Popularity doesn’t make it OK

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 7th, 2013 - 21 comments
Categories: john key, national - Tags: , ,

Oh look – even Peter Dunne is getting disgusted with Key’s arrogance:

Dunne sends ‘time-bomb warning’ to Key

Government support partner Peter Dunne has sent a “time bomb warning” to Prime Minister John Key, saying his “cut through” approach over the SkyCity convention centre and Hobbit law changes risks becoming “a major problem”.

In a blog this week, the United Future Leader wrote that the Government’s approach to business where it liked to “cut through quickly and resolve issues before they get too bogged down in red tape” was welcome “after years of stultification and wariness under successive previous governments”.

Dunne, being Dunne, has to suck up. Curse those previous governments for following the rules!

But the SkyCity convention centre deal and the deal done with Warner Bros over the Hobbit films showed “there is a danger that the cut through which has been one of the government’s hallmarks will become a major problem for it”.

Mr Dunne said that while the recent Auditor-General’s report on the SkyCity deal found no impropriety in the process followed by the Government, “it did play very fast and loose at times”. Similarly, with the Hobbit movies, “the Government’s enthusiasm for the movies being made here did get in the way of the facts from time to time as deals were struck to ensure the right outcome”.

“There is a time-bomb warning to the Government here,” said Mr Dunne.

In terms of appropriate government that bomb has already exploded. But it hasn’t significantly dented the Nats’ popularity yet…

“Support for the cut through approach will wither if it is seen to be a standard proxy for bending the rules or doing special deals to achieve the desired outcome. While the Government is not immediately vulnerable on this issue, the clock has started ticking. And it is worth remembering the adage, the ends do not justify the means.”

So what Dunne is saying is that Key’s tactics are acceptable, even “welcome”, as long as they remain popular, but he’s worried that they will become unpopular (i.e. cost them all their nice cosy arrangement at the next election). For Dunne, popularity is the final arbiter of what is acceptable. He’s wrong, and any cursory examination of history will find plenty of examples of popular governments doing terrible things.

Wrong is wrong, and even Dunne recognises that Key’s arrogant disregard for due process is wrong. He just needs to find the honesty to say so clearly, without equivocation. Popularity doesn’t make it OK.

21 comments on “Popularity doesn’t make it OK ”

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  1. One Tāne Huna 1
    7 March 2013 at 9:00 am

    It’s getting so hard to be an enabler these days. I only drive the car, of course.

  2. tc 2
    7 March 2013 at 9:19 am

    Look at me, look at me, look at meeeeee…..see I’m still relevant look at all thegood stuff I do.

    Without me you’d still be owning your power companies, collecting gift tax etc etc

    • The Al1en 2.1
      7 March 2013 at 7:16 pm

      “look at meeeeee…..see I’m still relevant look at all thegood stuff I do.”

      He hasn’t gotten drugs out of our local sweet shops and dairies, so now we have drug dealers selling shit and munchie supplies in a one stop shop.

      As it’s the only thing I can recall him doing (except taking the easy way out in the asset sales vote), I’d say a fail, and a big one at that.
      Whoring principles for confidence and supply.
      Bouffant twat.

  3. Te Reo Putake 3
    7 March 2013 at 9:22 am

    Previous Governments are to blame? The ones Dunne was a member of? What a load of sanctimonious twaddle! And as for ‘fast and loose’, deliberately keeping schtumm on his actual intentions over asset sales so the voters of Ohariu would re-elect him falls into that category as well.

  4. ordinary_bloke 4
    7 March 2013 at 9:54 am

    Dunne is right, and Anthony R0bins is on the ball .. but that unfortunately is how business is often done in Aotearoa/NZ these days.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      7 March 2013 at 10:38 am

      That’s how business has been done in Aoteroa for quite some time. In fact, that’s the cause of those rules that Dunne and others are complaining about. This governments actions is just things returning to the times that such corruption wasn’t prosecuted.

  5. geoff 5
    7 March 2013 at 10:08 am

    Dunne isn’t disgusted, Dunne is disgusting.

    • aerobubble 5.1
      7 March 2013 at 12:27 pm

      Build a yacht, sell it overseas for US$, now
      do your bring the profits back and are taxed
      at a higher rate, or just the cost component?

      Why not borrow some money and send that overseas
      too, ‘for advertizing’ – hell why borrow in NZ
      at higher interest. Use the collateral from
      your obvious business success overseas to borrow
      money in some cheap foreign domicile.

      Now that you have debt overseas you can
      pay off the debt slowly with any NZ profits thus avoiding
      any tax in NZ. The NZ ledger is barely making money,
      but overseas you have a massive growing portfolio
      of wealth – because obviously you used your profits
      to lend your NZ subsidiary money – thus avoiding
      oversight in foreign shores.

      Dunne is the revenue minister, the risk premium Nz
      pays for borrowing is a fix up.

  6. Matthew 6
    7 March 2013 at 10:39 am

    The stupid thing is, Dunne doesnt need to suck up to anyone. Key needs him more than he needs Key. If i was Dunne, I would be putting the boot into Key at every opportunity.

    • tc 6.1
      7 March 2013 at 11:13 am

      Dunne’s a slimey butt licker and Slippery knows it being one himself.

    • geoff 6.2
      7 March 2013 at 12:15 pm

      Dunne only has eyes for re-election. He’s probably just trying to create a little distance between him and National in case they become unpopular and he gets tarred with the same brush.

      • emergency mike 6.2.1
        7 March 2013 at 1:16 pm

        It’s like he’s suddenly woke up and decided that good family first folk who support him might not approve of NAct’s ‘rules are for fools’ style of deal making. And he doesn’t want them to start seeing him as the self-serving rubber-stamper for NAct that he is. Hence this wet bus ticket.

      • wyndham 6.2.2
        7 March 2013 at 1:54 pm

        +101 Geoff

  7. vto 7
    7 March 2013 at 12:18 pm

    Dunne has no credibility

  8. fenderviper 8
    7 March 2013 at 2:18 pm

    Best to take no notice (and treat him with contempt, as he has treated NZ) of anything Dunne has to say. This is simply the bad hair jerk positioning himself onto the fence in preperation for the next election in an effort to keep his carriage on the gravy train. The sooner we see the end of this creep the better, c’mon Ohariu release yourselves from this has-been never-was.

  9. AsleepWhileWalking 9
    7 March 2013 at 9:46 pm

    He did try and sort out the child support mess.

    • RedBaronCV 9.1
      8 March 2013 at 7:05 am

      He’s made it worse. Rules made by the boys for the boys and it’s costing the taxpayer some $40million.

  10. Peter 10
    7 March 2013 at 9:54 pm

    I believe Key should be congratulated. His ability to set up smoke screens to dupe the 90% and then pillage the country for the 10% is second to none.

  11. Populuxe1 11
    8 March 2013 at 6:16 pm

    But apparently popularity forgives all if you’re Hugo Chavez – that seems a tad inconsistant

  12. Ugly Truth 12
    12 March 2013 at 5:45 am

    From the common law is a related idea:

    The agreement of the parties cannot make that good which the law maketh void ~ Edward Coke

    This sort of thinking doesn’t go down well with the freedom and democracy (mob rule) crowd. It is arguably part of the reason that the state lies about the nature of the common law, saying that common law is nothing more than case law. English common law, as established by King Alfred the Great, was based on aspects of Judaic law, beginning with the ten commandments.