve…

    …but for me, I deserve a hell of a lot better than these chumps.

    On topic though. I hope Roy sticks the terms of her employment in these clowns faces and fights for her right to party.

  2. Blighty 2
    19 August 2010 at 11:19 am

    it seems all you see of Key these days is the odd PR stunt or him shirking responsibility for something

  3. gobsmacked 3
    19 August 2010 at 11:57 am

    Labour have a question about all this for Wayne Mapp this afternoon. Good.

    But … they’ve given it to Pete Hodgson. Why?

    Is there nobody among Labour’s strategic masterminds who has any grasp at all of public/media perception? Do they seriously think the public out there say “Ooh, it’s that guy, he’s doing his usual thing, and he’s retiring at the next election, so let’s all sit up and pay attention?” What is in their heads?

    Labour should be tearing the government apart on this issue. It’s a gift. The only way to stuff this up is to have the old washed-up MPs like Hodgson leading the charge. So naturally, that’s what Labour are doing.

    Goff – pick your new team, dump your has-beens, and do it NOW.

    • Bored 3.1
      19 August 2010 at 12:20 pm

      Fat chance….bloody depressing as well.

    • Inventory2 3.2
      19 August 2010 at 2:45 pm

      gobsmacked – I’m listening to Hodgson making a meal of this now, and your fears were well-founded.

    • felix 3.3
      19 August 2010 at 2:59 pm

      “Pete Hodgson. Why?”

      Because he’s experienced in exactly the type of very careful, very deliberate, and very methodical questioning required in this situation in order to get the relevant statements on the record for further examination later.

      And contrary to what I2 says he did it well today – as he usually does – in spite of the govt hiding the relevant minister behind Brownlee.

      • comedy 3.3.1
        19 August 2010 at 3:01 pm

        I thought they chose him because he was going to deliver the question in rap form and break dance for effect.

        • Pascal's bookie 3.3.1.1
          19 August 2010 at 3:03 pm

          That’s coz you’re an idiot.

          I reckon they should just take up Nick k’s offer and say everything outside parliament and clear the air with everyone on the stand and under oath in a libel trial. But I’m a drama queen.

      • Carol 3.3.2
        19 August 2010 at 3:03 pm

        And also, others have been asking questions directed at government policy on employment etc and hammering them with that. I think it’s enough to keep the qus on the ACT issue going in a low key way.

  4. Bored 4
    19 August 2010 at 12:19 pm

    Surely Jonkey will realise that this represents a great photo opportunity, standing next to the newly announced Minister of Cycleway Affairs, Heather Roy, promoted to the job because she was the only NACT minister showing any ability (its all comparative remember). Roy promising her newly beloved leader a top delivery, at least 1 kilometer of pedal track by 2011. In the rear corner of the photo the dark brooding Hide glaring discontentedly at his Duce in front, plotting his overthrow……FFS they are all so useless.

    • burt 4.1
      19 August 2010 at 12:57 pm

      Why are they so useless – the bar was set so low by Labour that anything was an improvement in the minds of the voters.

      • Bored 4.1.1
        19 August 2010 at 1:04 pm

        And they have stepped under the bar with plenty of headroom to spare.

      • felix 4.1.2
        19 August 2010 at 1:29 pm

        Amazing.

        That has to be the ultimate burtism – that National are actually useless because of Labour.

        Not that it matters what I think, being such a partisan hack and all…

        • bbfloyd 4.1.2.1
          19 August 2010 at 4:53 pm

          i remember that old song from the last hootnanny i went to(tricked into it). the lead singer john goes yea we do bad things, but it’s labours fault!!! and the band chorus goes yeanaayeanaayeanaa!!
          and the audience nods wisely in time with the music.

          • roger nome 4.1.2.1.1
            19 August 2010 at 6:50 pm

            That’s crack up floyd:

            Can Burt pipe up from the crowd singing in a deep baratone:

            Is it labour bad, national good?- i’m getting confused

  5. JonL 5
    19 August 2010 at 1:21 pm

    With a corrupt, incompetent, blatantly self seeking government in power, providing a plethora of opportunities for any half-way decent ,organised, cohesive opposition to rip into them, what happens? Mainly…..nothing much….from Labour or the Greens!
    I really despair for the future of New Zealand, as, from the outside, it seems to be spiralling at increasing speed down the gurgler, into the pockets of egotistical self seeking power junkies….

  6. randal 6
    19 August 2010 at 1:25 pm

    jk said that he and heather roy shared the same beliefs.
    as we already know beleifs can be true or false whatever the beleiver believes.
    but what we really want from national are some principles.

  7. Rex Widerstrom 7
    19 August 2010 at 2:36 pm

    I’m surprised no one has dredged up a comparison between a National PM’s reaction the last time something similar happened, and now (at least not that I’ve seen).

    When Winston spat the dummy, Jenny Shipley took the view (the correct one, IMHO) that Ministers had been appointed to her cabinet on the basis of their supposed competence for the role and that they could therefore remain if they wished, provided of course they continued to vote with the government, respect Cabinet confidentiality etc etc. Some did.

    Of course my view of most who stayed is that they were incompetent venal fools. And I’d be surprised if that wasn’t Shipley’s view too. But in terms of the role of a Minister (traditionally an advisor, through the PM, to the monarch and not even required to be an MP, though traditionally always is) she behaved correctly.

    She certainly didn’t permit the leader of a minor party to dictate the composition of her Cabinet. But then I’d never have called Shipley “relaxed”.

    • felix 7.1
      19 August 2010 at 2:55 pm

      Good point.

      Of course the truth is that Key’s ministers – by and large – aren’t appointed on the basis of their competence for the role.

      They’re mostly appointed on the basis that they’ll do as they’re told in private and make the correct noises in public.

      Not Heather Roy though of course – she was appointed purely because the ACT/NAT agreement said she wold be.

  8. tc 8
    19 August 2010 at 2:52 pm

    Sideshow loses an intelligent capable person for a barking lamington headed loon….I think you’ll find that’s a big ‘whatever’ in his world as he doesn’t give an F beyond his PR image (for all you Nzilders not paying attention to the big picture) and share portfolio with all those alcohol and dairy interests.

  9. Jum 9
    19 August 2010 at 5:01 pm

    We know Key doesn’t like women in leadership positions.

  10. roger nome 10
    19 August 2010 at 6:56 pm

    oh yeah -“Darren Hughes is the son Helen Clark never had”. Or something along those lines. Key is just a power worshiping, repressed invert, mysogenist. No surprises there.

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