The media prepares for Key’s final hurrah

• mickysavage
• 7 years ago
• Categories: uncategorized

Now that the political career of John Key is in its final stages the main stream media is preparing for the obituary.

An example appeared in Stuff yesterday written by Tracey Watkins.

It was meant to sound upbeat and positive but much like Key’s career when you strip out the fawning PR cliches and concentrated on the substance there was precious little to celebrate.

Her summary of his achievements during his time as Prime Minister show how little he has achieved and why he will be forgotten rather quickly.

Watkins provided a synopsis of what Key achieved each year.

For term one she noted the following achievements:

• He promised a brighter future.
• Convened a jobs summit, and saved it from irrelevancy by using it to promote a national cycleway (remember that?).
• Unveiled a package of measures to support business and workers through the crisis made easier by the headroom provided by Michael Cullen paying off debt.
• Was hard on ministers who erred, or at least some of them.
• Took part in many photo opportunities provided by the Canterbury earthquakes and the Pike River mining disaster. Watkins is dreaming if she thinks that “Key’s response cemented his love affair with voters”.  He benefitted from having good public infrastructure in place to deal with natural disasters.
• Cut taxes and raised GST and drove up debt.
• Restored knights and damehoods.
• Stopped contributions to the Cullen pension fund (which we are now regretting).
• Introduced the 90 day fire at will bill the benefits of which we are still waiting to see.

For Key’s second term he:

• Attacked the freedom of the press following Teagate.
• Sold off shares in the State owned power companies and Air New Zealand which has already caused the Government to lose nearly as much it gained from the share sale.
• Oversaw the arrest of Kim Dotcom.
• Was responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau which illegally spied on Dotcom.

The third term was particularly disappointing.  Watkins notes that Key:

• Pushed for a change in the New Zealand flag which was rejected in a referendum.
• Harassed a waitress by pulling her pony tail multiple times over several months.
• Used his international platform to push the Trans Pacific Partnership deal and its hoped for $2.7 billion pay off for New Zealand although the deal was derailed the US within months of getting it over the line.

Her list is underwhelming.  Never has so much political capital been wasted on so little.  No wonder Key plummeted to 2% as preferred prime minister following his announcement.

Don Brash summed up Key succinctly.  He was reported to have said this:

Former National party leader Don Brash says John Key has enjoyed being Prime Minister and ego-boosting meetings with world leaders but he has been guilty of tinkering rather than making major changes.

He says Mr Key has not dealt well with crunchy issues of narrowing the wage gap with Australia, superannuation and housing.

Mr Brash gave him a five out of 10 for his time as Prime Minister, saying he had not done anything that Helen Clark would not have done.

No doubt National will be attempting to put a gloss on history and rely on gushing bollocks like this piece.

But if the real issues are considered such as child poverty, the housing crisis, New Zealand’s response to climate change, our rivers not being wadeable and the general worsening of the quality of life for ordinary people then Key’s reign must be considered to be an abject disaster.