Key proud to have imaginary Kiwis’ support

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, July 1st, 2010 - 30 comments
Categories: john key, phil goff, wages - Tags: ,

I guess the hardest part about being an actor is not looking like you’re acting, and that’s especially hard when you fluff your lines. Take John Key yesterday as he attempts to cover for the fact that most Kiwis will be worse off thanks to his GST hike and cuts to public services like early childhood education, which don’t eliminate costs, just pushes them on to families – he goes wrong pretty quickly:

“Hon JOHN KEY: I am glad the Leader of the Opposition mentioned in his question people who are on the average wage and have a child, because under a National Government I am pleased to report that they are $48 a week better off with tax cuts than they were before. The couple he is talking about are Bill and Mary Smith, who live in Auckland. Their child goes to an early childhood facility that is less than 80 percent teacher-led and will face no increase. Bill and Mary rang me last night to thank me for the $48 a week”

Bill and Mary Smith eh? Funny how their first names just happen to be the same as those of the guy sitting next to Key and his wife and their surname just happens to be a) the most common English surname and b) the surname of the Speaker he is addressing. And these people with these amazingly coincidental names just happened to call him last night (they have his private number, I suppose – who doesn’t?)

Like Goff says “nobody believes that”

And Key rather gave the game away when he made a comment to Gerry Brownlee:

“Hon Phil Goff: Which statement are we to believe: the statement that the Prime Minister made that Bill and Mary Smith rang him this morning, or his statement to Gerry Brownlee a moment ago when he said in answer to the question: ‘I just made it up.’?

Hon JOHN KEY: Yeah! He can believe both.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! It seems members did not hear the answer. If the Prime Minister could assist.

Hon JOHN KEY: I did not hear the Christian name of the wife, so I am not sure whether it was ‘Mary’, but it was definitely ‘Bill’.”

Uh huh. Well, that’s credible. And you wonder why this guy’s trust rating is plummeting.

And it’s not just the folksy bollocks Key was mucking up yesterday:

Hon Phil Goff: How does the Prime Minister justify his claim this morning that wage increases will outstrip price increases, when his own Budget document explains that wage increases this year will be 2.6 percent and inflation will be 5.9 percent, and that wage increases next year and the year after will be less than the CPI inflation?

Hon JOHN KEY: The member is demonstrating to the House that he does not understand economics. The Governor of the Reserve Bank has made it quite clear that he will be looking through the inflation implications of the GST increase, and those GST increases—

Grant Robertson: But you’re wrong.

Hon JOHN KEY: I tell that member that the Governor of the Reserve Bank is not wrong; that is what he does. From that point on, New Zealanders will be a lot better off because of the personal tax cuts they get. I stand by the statement I made that New Zealanders will have a $4.3 billion personal tax cut or thereabouts that is funded off a $2 billion GST increase,

So, Key’s asked how wages can be increasing when the Budget shows they will be below inflation for the next three years, and his response is to waffle on about how the Reserve Bank Governor sets the official cash rate. How else can we take that but as an admission that wages are set to continue dropping and Key is loving it?

30 comments on “Key proud to have imaginary Kiwis’ support ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    1 July 2010 at 11:04 am

    I watched this and I could not believe it. Key was literally making it up as he went along.

    What is the bet that there are OIAs being filed now looking for phone numbers for calls made to the Beehive from someone in Auckland whose name may be Bill and who may or may not be married to Mary.

  2. BLiP 2
    1 July 2010 at 11:16 am

    At least Key has kept one promise .

  3. John Dalley 3
    1 July 2010 at 11:34 am

    I see a Kevin Rudd coming on.
    Do you note the change of demeanor coming on. PM is starting to bore ShonKey JohnKey and it is starting top show in his expressions. Don’t be too surprised if ShonKey John does not stand at the next election.

    • Margaret 3.1
      2 July 2010 at 4:21 pm

      No I would not be surprised either, John Key is starting to say “Kiwibank will not be sold while I’m Prime Minister”. Always thought John Keys job was just to organise all the SOE’s to be sold off.

      The 3 junior ministers who used to stand behind “Ruthless Ruth” are senior ministers now and the ones who are really running the country, namley, Tony Ryall, Bill English, and Murray Mckully, just go look at some old photos and you will see those junior ministers there very eager to do Ruth’s bidding. Key has always just been the face to get Nastional elected.

  4. freedom 4
    1 July 2010 at 12:06 pm

    I never knew it was so easy for Mr & Mrs Smith to call the Prime Minister. My phone company doesn’t have his number listed and every other avenue of investigation yields no answers but some gruff responses.

    Please tell me where i was going wrong, would love to have a chinwag with the PM

  5. Jim Nald 5
    1 July 2010 at 12:09 pm

    He, his mates and the elite rich and have-gots, can live in a different world from the many of us who are getting worse off, paying and paying with little relief in sight, and facing the increasing reality that we have not. It’s no joke to us. To most of us, he et al live in la la land.

  6. Sanctuary 6
    1 July 2010 at 12:39 pm

    This is the same guy who said that wage increases will make people better off, then said immediately after that their won’t be any pay rises in the public sector.

  7. coolas 7
    1 July 2010 at 12:53 pm

    Key’s deceit is unbelievable if he made up the Bill&MaybeMary phone call. He should be toast.

  8. Tui 8
    1 July 2010 at 1:03 pm

    You mean, its taken you this long to figure it out ?

  9. pollywog 9
    1 July 2010 at 1:18 pm

    Did you see him Campbell Live last night ? He looked tired and disinterested.

    You could tell he didn’t want to be fronting up to Campbell to deliver the bad news about average, and less than average, families bearing more of the brunt of the ETS price hikes at the expense of big business and farmers.

    He needn’t of worried though, cos Campbell basically gave him a free pass to just regurgitate his lines and not stray to far into adlib territory.

    It looked like Campbell was on a tight leash and Key couldn’t get off air fast enough. A far cry from the white shirted, vuvezela blowing eeedjit with the ear to ear grin last week.

    He really needs to get handle on his facials eh ?… pretty much no one’s buying what he’s selling anymore. It’s like we’ve reached saturation point in the market.

    I do believe Brand Key is starting to lose it’s fizz and flavour…

    • Ari 9.1
      1 July 2010 at 2:08 pm

      Was Campbell dialling it back for him, or just getting enraptured by the whole media personality thing Key has going?

      Because if he was dialling it back, then that’s a really bad sign- one of the reasons Cambell is a good interviewer is that he only hits as hard as his interviewee seems to be able to take. If he’s pulling punches for the PM, that’s a good sign that he’s lost the respect of at least some of the press.

      • pollywog 9.1.1
        1 July 2010 at 3:34 pm

        Oh no…there was definitely no enraptured media thing going on.

        I got the distinct impression Campbell was thoroughly disgusted with himself for to having to play patsy with his questions and couldn’t quite hide his disdain that Key couldn’t handle the full force of the Campbell jandal without having pulled some behind the scenes strings that allowed him safe passage.

        He faked it pretty well though, more so than Key who even allowed Campbell to interject and finish his lines for him just so he could agree with him and move on. It was like some weird power tripping shit Campbell had over Key as though they both knew they were following the script and so were just going through the motions.

        …shameful it was and a bit embarrassing for both of them i thought.

  10. felix 10
    1 July 2010 at 1:21 pm

    Listening to the question time podcast last night I had to replay the “Bill and Mary” bit several times before I could believe what I was hearing.

    It’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever heard from a PM in the house, and I’ve been torturing my ears with QT for years.

    • The Voice of Reason 10.1
      1 July 2010 at 6:35 pm

      Not only bizarre, felix, but surely a parliamentary no no? I’m sure that somewhere in the Big Book of Rules there’ll be an sentence or two about lying in the House. Still, it’ll all blow over when Bill and Mary (or whatever her name is) turn up on telly. Unless they’re a bit busy doing the kindy run.

      To be charitable, it had a sniff of George W. Bush about it. Mouth moving faster than the brain can handle. Mental speed wobbles. That sort of thing.

      • felix 10.1.1
        2 July 2010 at 5:29 am

        Yep, to paraphrase Gareth Keenan, “that’s sort of one of the rules”

  11. tc 11
    1 July 2010 at 5:22 pm

    It just keeps on coming…..more dodgy legislation under urgency (vote Team Fuzz for a one stop write/enforce the law shop), making up answers, misleading the house…..where the F is the attack lines outside the house to keep this in the public domain.

    Nice short 10sec soundbites repeated ad nauseum by all Labour MP’s wherever and whenever through till election 2011…..focus on sideshow’s integrity surely must be on the agenda ?

  12. Irascible 12
    1 July 2010 at 5:33 pm

    The NACT spinmeisters refer to “paintergate” but I think the “Smith phone scandal” really outdoes any of the memes NACT threw at Helen & Labour.
    Key has demonstrated that he is nothing more than a spin puppet mouthing lines fed to him and that once let free of the prompt he can only live by making it up and then tripping on his tongue.

  13. Santi 13
    1 July 2010 at 7:00 pm

    I’d wish Key to become a one-term PM. Out with the liar!

    • kriswgtn 13.1
      1 July 2010 at 7:18 pm

      Without plonk key-nacts havent a shit show

      he wont go go just yet- he isnt finished fuking up the country and putting the masses back in their place-@ the bottom where we belong

  14. deemac 14
    1 July 2010 at 8:04 pm

    ayone care to imagine the media storm if a Labour minister had been caught inventing something like this?
    (captcha: annoys)

  15. Don 15
    2 July 2010 at 10:29 am

    This bunch of corporate thugs called the National Party couldnt organise a piss up in a brewery let alone run this country .They are selfserving arrogant deniers of the position this country is really in -an out of control decline which they cant fix

    [lprent: You don’t have to double up on the comments – you just have to wait. Comments from new people are held for moderation (which you could have seen from your screen) until one of us looks at them. Reduces identity theft, bozos with a penchant for identity jumping, and people trying to bypass commenting bans.

    Killed the dup comment. ]

  16. Maggie 16
    2 July 2010 at 11:36 am

    Shouldn’t Key be dragged before the Privileges Committee for misleading the House?

  17. lyndon 17
    2 July 2010 at 2:28 pm

    Also, looking at the tax calculator I’d think it’s most likely ‘Bill and Mary’ were not including GST when calculating the extent of their gratitude.

    • lyndon 17.1
      2 July 2010 at 2:30 pm

      And this was the same day Pansy Wong was (for a while) insisting National voted for flexible working hours.

    • Margaret 17.2
      2 July 2010 at 4:31 pm

      Bill English had to admit in Parliament a few weeks ago that the tax calculator has not included any of the price changes that National are implementing, I know I watched him squirm on Parliament TV when he finally had to admit their omissions.

  18. Jenny 18
    4 July 2010 at 10:44 pm

    Hon Phil Goff: How does the Prime Minister justify his claim this morning that wage increases will outstrip price increases, when his own Budget document explains that wage increases this year will be 2.6 percent and inflation will be 5.9 percent, and that wage increases next year and the year after will be less than the CPI inflation?

    We went for 5 in ’05

    We should go for 10 in ‘010

    It must be all right for us

    Cos’ it’s all right for them

    • loota 18.1
      5 July 2010 at 12:50 am

      Well, Key is at least partly correct. Rises in in-hand wages will clearly outstrip inflation thanks to the Budget and its well thought out tax cuts. Particularly for those earning $150K or more a year.

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