Key committed to [insert your priority here]

Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, January 23rd, 2010 - 31 comments
Categories: john key, national/act government - Tags:

Last week: “Prime Minister John Key said the Government’s major theme in 2010 would be improving New Zealand’s economy”

Today: “He said his almost exclusive focus this year was to improve educational standards in the country”

Next week: An unrelenting focus on whatever you want him to pretend to care about today

I guess he can promise to focus on whatever he likes when he’s going to do nothing anyway. Of course, it’s made easier by the fact the media don’t hold him to any promise he makes (3,400 cycleway jobs, anyone?).

Meanwhile, the Right is getting increasing frustrated. They love the poll ratings but they hate the do nothing approach that has preserved Key’s popularity. They got him elected to advance their agenda, not to tell jokes and grin, as yet another of Granny Herald’s rightwing commentators admits with startling frankness:

Probably more surprising is that Key has turned out to be quite good at smiling politely, making goofy jokes and pretending to be an ordinary bloke.

But the populist act is wearing thin for many of his core supporters who fear the window of opportunity for making significant structural change is slipping by.

So one suspects it is on the issue of tax reform that Key and his team will have to bite the bullet and upset a few potential voters. If not they risk alienating many of the people who helped put them in to power.

This is supposed to be a centre right Government after all.

31 comments on “Key committed to [insert your priority here] ”

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  1. BLiP 1
    23 January 2010 at 2:22 pm

    He’s sort of the political equivalent of a Happy Mealâ„¢: well packaged, promoted by clowns appealing to children, there’s hints at extra treats tucked inside, yet over priced, ultimately unsatisfying, leaves behind a pile of rubbish, and bad for your health.

    • Morgan 1.1
      23 January 2010 at 2:38 pm

      Well said. A good analogy.

    • mike 1.2
      23 January 2010 at 7:28 pm

      Well put Blip you have captured the arrogance and elitist bullshit that doomed the labour party very nicely..

      • BLiP 1.2.1
        23 January 2010 at 8:32 pm

        Face it, Mikey: once people like you have thrown the branding and packaging out the window, all you’re left with is a mini-burger, a wee bag of fat-saturated spud, a spot of frozen vanilla-flavoured chicken fat, and a dollar-shop toy that’ll be broken before you get home. Perhaps reality is an arrogant, elitist concept to you, accepted. For the rest of us its a sad state of affairs with that PR confection amusing himself during retirement by playing politics on the 9th floor, when he’s not on holiday, of course.

        • mike 1.2.1.1
          23 January 2010 at 8:43 pm

          Whats with the Macphobia Blip – have you had the shit kicked out of you by a tall clown as kid or like other pinko’s does anything successful just repulse you?

          • BLiP 1.2.1.1.1
            23 January 2010 at 8:53 pm

            Using common experiences, such as a visit to McDonalds, as analogies make it easier for right wingers to understand how you’ve been duped by the marketing department, again. As difficult as it is for you to accept, Mikey, you’ve been sold a dud. You have my sympathy, you really do. In this case, however, your anger and bile would be better directed at those who fooled you rather than those who are stripping back the veil. Your life in the National Ltd® Truman Show is coming to an end.

          • RedLogix 1.2.1.1.2
            23 January 2010 at 9:07 pm

            Actually it may interest youto know that MacD’s is not a food company. It’s actually one of the biggest property investors around.

            Makes it’s real money buying and selling commercial real estate; the hamburger flipping is simply to generate just enough cashflow to pay the overheads.

            • mike 1.2.1.1.2.1
              23 January 2010 at 9:11 pm

              there you have it …pure evil 🙂

              • IrishBill …
                23 January 2010 at 9:27 pm

                I see you’re drinking by yourself and trolling the standard for your Saturday night kicks Mike.

                I’d ban you for failing to make a contribution of any kind but that would be unfair; you contribute a fine example of the witless right.

          • Mac1 1.2.1.1.3
            23 January 2010 at 10:33 pm

            Mike, nah, just small , footling matters like taste and value for money, and other left-wing pinko concerns.

            For heaven’s sake, McDonalds can’t even design a chip carton that won’t fall over, spilling its contents. Design before function, style before substance. A bit like National Ltd, as Blip says, so aptly.

            And they tried to claim Mac as a name, the johnny come lately nouveau parvenus, over us what have been Macs for a thousand years.

            Spam word ‘manipulation”. How does it know?

    • Jimnald 1.3
      23 January 2010 at 8:37 pm

      Spot on, BLiP. You’re describing how he is macdonaldising political leadership. Over time, gullible citizens will turn into couch voters. Haha!

  2. RedLogix 2
    23 January 2010 at 2:56 pm

    So one suspects it is on the issue of tax reform that Key and his team will have to bite the bullet and upset a few potential voters.

    Actually the tax reforms proposed will alienate a very broad swathe of middle Toryland. The very wealthy who will benefit most are numerically tiny (athough still able to wield disproportionate influence in various ways), whereas if the changes around property crash the market, there won’t be a lot of folk lining up to thank the Nats for it.

    If the Land Tax for instance takes 15% off property values, as some have suggested, it’s a direct hit on the equity of 70% of kiwis who do own their home.

    • burt 2.1
      23 January 2010 at 3:50 pm

      If the Land Tax for instance takes 15% off property values, as some have suggested, it’s a direct hit on the equity of 70% of kiwis who do own their home.

      Fortunately for National, or perhaps unfortunately for Labour who took the status quo option, if 15% is wiped off property values the resulting increase in affordability (largely caused by landlords selling off to invest elsewhere) will be appreciated by many more people than it hurts.

      • RedLogix 2.1.1
        23 January 2010 at 5:16 pm

        if 15% is wiped off property values the resulting increase in affordability (largely caused by landlords selling off to invest elsewhere) will be appreciated by many more people than it hurts

        Well no. Landlords are long term investors. Most have entered the business with the expectation that it will take 10-15 year to become cash flow positive. For most it is their hope that it will supplement their superannuation in retirement. They will only sell if they are absolutely forced to do so.

        If the changes are so badly thought out that they actually force many investment properties onto the market and prices crash, it will hurt almost everyone in the market, not just investors.

        The average home is sold every 5 years, people buy and sell for perfectly good reasons all the time… but if the market deflates badly, it wipes out everyone’s equity, no-one can raise the 20% deposit required and everything grinds to a horrible halt.

        The only people who benefit would be first time buyers, who are in any given year only a very small (<5%) portion of total buyers.

        Besides…exactly where else do you suggest landlords invest? Most of us choose property because all the alternatives are outside of our control and far too risky.

      • burt 2.1.2
        24 January 2010 at 11:24 am

        Besides exactly where else do you suggest landlords invest? Most of us choose property because all the alternatives are outside of our control and far too risky.

        The landlord argues against changes in tax that might devalue his investment….

        May I suggest this very old saying is applicable here;

        “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session’

        Property is currently very risky, completely outside of your control and probably about to loose it’s special vote winning status of having tax free gains.

  3. burt 3
    23 January 2010 at 3:52 pm

    Hell Key is just a say what you want to hear politician, next thing he will be saying is he is going to fix health and education and get the economy moving and get us back into the top half of the OECD.

  4. Draco T Bastard 4
    23 January 2010 at 4:59 pm

    This is supposed to be a centre right Government after all.

    hahahahaha

    Oh, god, what a laugh. National is a radical right political party. Labour is centre right.

    • Dean 4.1
      23 January 2010 at 7:29 pm

      “Oh, god, what a laugh. National is a radical right political party. Labour is centre right.”

      I’d like to visit the planet you live on sometime.

      • IrishBill 4.1.1
        23 January 2010 at 7:40 pm

        You obviously have no idea of either international politics or political history, Dean. I suggest you educate yourself a little before you comment here again. It will save you from further embarrassing yourself.

      • Morgan 4.1.2
        23 January 2010 at 8:11 pm

        Its called Earth. You should visit sometime!

      • mike 4.1.3
        23 January 2010 at 8:20 pm

        Its a scary,dank pink planet Dean inhabited by Che Guevara look-a-likes who never leave university..

        These clowns would also argue that the Australian Labor Party and the US democrats are left of our Nats!

        • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1.3.1
          24 January 2010 at 7:52 am

          Obamas health care plan is very similar to ACTs. So its the us democratic party that is to the right

  5. illuminatedtiger 5
    23 January 2010 at 5:39 pm

    How dare you attack our ambitious, optimistic and relaxed Prime Minister. He may be a moron but he’s going to make us all rich! It must be true, I heard it on talkback.

  6. Morgan 6
    23 January 2010 at 8:08 pm

    Its called Earth. You should visit some time.

  7. George.com 7
    23 January 2010 at 9:06 pm

    Relentless focus on jobs ?

    ROTFL.

    rob

  8. Paul Williams 8
    24 January 2010 at 5:58 am

    Labour meanwhile are focusing strongly on an on-line strategy that has Facebook at its heart in order to thunder back into power some time in the next 15 years +/- 10yrs.

    ROFL, ROFL, ROFL.

  9. Santi 9
    24 January 2010 at 8:36 am

    Key focused on: Granting more contracts to Curia (owned by David Farrar)?

  10. tc 10
    24 January 2010 at 10:20 am

    It’s intruiging to observe the NACT backers getting twitchy about this woefully incompetant gov’t they’ve installed, via their control of the MSM assissted by a somewhat tired Labor that simply lost its way in the 08 campaign.

    They know bugger all’s been done on their agenda and what will or has been ‘accomplished’ will be their downfall…… Supercity/rising ACC /education cuts to give more to private schools/dodgy legislation passed under urgency/Paula Bennett etc etc

    It’s a running with scissors gov’t with few geniune talented hardworking ministers, that’s why jack all gets done…..you have to work hard to effect change

    So no work ethic/ability as demonstrated by the PM just a relentless focus on limos/trips/photo op’s leaving the hard yards to be undertaken by the likes of wodney or taking credit for infrastructure projects that were well underway before they came to power.

  11. Macro 11
    24 January 2010 at 7:48 pm

    Personally the less he does the better! Less stuff ups to clean up by the next administration! Almost everything this shower have enacted is a step in the wrong direction – so the less he does the better in my opinion.

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