Posts Tagged ‘flip-flop’

Pike River families win a “political reality”

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, October 6th, 2017 - 90 comments

Among the biggest winners of the election will be the Pike River families. Labour and Greens support re-entry. Gower on National: “They will not go into Opposition over this… They will literally go back on everything they’ve said in order to get Winston into power.”

Immigration in election year

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, April 19th, 2017 - 38 comments

National is about to execute a flip flop on immigration, not for any constructive reason, but to try and head off Winston Peters’ big issue.

The price of the club?

Written By: - Date published: 4:15 pm, February 24th, 2015 - 105 comments

Back in 2003, John Key had an interesting take on whether it was appropriate to send troops to Iraq.

A topic for the NACT talk-fest. Needs a slogan for success.

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, January 15th, 2009 - 13 comments

My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up in the east, west, and south of the US and Canada. Probably something similar is happening here but we are unlikely to know until later this month. The reason that this […]

California lifts gay marriage ban

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, May 17th, 2008 - 41 comments

California’s top court has ruled that a state law banning marriage between same-sex couples is unconstitutional, accrording to a BBC report. The state’s Supreme Court said the “right to form a family relationship” applied to all Californians regardless of sexuality. I wonder if this ruling will re-ignite debate on the status of relationships here in […]

Would Key scrap GST on food?

Written By: - Date published: 3:12 pm, May 5th, 2008 - 5 comments

With hints that regional fuel tax could be put on the “go slow” list, along with parts of the emissions trading scheme, it seems like we shouldn’t take any policy on taxes for granted. For example, there’s a belief that National and Labour have consensus on not removing GST on food. A couple of comments […]

Note to John: get a new lawyer

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, April 21st, 2008 - 18 comments

John Key: ‘ my lawyer actually does those things clearly [he] had the wrong information.’ That’s how Slippery John explained why legal documents showed him living at different addresses at the same time. For election purposes he had claimed to be living at his $1.1 million home in Waimauku in his electorate, but on documents […]

Flip-flopping at warp speed

Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, April 17th, 2008 - 31 comments

On Monday, I wrote ‘Stay tuned for National’s next assets policy, due out sometime next week.’ It seems I miscalculated. Here’s what Key had to say on asset sales today on newstalkzb: ‘I’m going to go into an election with a group of policies and those policies we will implement or not implement as the […]

From slippery to send up

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 pm, April 15th, 2008 - 23 comments

 Mike Moreu provides insight into the art of turning news events into images  – using as one example his latest piece on asset sales: “National continues to play it safe as John Key announces that his party has ruled out state asset sales at least for the first term. This may appear to be a […]

It’s your fault I keep saying contradictory things

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 25th, 2008 - 9 comments

Regular readers will remember that one of John Key’s excuses for he ‘we would love to see wages drop‘ quote was that the reporter had misquoted him. Now, Key has once again shown a disturbing trait of attributing his own mistakes to others. When asked about the possibility of moving National’s tax cut programme forward […]

National still evasive over KiwiSaver plans

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, March 19th, 2008 - 17 comments

You do have to wonder sometimes what it takes to get a straight answer out of a National party MP. Having recently given Brian Connell a bollocking for being evasive on camera, Bill English has now pulled out a performance of his own. He was far more polite of course, and at no stage made […]

Slippery John: trainwreck on Morning Report

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, March 6th, 2008 - 31 comments

Bill English must just be sitting there in his office cringing as he listens to interviews like these. Sean Plunket spoke to Slippery John this morning about his latest policy flip-flops. It was a trainwreck. Have a listen – the text below is just a short excerpt. powered by ODEO Presenter: Is your policy today […]

Key abandons Treaty settlement deadline

Written By: - Date published: 4:57 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 26 comments

Further to Dancer’s post below, this morning on Breakfast John Key claimed that National never had a deadline for settling Treaty claims and instead only had a deadline for lodging them. This was possum-in-the-headlights stuff, continuing an extraordinary run of gaffes from slippery Mr Key. Politely put, Key’s done a total rewrite of history. The […]

No deadline on Treaty claims – National

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 4 comments

Mr Key announced new National policy this morning. After a morning TV interview National now have no date to settle historic Treaty Claims: Presenter: National used to have a date, didn’t they? John Key: No, what they said was they wanted the claims lodged, and they’d like to see them cleared up by a certain […]

Playing politics

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 2 comments

From John Key’s State of the Nation speech in January: The Youth Court currently has the power to place young offenders in youth justice residential facilities for a period of up to three months.  Many are released after just two. Last year, long-overdue legislation was tabled to allow these sentences to extend to six months. […]

National’s history of rewriting history

Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, February 26th, 2008 - 16 comments

You think they’d learn. Wikiscanner reports that someone in Parliament has been busy – busy expunging potentially embarassing facts about a variety of MPs. This one’s about Allan Peachey. You might remember Allan from such debacles as the Peachey/Rich bulk funding controversy and also the little number above that he’d evidently rather history forgot – […]

KiwiSaver – what if…

Written By: - Date published: 4:56 pm, February 7th, 2008 - 25 comments

Kiwis are showing their canny side in the way we’ve been flocking to sign up to KiwiSaver – now over 400,000 strong and still growing. It’s another dead rat that John Key has swallowed to make National an electable brand but let’s not forget that in 1975 National abolished Labour’s universal superannuation scheme. Bryan Gaynor […]

National Party U-turn on student loans

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, January 31st, 2008 - 84 comments

National have just backed down on their opposition to interest free student loans. Back in 2005 Key called this ‘a policy that tells young New Zealanders to go and borrow to the hilt What a cost to the country! What an unaffordable and irresponsible cost to the country! It is a sad day National members […]

Key’s flip-flops for sale on TradeMe

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, October 18th, 2007 - Comments Off on Key’s flip-flops for sale on TradeMe

The entry reads: These won’t be comfortable to wear or even be long-lasting but they do come with an interesting provenance. They are size 8. It has been claimed they were recovered from a rubbish bag collected from Parliament Buildings. Inquiries indicated that a practical jokester on National’s front bench carefully constructed them as a […]

Family-friendly facade

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, August 29th, 2007 - 3 comments

Yet another policy inoculation today from the Nats, this time on paid parental leave. Judith Collins is now “generally not against it” and in typically decisive fasion John Key “thinks” he’s for it. What’s really astounding about this u-turn is how many of their MPs are on record as having vehemently opposed it since day […]

Same old National Party

Written By: - Date published: 4:31 pm, August 27th, 2007 - 1 comment

As the National Party concentrated on its own political health with yet another policy u-turn inoculation, this time on the need for an airforce combat wing, Health Minister Pete Hodgson had some good news for the health of under-sixes.

Key’s missing compass

Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, August 26th, 2007 - 3 comments

In the Weekend Herald today, Fran O’Sullivan opines: “By drawing out his opponents before they even noticed Key was using the type of classic defensive move that would be natural to a high stakes foreign exchange trader”. If she’s right she may have identified a superficial strength gleaned from his many years in the money […]

Cheney shoots himself in the face

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 pm, August 22nd, 2007 - Comments Off on Cheney shoots himself in the face

Seems John Key’s not the only politician who’s had his previous statements on Iraq come back to bite him recently. Here’s Dick Cheney in 1994 explaining why the invasion and occupation of Iraq would not be the smartest course of action and would quickly become, in his own words, “a quagmire”. Interestingly, even in 2000 […]

Flip-flop on climate change

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, August 20th, 2007 - 3 comments

For those who asked for them here are the conflicting quotes from John on climate change. As Goff points out in the video below, Key’s now on record as flip-flopping on two of the biggest issues facing the world today: Iraq and climate change. Key proudly calls himself a “risk-taker”. It’s one thing to risk […]

Get your story straight John

Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, August 15th, 2007 - 8 comments

“New Zealand troops should be alongside their British and United States allies as they continue their invasion of Iraq” … “Blood is thicker than water… we have to look to the future, and that isn’t with some Franco-German coalition” (Rodney Times, 2003) But then the flip-flop… Iraq is “too far away” to have an opinion […]