John Key claims he doesn’t care who becomes the next parliamentary Labour leader, while trying to drive a wedge between candidates.
NZ Herald today
Prime Minister John Key says he does not care who takes over the Labour leadership, and the race would reveal deep divisions in the party.
His comments come after Labour MP David Cunliffe yesterday confirmed he would go up against Grant Robertson and Shane Jones in the leadership contest.
The Labour party has confirmed Grant Robertson, David Cunliffe and Shane Jones were the only three nominations for party leader received by yesterday’s 10pm deadline.
And, now that Cunliffe is edging to the front of the contest,a s reported by the MSM, Key goes negative on Cunliffe, as reported by Andrea Vance on Stuff:
It’s day two of the Labour leadership battle and Prime Minister John Key has already accused one of the front-runners of lying.
New Lynn MP David Cunliffe this morning ruled out making Greens co-leader Russel Norman his finance minister in any post-election coalition, but Key said Cunliffe was lying and would do anything to be prime minister.
“If, in the end, the price of having a government with the Greens is Russel Norman being the deputy prime minister and minster of finance, will he rule that out categorically? The answer will be no,” Key said.
Asked if he was accusing Cunliffe of not telling the truth, Key replied: “He’s lying to you.
“In the end he will be desperate to become prime minister, in the end he will do whatever it takes and say whatever it takes.
“Come the moment that’s the price, he’ll say ‘well I’m doing my bit for the country’.”
Seems that Key is judging Cunliffe by his own standards, and scaremongering. But Key needs to be careful because increasing numbers of New zealanders do not believe what he says. NBR yesterday:
As New Zealand Prime Minister John Key faced a Labour leadership challenge from Grant Robertson, Shane Jones and David Cunliffe, a poll said New Zealanders do not believe in what he says.
According to the survey, although Kiwis trust the prime minister, majority don’t necessarily believe in him. A Fairfax Media-Ipsos survey revealed that John Key was rated as an effective and strong leader. When Kiwi survey respondents were asked if they completely believed what John Key says, only 23.5 per cent responded Yes while more than half or 58.6 per cent answered No.
Gordon Campbell’s latest article explains why the Key’s talk of Labour Party factions is a misdirection and mere political spin. Campbell argues that factional split sbecome more obvious when a party is in opposition, and then get papered over when in government. he points to Bill english’s problems when National were last in opposition and the about turn when Key became PM:
The notion that Labour in Opposition is somehow inherently more divided than National really is nonsense. National, at the best of times, has always been split between its traditional rural conservatives and its radical urban neo-liberals – and give National five minutes in Opposition and those divisions become screamingly apparent. In the not too distant future, the jostling and the undermining between the Joyce faction and the Collins faction will match and mirror any current divisions in the Labour ranks. That will be so, regardless of whether the current declarations of unity between the Labour contestants are genuine, or not.
The claims by National to a steady state of natural unity – unlike that other lot – are worth examining in detail.
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Keep that in mind over the next few weeks as you hear National MPs parrotting the lines of their leader about the divisions in Labour’s ranks. Not true. Eleven years ago, Bill English was the National Party’s equivalent of David Shearer. Then National changed its leader, got on the comeback trail, and lo, the divisions closed over and were heard from no more. Until next time.
As for the more “left wing” criticism….this is pretty comical coming from a Prime Minister whose government has pursued a ideologically-driven right wing agenda on asset sales that makes no economic sense. The “left wing” criticism can be dealt with in a later column once we know which sleeper agent of the Kremlin (Grant Robertson? David Cunliffe?) has been elected, and will be girding himself to snuff out the lamp of freedom.
Indeed – the left wing scaremongering shows how afraid Key is about his government’s paper thin majority.
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