Key lashes out at random

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, October 17th, 2009 - 16 comments
Categories: john key, Media - Tags: ,

Key looks like a PM under pressure. He’s started lashing out at random – never a good sign. It happened while discussing Melissa Lee’s repayment of $80,000 of taxpayer’s money that she had somehow managed to forget that she had. (Yes I know – that sort of thing happens to me all the time too.) John Key said this:

Maybe that reflects badly on NZ On Air, which thinks that the way that it should respond to these things is by leaking them to the Labour Party, without having the courtesy of sending the letter in the first place to Melissa Lee.

So how did Key know that NZ On Air leaked to Labour? Unless he can produce the evidence, he didn’t. He just made that up on the spot. Lying and misleading the house. As Russell Brown put it in an interview on Radio Wammo (9 minutes in, hat tip BLiP):

The thing that really struck me was John Key was asked about it in the house and he stated as fact that NZ on Air had leaked this to the Labour Party. And it’s not true. Jane Wrightson I thought was quite restrained about it and said well you know if you look at the annotations on the leaked document it clearly hasn’t come from us, it looks very much like it’s come from the screen production community. …

It was a ridiculous allegation to make, I don’t know what he was thinking. Talk about poisoning the relationship between yourself and your own funding agency. I don’t know what he was thinking saying that.

And commentary in The Herald:

Media: Government media policy in a tangle

The wheels are falling off National’s “no wurries mate” media policy. That was revealed in John Key’s bizarre accusation in Parliament this week claiming New Zealand On Air had leaked material about Melissa Lee…

So what’s up John? Do you have any evidence at all for your claim, or were you just lashing out at random?

[Update: Red Alert fills in some more details.]

16 comments on “Key lashes out at random ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. RedLogix 1
    17 October 2009 at 9:07 am

    Not so much under pressure r0b, as not on top of his job.

  2. Armchair Critic 2
    17 October 2009 at 9:42 am

    Maybe the government should apply Paula’s precedent and give us the full story, without further prompting.
    Where are the “it’s taxpayer money, I have the right to know” crowd now? With their approach there would have been no need for leaks, and JK could have remained relaxed.

  3. Tom Semmens 3
    17 October 2009 at 10:15 am

    Didn’t you know the rich and powerful are always being held back by a conspiracy of haters?

  4. randal 4
    17 October 2009 at 11:23 am

    thats the way things work at New Zealand Ink. my way or the hi-way.

  5. Adrian 5
    17 October 2009 at 11:34 am

    Is DonKey actually admitting ” I’m laxed about that” most of the time instead of his often missquoted ‘relaxed’.

  6. quoffer 6
    17 October 2009 at 11:57 am

    “I’m laxed about that’

    Sounds like Peter Davis urban legend to me.

  7. Christopher Nimmo 7
    17 October 2009 at 11:58 am

    To be fair, randomly accusing an organisation of leaking documents is still a step above claiming that your emails were stolen.

  8. burt 8
    17 October 2009 at 12:10 pm

    rOb

    I agree, this is a disgrace. These individuals, and Key by condoning it, are rorting the tax payers. But you know how this works rOb, how it’s always been done. Money is allocated to a task, the task is delivered and the spare money is just chucked onto some other task that has overrun. A big game of swings and roundabouts and no accountability for what is really going on.

    Which when you look at it boils down to; Well that’s how it happens when it’s other peoples money and it’s the way it’s always been. The ref made a bad call saying the unspent money should be returned in this instance and this precedent will add significant administrative burden to all public funding bids now that a refund precedent has been set.

    Ya think Key will just validate it?

    captcha:FIXED

    • Pascal's bookie 8.1
      17 October 2009 at 12:26 pm

      Actually, I think the ref said that this isn’t ‘always done’. It was unusual.

      ACT seem comfortable in coalition with these guys, I’m a bit surprised. One would think that all the voters that were convinced to vote for them due to their highly principled campaign against Winston Peters would be very upset. Particularly those that felt that because Peters was in Coalition with Labour, then Labour was also just as guilty as he (if not more so), basing this argument on the idea that ignoring alleged corruption because of politics was itself corruption.

      Hide has been conspicuous in his silence for some many months on a variety of issues. His campaign against the “Peters/Clark” government now looks like pure politic; lying to poorly informed, naive but well intentioned voters. He doesn’t give a shit about corruption if the corrupt are giving him power. Those principled voters must be really pissed. They should speak up about this, much more than about Labour/Peters, lest they look like partisan hacks.

      Don’t you think?

      • burt 8.1.1
        17 October 2009 at 1:08 pm

        Pascal’s bookie

        Firstly I find it hard to take you seriously when you say the attacks against Winston-Secret-Trust-Peters were partisan. However I certainly agree that ACT are conspicuously quiet at this time.

        I suspect the quietness at this time is the politicking. Which is diabolical compared to their stand on principle when in opposition.

        Perhaps Rodney, like Peters and his defenders actually, only has principles when in opposition?

        • Pascal's bookie 8.1.1.1
          17 October 2009 at 1:49 pm

          “Firstly I find it hard to take you seriously when you say the attacks against Winston-Secret-Trust-Peters were partisan. However I certainly agree that ACT are conspicuously quiet at this time.”

          Perhaps you should read me closer then burt. I said that Hide’s attacks now look like dishonest partisan bs given his current silence, people that were taken it by it might not be just like him though. It depends on how they react to his hackery.

          “Which is diabolical compared to their stand on principle when in opposition.”

          It shows their stand back then was just bullshit burt. People that fell for it, should be just as vehement against ACT/National as they were against the last government. Probably more vehement.

          As for whether or not those supporters are just hacks, pointing back to that last government when faced with criticisms of this one would not bode well, I should think, in this regard. (Even if they only do so to try and point out alleged hypocrisy in the critics.)

          Such tactics only look hackish on the part of ACT voters. Afterall, who cares if so and so private citizen is a hypocrite? The point is the corruption of the leadership no? I should think that those supporters should be much more upset now about ACT who have betrayed them. But they seem to need prompting, which makes me doubt their sincerity. It’s sad. But you can see the bind I’m in. I can’t read minds so I have to judge based on behaviours.

          “Perhaps Rodney, like Peters and his defenders actually, only has principles when in opposition?”

          I’ve always thought that Hide was not much different to Peters. Neither of them are necessarily like their followers though.

  9. Ianmac 9
    17 October 2009 at 12:20 pm

    No apparent underlying philosophy = inconsistency + randomness + disjoints = relaxedness+ smiley = Key Admin:
    Mark 13%

  10. GFraser 10
    17 October 2009 at 6:51 pm

    Keys MO is to blame Labour for everything. Watching his performance during question time was a prime example; every question put him was answered with some line about Labour, at the same time smirking away like a naughty school boy.

  11. Rex Widerstrom 11
    17 October 2009 at 7:08 pm

    Look it’s all quite simple, if only you’d understand how Melissa Lee works, with the tacit approval, it seems, of John Key.

    The money in question was a contingency fund. Therefore it’s quite legitimate to go spending it on lunch at Kermadec as a contingency should Cin Cin be fully booked.

    HTH

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