They made this guy the minister of tourism?

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, May 10th, 2011 - 99 comments
Categories: Environment - Tags:

I was wondering why Key’s team weren’t trying to milk his upcoming hardtalk interview for PR like they have with his other international media appearances.

I guess now we know:

Hattip: Danyl

99 comments on “They made this guy the minister of tourism?”

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  1. Jim Nald 1
    10 May 2011 at 6:20 pm

    Minister of Tourism .. touring for himself, not the tourism sector

    Yes, Stephen Sackur dear, yes you are right, yes, John Key is 100% pure bullshit

    In any case, some folks I know say tourism has been cursed since he took the portfolio

  2. Zorr 2
    10 May 2011 at 6:23 pm

    Finally, an interview where some truly difficult points were forced. Made John Key look like a complete amateur and, despite some notable occasions, Stephen Sackeur is a wonderful interviewer who does his research.

    The only question left to ask is this: wtf was John Key thinking accepting an interview from the one place that was going to truly sock it to him?

    Stephen regularly makes the world’s most powerful people cringe in their chairs and only a few have truly stood their ground and fought with him – he always has an army of facts for any interview he does and isn’t afraid to follow up the 1st punch with a 2nd and 3rd…

    • Jim Nald 2.1
      10 May 2011 at 6:26 pm

      I was going to edit and saw your reference … indeed the interview shows up John Key as Minister of Amateurism

      *facepalm*

    • Robert Atack 2.2
      11 May 2011 at 7:08 am

      Finally, an interview where some truly difficult points were forced.

      • Robert Atack 2.2.1
        11 May 2011 at 7:16 am

        Sorry just spilt coffee over my Keyboard
        where was I ?
        >Finally, an interview where some truly difficult points were forced.<
        Not really passing judgement on Hardtalk verses Campbell Live, but Key refuses to front on CL or any program where he might be asked similar questions, this interview could be look at as entrapment, maybe not only should we feel embarrassed, but sorry for our dear leader.
        The wanker
        Front on New Zealand TV you slack prick

  3. Eddie 3
    10 May 2011 at 6:23 pm

    god, he gets tetchy after a couple of questions… and then it gets worse.

    “we’re 100% pure, relative to other countries”

    and when he asks Key if he’s happy to have china owning Kiwi farmland

    “well, we’re happy to have them as a major trading partner”

    “that’s not what I asked you, is it?”

    is there a link to the full interview?

    • Peter 3.1
      10 May 2011 at 6:33 pm

      What an embarrassment! Opposition parties could have a field day with this performance. “100% pure relative to other countries” Better than a Tui ad. So ‘unemployment is really good compared to …!”

    • IrishBill 3.2
      10 May 2011 at 6:43 pm

      BBC iplayer can only be accessed in the UK. I’m wondering if it will show up on sky here?

      • wtl 3.2.1
        10 May 2011 at 6:50 pm

        There is an episode of hardtalk on BBC World at 3:30am tonight (which presumably will also be shown on TV1), but I’m not sure if it is this interview. Some commentators on open mike yesterday mentioned watching this episode, not sure where they are located.

      • Carol 3.2.2
        10 May 2011 at 6:55 pm

        Hard Talk is scheduled to show on TV One overnight at 3.30am Wednesday. However, it was also on the scheduled early this morning at the same time, so I’m not sure if it will be the Key interview tomorrow am.

      • joe90 3.2.3
        10 May 2011 at 7:12 pm

        Watched the whole thing last evening on skys 93BBC. Painful, embarrassing and cringe worthy.

      • Lanthanide 3.2.4
        11 May 2011 at 12:17 am

        After doing some digging, I found that proxies from hidemyass.com seem to work (click on IP: Port Proxies in the centre of the menu, in the box on the left scroll down until you get United Kingdom and hit Search).

        The 2nd one on the list is let me download the Windows Media Player version, which is 242mb. And it also appears that I can watch it! There’s DRM that forces it to expire 30 days after you’ve downloaded it, and no-doubt it’s also doing geo-location checks on my IP address, so need to use the proxy to watch it.

        If no better source turns up, I might see if I can screen-scrape this, encode it and upload it somewhere on the net. Youtube probably won’t work though as BBC will probably automatically send them a take down notice.

  4. rosy 4
    10 May 2011 at 6:31 pm

    Species extinction.. ‘what are you going to do about it?’

    Make funding endangered, of course!

    “Conserving our native animals and plants is the core thing New Zealanders expect the government to do in conservation. The cuts to the budget the government has already made have reduced the department’s capacity to actually do that. With all of the rhetoric around the need to cut further, the public is being softened up for further cuts in areas like conservation.”

    The department had a $1.6 billion budget for the 2010 financial year. In 2009, the government signalled it would be slashed by $54 million over a four-year period.

    Hope TVNZ picks up that interview.

    • Peter 4.1
      10 May 2011 at 6:36 pm

      It woud be neglect if MSM do not pick up on this. Any bets on this happening? Has there ever been a more cringe worthy international performance by a NZ PM?

  5. tc 5
    10 May 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Oh the stupid it hurts.(PR folk that is not slippery sideshow)…..after years of laughing at the Ozzies having Howard as PM the worms turned big time with sideshow up front hamming it up on the world stage….am I coping it big time now from across the ditch.

    • mickysavage 5.1
      10 May 2011 at 8:09 pm

      Aye

      Key said that NZ will inevitably become a republic but not under his watch.

      He has previously said that the age of retirement will not go up under his watch.

      Another inevitability that he should address now if he wanted to do the best for the country.

      He is a coward.

  6. Lanthanide 6
    10 May 2011 at 6:47 pm

    I couldn’t believe the ridiculous smirk he has on his face at the start of the interview. I can’t imagine any other leader that would go into an interview with an expression like that.

    • Jim Nald 6.1
      10 May 2011 at 6:54 pm

      Nah, don’t worry, the stupid smirk was lost faster than the Kiwi dollar has lost a cent on the currency market on a bad trading day.

    • felix 6.2
      10 May 2011 at 7:09 pm

      In fairness to John Key, he’s probably the only leader who’s never watched Hard Talk and doesn’t know who Stephen Sackur is.

      • Deadly_NZ 6.2.1
        10 May 2011 at 10:54 pm

        Well he knows who he is nowfor farkin sure. Oh that cheered me up after a bad day.

  7. felix 7
    10 May 2011 at 7:00 pm

    Irish, I’m still getting my head around them making him MP for Helensville.

  8. James 8
    10 May 2011 at 7:03 pm

    Can’t I just call this guy a hack or not actually go on his programme like I would in NZ?

    Quick get Dick Griffin to head the BBC!

  9. Cnr Joe 9
    10 May 2011 at 7:13 pm

    He looked from the start as if he was going to be asked about corgis and the LotRings, like back home. Quite fun when he does his assassin eyes when hes reeling off numbers – steely trader squint, probably works on a monitor.

    • todd 9.1
      10 May 2011 at 9:32 pm

      It must have been a real surprise for Shonkey to get a real journalist asking some real questions instead of the patsy arse kissing questions we get from NZ journalists, who are bribed to be Nationals mouth piece. Didn’t he completely fail in the real world where people respect the truth and lies are confronted.

  10. mummybot 10
    10 May 2011 at 7:20 pm

    Key’s answers were very telling taking on two flavours. The first was a typical denialist attack – discredit the source by saying it was that scientist’s ‘opinion’ and that he could find other opinions to refute it. His second type of reply was that there wasn’t an issue just ‘look out the window’ at the natural beauty.

    The first is disingenuous, the second is quite scary if that is his yardstick for conservation. It implies that so long as the green veneer is there then he is happy to sell the 100% NZ brand regardless of any environmental crises going on behind.

  11. MrSmith 11
    10 May 2011 at 7:43 pm

    Wish I could watch this, but still waiting for my Brighter future and my ultra fast broad band, is there a transcript anywhere?

  12. [not the real] David Benson-Pope 12
    10 May 2011 at 7:52 pm

    Ah, a journo with a brain who has done the research!

    IrishBill: you will want to change your handle. We don’t allow identity theft here.

  13. smirk 13
    10 May 2011 at 8:16 pm

    I agree Key should have said something along the lines of:’ “Yes quitre correct – New Zealand isn’t 100% pure, it hasn’t been since colonisation. Sorry about the last ten years of duping tourists into coming here. But well you gotta love the marketing particulalry by politicans like Helen Clark and their officials as they toured around the world suckering it out of money. Again apologies from New Zealand to the world… come down and we’ll make it up to you with some fush n chups & an L&P.”

  14. Colonial Viper 14
    10 May 2011 at 8:33 pm

    According to John Key “we are masters of our own destiny” LOL

    Who is HIS master, that is what I want to know.

    • marty mars 14.1
      10 May 2011 at 8:56 pm

      he may have meant to say that he was “master of his own domain” – which he isn’t.

      • Campbell Larsen 14.1.1
        10 May 2011 at 9:06 pm

        Or ‘Captain of my destiny’ a quote attributed to Nelson Mandela according to the movie Invictus

        Ha Ha Ha – looks like Shonkey is desperately hoping for some RWC magic to help him win the election too….

        Well I have news for you, John the destroyer – you’re not Nelson Mandela, this is not South Africa, and the All Blacks are not the Spring Boks

    • Deadly_NZ 14.2
      10 May 2011 at 11:14 pm

      And do you think that the E-Mails are going to be running thick and fast between his kitten bearing masters, and him?

  16. Bill 16
    10 May 2011 at 9:15 pm

    What was that shit about “two way trade on its way to 12 billion…y’ know, 20 billion”

    So the total of import/export trade with China is…what exactly? I mean, fuck. 12 billion is a long way from 20 billion. What is two way trade heading towards and when will it be at the 12 cough 20 billion mark? And how much of that 12 cough 20 billion will be earned by NZ and how much by China?

    That aside, I was waiting for him to blame the Christchurch earthquake for…..stuff. And then follow that up by claiming to be 110% committed to…stuff.

    Anyway. The Nats publicly dumped the ‘Clean and Green’ sales pitch. So why didn’t he just say that his government recognised the ‘Clean and Green’ image as a bit of a have and move on?

    Meanwhile. What are those tougher environmental measures for dairy farming he was referring to? Anyone?

  17. Billy Fish 17
    10 May 2011 at 9:44 pm

    So much GOLD in 3 minutes

    For the Greens – “Jump into any river or stream in NZ” Would love to see him being presented a list of rivers or streams to jump into.

    I’m thinking of printing T Shirts “Mostly 100% pure”

    Do you think he shook off his minders and went over thier heads for the interview?

    • rosy 17.1
      10 May 2011 at 10:23 pm

      I’m thinking of printing T Shirts “Mostly 100% pure”

      “Was 100% pure” ?

    • felix 17.2
      10 May 2011 at 10:33 pm

      I was wondering the same thing, he’s not usually allowed to do serious interviews.

      Maybe he made a new friend at the wedding.

    • Deadly_NZ 17.3
      10 May 2011 at 11:19 pm

      How about “Conditionally 100% New Zealand Pure”

  18. jingyang 18
    10 May 2011 at 9:52 pm

    @Billy Fish, I’d suggest Key jump into the Manawatu or Tarawera rivers, and be sure to put his head underwater after doing so.

  19. Samuel Hill 19
    10 May 2011 at 10:11 pm

    I watched the interview yesterday on BBC World. Couldd be the same interview if it is on again tonight

    If you have MySky, record it. This interview is a much watch.

    Seriously, if this ‘100% Pure’ thing is all anyone has picked up on yet from the internet clip, then WOW. There is a whole lot more insight into Key’s mind and character in this interview.

    • AN 19.1
      14 May 2011 at 1:07 am

      You’re right. Key’s comments re immigration in the interview were also cringe-worthy. All his talk about encouraging worthwhile people to NZ; of them investing in our economy; bringing their skills and money, etc. Has he not been briefed by Kate Wilkinson on the great job she’s done dodging Campbell Live’s attempts to interview her about Martyn Payne? Overall, Key’s HARDtalk interview performance reinforced my view that the guy’s a lightweight.

  20. Campbell Larsen 20
    10 May 2011 at 10:18 pm

    And just to highlight how the MSM helps Mr – can’t answer questions by himself – Key cover up his mistakes…

    MikeMs comment pretty much sums it up:

    I’m very impressed at how Stuff’s summary of the interview managed to twist a boring environmental topic into something that was 90% about Key’s thoughts on the Monarchy.

    Comment by MikeM on Dim post — May 10, 2011 @ 7:28 pm

  21. ianmac 21
    10 May 2011 at 10:42 pm

    Dim Post is also giving this an airing. Most are displeased or more, with our Prime Ministers foolish performance, just as there is an absence of support for Key here. Do Burt and Pete et al only get paid 9-5?
    Dim Post
    Damn. Doesn’t go quite to the right page.
    [Fixed — r0b]

  22. Irascible 22
    10 May 2011 at 11:04 pm

    The HardTalk interview has probably done more to boost Goff & Labour’s chances in the November election than any other media event in the past 2 & half years. My friends , scattered across the world wherever HardTalk screened, have all expressed a collective cringe at seeing such a pitiful performance from a NZ PM.
    Key’s performance was one that demonstrated what quality interviewing is all about… the interviewer allowing the interviewee to put his own foot in his mouth and then gently probing so that the foot goes even deeper into the speaker’s throat.
    There was no excuse for Key being so uninformed, so ignorant and so shallow apart from his own arrogant belief in his PR creation.

    • Bob 22.1
      10 May 2011 at 11:34 pm

      It just shows how pathetic the media are here , they let that flimsy , pathetic excuse for a PM get away with SMILE and try the deflection routine . What is it ? do the media get stars in their eyes ?

  23. Samuel Hill 23
    10 May 2011 at 11:39 pm

    I just watched the interview on Mysky again.

    Sackur refers to New Zealand being “vulnerable” to world economic events, and Key says that any small country that is effected by a large event is vulnerable but New Zealand is in a “economically quite a strong position”!

    Sackur then says that one thing New Zealand does not have is strong growth. John Key says that “we don’t accept that position”. ‘Not only dairy… but forestry, land, beef, seafood prices are at record highs.’

    Sackur then hits him on NZ having 30% lower wages than Australia, and 25% of NZ Graduates leaving NZ as opposed to 2.5% leaving Australia. Key defends NZ, says that nobody else in the OECD has had as big a population increase as NZ.

    It goes on.. but here is the best quote from Sackur:

    “You spent many years working in London making a lot of money. And I wonder if you’re the right person to be telling New Zealanders, “You know what, you should stay at home, invest in your own country, and you can make it in your own country” because you had to come here to make it”

    Very internationalist perspective from Sackur. Very big picture. No wonder he is so sceptical of Key.

  24. Lanthanide 24
    10 May 2011 at 11:41 pm

    I’ll just put this here…

    Helen Clark on HardTalk re: China free trade.

    • wtl 24.1
      11 May 2011 at 12:11 am

      LOL, the comments for that video are priceless, considering the current govt and Key’s performance.

    • Steve 24.2
      11 May 2011 at 12:14 am

      Ref the Helen Clark interview on Hardtalk…That woman made us proud to be NZ’ers. She handled those questions with such skill. That’s the difference between someone who is briefed, goes out of her way to be informed and lives by her principles. That line from her is so true “I say in private what I say in public”. I heard her say that so often. And some of the prescient comments left by viewers are being fulfilled right now.

      • rainman 24.2.1
        14 May 2011 at 11:07 am

        Too true, the difference in the two interviews is marked.

        I didn’t always agree with Helen but she is clearly intelligent, principled, well-informed, and very much her own person. None of which can be said about the present Head Bozo.

        Wouldn’t it be nice if we had another HC-like person in Labour?

  25. NZ not sor sale 25
    11 May 2011 at 12:03 am

    Epic fail from Key.

    Wonder if Metiria or others will be on Hard Talk anytime soon.
    Real empty interview from Key. Was he hungover from the wedding?

  26. Craig 26
    11 May 2011 at 12:36 am

    Please can the NZ MSM get some similar interviewers. So refreshing to have someone that actually did some research, asked real questions and expected real responses in place of the usual one-liner PR spin we get in NZ.

  27. mike 27
    11 May 2011 at 12:48 am

    keys had to protect china.. he is ordered to.
    it is what peopleabove himtell him ..he has to be careful..hes f**ked up alot though heh

  28. Lanthanide 28
    11 May 2011 at 1:16 am

    I managed to use a proxy to download the WMP version (see 3.2.4 above). Spent the last 50 minutes trying to transcribe it all, and only got through about 8 minutes of it! It’s 30 minutes long, so this doesn’t seem like a go-er.

    Here’s what I have so far. Apologies for any typoes and lack of grammer and punctuation. I’ve tried to get the wording almost as exact as I can, although I might miss a few ‘ums’ and other sounds out, as well as word stresses and Key’s slack-jawed gabbing.

    Hard talk today is in central london. my guest is new zealand’s visiting prime minister john key. his first term in office has been a baptism of fire. he’s had to cope with a prolonged economic slowdown, and a string of disasters including a major mining accident and the devastating christchurch earthquake. geographically isolated and small in population, just how resilient is new zealand when put to the test?

    HT: prime minister john key, welcome to hard talk

    JK: thanks very much, great to be here

    HT: is it proving harder than you expected to be new zealand’s prime minister?

    JK: well we’ve certainly had more challenges than one might either want or expect, if you think about the time i’ve been in office, nearly three years, we’ve had the global financial crisis, two earthquake in christchurch, ah pike river mine disaster, we’ve ended up having to uh buy and ah bailout a number of finance companies and in recent times provide support for an insurance company which has a large exposure to christchurch so it hasn’t been an easy time for us

    HT: those are massive tests, and we’ll go through them in some detail, but they’re tests that you’ve had to face, as, I think the most inexperienced prime minister in the last 100 years of NZ’s history. i mean you-you-you came in to office, I think just 6 years as an MP, 2 years as party leader, you weren’t really terribly well-equipped as a political leader were you?

    JK: well it depends on what you think um are the skills that you need to be a good prime minister. it’s certainly true I got there in the fastest time, prior to me was david lange who I think took 7 years, but i think in modern day politcs you are seeing the emergeance of young leaders. um we’re seeing that in the case of president obama now in the US, obviously with david cameron here in the united kingdom, and I think the experience that i had working in a number of international markets here in the uk, singapore, australia and the likes, that banking experience where you have, very much, the economy at the front and centre stage of the issues new zaealand faces. i think actually the mixture of skills I’ve had would be about the right ones.

    HT: well, you were a successful banker, you made lots of money, but you’d never, for example, run a city, let alone a ministerial department. and then to go to some of those challenges you’ve already alluded to, here you are, faced, for example, in christchurch, with what you I think described as possibly, maybe, NZ’s darkest day ever, with the christchurch earthquake.

    JK: I think the answer to that is that you need to have a plan. I mean ultimately, one of the things the commercial sector teaches you is that you have to have a sense of where you’re going, a sense of how you’re going to achieve that, and to be able to frame up the challenges that ya face. in the case of christchurch, if one puts to one side the human tragedy, which has been enormous – I mean we lost 181 people there – um then th-the process of funding the rebuilding, of what is actually required to make that happen, allow that to happen in a timeframe which is sensible both for new zealand and for the people of christchurch, i think is rather the self-explanatory. now, we have taken some hard calls, we’ve passed legislation which gives us ah very wide and encompassing powers to enable us to rebuild christchurch quickly, we’ve essentially assumed that responsibility at a central government level

    HT: does it make sense to rebuild christchurch, quickly? i mean th-the city is still getting serious tremors, it’s had around the area of the city, it’s had 2 major earthquakes in the last 8 or so months. is it wise, to rebuild christchurch?

    JK: we believe so – the second earthquake we think is an aftershock of the first one, and that’s been supported by our scientists in new zealand. now it’s true, there’s been 5000 aftershocks in christchurch measuring above, i think 3 or 4 on the richter scale since the first earthquake on the 4th of september.

    HT: ah-a-and because of that you have a lot of people in christchurch who are saying ‘i want out of this city, i see no future for myself and my children in this place’

    JK: yeah-it’s-been-interesting-actually-the-response wh- look there are about 400,000 people that live in christchurch, and there is no perfect way of measuring how many people have or will leave, but if you put your finger in the air and say what’s that number likely to look like and I’d say it’s 20 to 30 thousand people.

    HT: you’re sounding determinedly upbeat, but here’s where it gets very difficult for a very small country – populations not much more than 4 million – we’re talking about your second city, economists reckon that in the short-run, the next year or two, it could mean that rather than expecting growth of over 3%, it might be down to 2%, so it’s a real drag on new zealand’s economic prospects. and that’s, in a way, illustrating how vulnerable your small country is, would you accept that?

    JK: well by definition, any small country where it’s affected by a very large event um has less room to move than say a larger country – that’s-that’s a statement of fact. having said that, new zealand finds itself in economically quite a strong position, so gross debt to gdp is under 20% currently, and we are going into our budget process on may the 19th with a zero budget, so instead of spending a billion dollars more, we will spend zero. and that money will be used over time, um to pay for the earthquake. so we are addressing that through essentially trimming government expenditure.

    HT: but what you do not have in nz right now is-is strong growth, in fact you have virtually no growth at all, and that’s really not something you can blame on the earthquake. I just wonder whether you, with all of your financial background, over-estimated your ability, and the country’s ability to deliver, ahh, sustainable growth, because it isn’t happening, is it?

    JK: well we wouldn’t accept that position. i mean for a start off, the global financial crisis had quite an impact, so when we came in to office at the end of 2008, the country had experienced 3 quarters of negative growth, and that continued into the back-end of 2008 and into early 2009. but if you strip the earthquake out and say ‘ok how does nz really look’ we have a very strong commodity sector, so it’s not just diary prices – forestry, lamb, beef, seafood, all of those are at record highs, and not withstanding that we’re combatting very high exchange rate, actually that part of our economy is very strong, we have the rugby world cup in new zealand, the christchurch rebuild will add probably a percent to the gdp every year for the next, 5 to 7 years. so, look i, the picture that we see, is one that we see is one of growth, above 4%

    HT: (interjecting)well y-y-y-you’re painting a rosy picture, which I think a lot of new zealanders might-might question. I mean they heard you, for example, in-in, ahh, the last couple of years, consistently saying, ‘we are going to close the prosperity gap, the wages gap’ in particular ‘with Australia’, and people compare yourselves with australia. it hasn’t happened, in fact the wages gap is wider than ever.

    JK: (smiling) actually we also reject that proposition. but let me take you through that, so. (chuckles)

    HT: well, the-the opposition leader just the other day, Phil Goff he said “the best this government can do is now trumpet that new zealand wages are 30% below australia’s giving us a supposed competitive advantage. he used to talk about the fact we were going to close the gap’

    JK: I won’t get into a political debate about the robustness of his numbers. but let me-let me take this step back for you. new zealand has had a widening wage gap with australia [why? why?] over the course of the last 40 years. primarily mineral resources base in australia. so australia’s very minerally wealthy, and china’s having a huge impact on their market. so to give you some idea of that, the capital investment going into the mining sector in australia, for the last decade, has averaged about 5 to 10 billion dollars a year. in the last 3 years alone in australia it’s been 55 billion dollars a year.

    HT: i’m sure you don’t want to spend the whole interview comparing yourselves to australia, but, here is one important fact. more than a quarter of new zealand’s graduates, that is the brightest and the best that your country’s producing, are now living outside of your own country. that’s 10 times the rate for australia-born graduates, and that suggests to me that you have got a fundamental, a structual problem.

    • r0b 28.1
      11 May 2011 at 1:30 am

      Great work. I hope you’re able to complete that process at some point! I for one would be fascinated to read the whole transcript.

      Alternatively, some of the HardTalk interviews seem to be on You Tube. It’s possible that this one will make it there eventually too I guess.

    • terryg 28.2
      11 May 2011 at 1:39 am

      Thanks Lanthanide!

      I couldnt even find the full WMP, proxy or no – just the 3-minute clip. Pray tell, where does yon full WMP reside?

      regards, Terry

    • MrSmith 28.3
      11 May 2011 at 9:04 am

      Thanks for that, if you or someone posts the transcript somewhere, please let me know.

    • M 28.4
      11 May 2011 at 6:36 pm

      Nice one L, Stephen Sackur is like a terrier with a bone – he rocks

  29. rosy 29
    11 May 2011 at 1:36 am

    That’s fantastic! the interviewer doesn’t rate Key’s credentials at all, does he? and don’t accept/reject the proposition huh – only because he can’t deny them.

  30. BLiP 30
    11 May 2011 at 2:23 am

    Haven’t updated this for a while but since National Ltd­™ came to power:

    has been caught out repeatedly lying in the run up to and during the election campaign about its real intentions in relation to the environment

    celebrated the opening of the foreign-owned Pike River Coal Ltd mine on DOC land adjacent to the Paparoa National Park from which 1 megatonne of coal will be extracted per year for the next 20 years – Pike River Coal Ltd has announced that it has found additional coal in the national park

    removed a proposed efficiency standard (MEPS) on incandescent lightbulbs

    reversed a moratorium on building new gas/oil/coal power stations

    removed the bio fuel subsidy

    scrapped the scheme that would have penalised imported vehicles producing high emissions

    removed regulations for water efficient new housing

    renewed leases on sensitive high country farms which were meant to return to DOC

    reversed restrictions on the freeholding of vast swathes of land on the edge of the Southern Lakes

    arbitrarily excised 400 hectares from the brand new Oteake Conservation Park, including the most important and, ecologically, the rarest part of the new Park, the tussock and shrubland that went right down to the banks of the Manuherikia River, to enable future access to lignite

    said nothing to say in regard to the World Commission on Protected areas of IUCN’s severe criticism of its intention to investigate mineral resources and mining opportunities in protected conservation areas including our three UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Te Wahi Pounamu-South West New Zealand, Tongariro National Park and the Sub Antarctic Islands

    approved two prospecting permit applications lodged by Australian iron-ore giant Fortescue Metals Group subsidiary FMG Pacific lodged in June – areas covered by the two-year permits include an 8204-square-kilometre area of seabed adjoining the west coast from Cape Reinga to the Manukau Harbour and a 3798-square-kilometre prospecting area of land from Cape Reinga to the Kaipara Harbour including Ninety Mile Beach, the west side of the Aupouri Peninsula, Kaitaia and the Hokianga.

    approved an additional prospecting permit for Fortesque Metals in relation to 3568sq km right next door to the Kahurangi National Park where the Heaphy Track is

    was forced to release its Ministry of Economic Development (MED) report under the Official Information Act that proclaims “significant mineral potential” in the Fiordland, Kahurangi and Paparoa national parks – the report said the Waitutu area of the Fiordland National Park had sufficient petroleum reserves to be “worthy” of inclusion in a review of conservation land protected from mining

    secretly granted the minerals industry the right to veto proposed National Park boundaries and permission for any such vetoes to be kept confidential – in spite of recommendations from its own officials against any such a veto

    Minster of Conservation Tim Grosser, on 29 August 2009, called for caring New Zealanders to halt their “emotional hysteria” and recognise that conservation land should be mined for minerals and went on to say “Mining in a modern, technological way can have a negligible effect”

    Associate Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson, in an interview in “Canterbury Farming” rubished her own department, DOC, suggesting it was incapable of looking after the high country reserves and parks under its control

    gutted the home insulation scheme

    pulled $300 million out of public transport, walking and cycling schemes and added it to a pot of $2 billion to ‘upgrade’ state highways

    changed the law to provide billions of dollar in subsidies for polluters via the ETS casino which is now a target for scamming by international criminals

    begun a process of gutting the Resource Management Act to make it difficult/impossible for the public to lodge appeals against developers

    removed the ability of Auckland to introduce a fuel levy to fund planned public transport upgrades

    left electrification of the national rail network up in the air without promised funding commitments

    removed the Ministry for the Environment’s programme to make Government Departments ‘carbon neutral’

    removed funding for public tv advertising on sustainability and energy efficiency

    pulled funding for small-town public litter bin recycling schemes

    cabinet ministers expressing public support the bulldozing of Fiordland

    reduced Department of Conservation funding by about $50 million over three years

    canceled funding for the internationally acclaimed ‘Enviroschools’ programme

    usurped the democratic role of local Councils of determining policies for their citizens by requiring the abandonment of the efficient and well-established tree protection rules for urban areas

    set about revamping Auckland governance in a way that is likely to greatly reduce the ‘Environmental Watchdog’ role of the the current Regional Council

    removed Auckland’s metropolitan limits and opened the gateway for unfettered urban sprawl

    defended internationally the importation of rain-forest-wrecking palm kernel and stood silent while Federated Farmers called Greenpeace “terrorists”

    stood silent while Godfrey Bloom, a Member of the European Parliament and infamous Climate Change Denialist, publicly rejoiced in the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior – who was doing so while standing on a dock next to the replacement vessel

    took a 0% emissions reduction target to Copenhagen. Yes, seriously, that isn’t a misprint – that was the lower bound of their negotiation platform – then missed the 01/02/10 deadline for commitment to action it had agreed to – meanwhile 55 of the 80 countries which attended did make the deadline

    secretly cancelled the internationally recognised scheme for the mandatory labelling of exotic woods to ensure the timber has not been taken from rain forests in direct contradiction of its own statements made at the 13th World Forestry Congress in Argentina

    supported the Department of Conservation’s decision to open up the pristine Cathedral Cove to an ice-cream franchise

    given the Department of Conservsation $1.7 million to further develop commercial activities on DOC land and started an “off set” plan allowing company’s to damage the conservation estate if they agree to improve land elsewhere – no monitoring regime has been suggested on put in place

    left DOC director-general Al Morrison to announce that DOC is to charge for services that had been free and, to soften the public up to the idea that there will be more “energy generation schemes” operating on DOC land

    taken no action to reduce existing pollution pouring into the Manawatu River and is “leaving it up to industry” to come up with solutions to heal the river which was described by the Cawthorn Institute as “one of the worst polluted in the Western world”

    announced a $1.1 million industry subsidy to kick start marine farming without identifying no-go areas nor putting in place a consultation process for individiuals, communities, and other general coastal users

    blamed New Zealanders after a Japanese whaling ship deliberately smashed into a smaller, more vulnerable craft in the open sea

    was forced to release documents under the Official Information Act which confirm that DOC has “giving up” on ecologically valuable high-country land in the Mackenzie Basin because of funding cuts. The released documents cite “statements made by ministers”, “diminishing funding” and the Government’s new high-country policies as reasons for the changed stance – the comments from DOC were made after Land Information New Zealand (Linz), which manages the tenure review process, ignored DOC’s previous conservation recommendations for the farms

    used former National Party minister and current director of Open Country Cheese – a company convicted of filthy farming practices – Wyatt Creech to head up an enquiry into Environment Canterbury which had been standing up the dairy farmers’ demands for more and more water resources and less and less regulation. The Creech report recommended the Environmental Canterbury be sacked and replaced with government appointments and the voters of Canterbury do without democracy until the water situation had been resolved. The Canterbury area holds 50 percent of New Zealand’s fresh water reserves and 50 percent of the water required for hyrdo energy. The Creech report said Environmental Centerbury put too much focus on the environment.

    Despite international condemnation for knowing next to nothing about the parlous state of the New Zealand fisheries, National Ltd™ bucks international trends, pours more acid on the 100% Pure brand and increases the bluefin tuna quota.

    New Zealand is subject to international criticism for its backing of commericial whaling which National Ltd supports

    Government-owned company Solid Energy runs an essay competition entitled “The role of coal in sustainable energy solutions for New Zealand” for school children. First prize is a trip to New Zealand’s largest coal customer, China.

    Supported access fees for entrance onto DOC walkways – fee introduced following cuts to DOC’s budget.

    New Zealand’s environment would profit from mining national parks, Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson says.

    Department of Conservation director-general Al Morrison said the conservation estate created “opportunities to do a whole lot for a lot of different people. We’ve got to get away from this idea that somehow we have to protect one-third of New Zealand for a certain constituency and put it in a jar of formaldehyde and leave it.”

    State coal miner Solid Energy could get an extra slice of the action if highly sensitive conservation land is opened to gold, silver and other prospecting. Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee said Solid Energy’s work could be widened to include other minerals and resources, or it could form part of a new state-owned enterprise to maximise government returns from any mining. He did not rule out the company, which produces 80 per cent of New Zealand’s coal, having a role in mining gold and other minerals on Great Barrier Island and other conservation areas being eyed by the Government http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3519703/Golden-possibility-for-state-coal-miner

    . . . there’s plenty more I need to add.

    • felix 30.1
      11 May 2011 at 8:20 am

      Nice work BLiP, where you been?

      • r0b 30.1.1
        11 May 2011 at 8:47 am

        What felix said. And the more you can fill in your list with links to sources, the better it gets. You should send it to us as a guest post some time…

    • lprent 30.2
      11 May 2011 at 12:45 pm

      . . . there’s plenty more I need to add.

      Please do and I’ll put it up as a page. In fact I really need to make it a database generating a page.

  31. Robert Atack 31
    11 May 2011 at 7:25 am

    >removed a proposed efficiency standard (MEPS) on incandescent lightbulbs <
    I posted a lot of mercury bombs into parliament, spreading mercury vapour throughout the postal system and parliament buildings, and it was legal, the bulbs tended to break as they went into the post box.
    But it got the idiot law stopped 😉 … maybe?

  32. Robert Atack 32
    11 May 2011 at 7:31 am

    Norman gave it a go
    10.5.11 – Question 6: Dr Russel Norman to the Prime Minister – Part 1

    But alas forgot to mention that Kiwi Saver is dependent on destroying the environment, via every means possible, as long as it makes MONEY.

  33. pepeketua 33
    11 May 2011 at 8:29 am

    @BLiP! – excellent stuff, i’ve been trying to pull together a summary like that for some time. Request permission to shamelessly borrow/promulgate.

    Despite the almost non-exhaustive nature of that list, it’s pretty much a lot worse than that.

    try: Sacked ECAN councillors claiming ‘dysfunctional’, but OIA documents reveal Carter, Brownlee and Key up to their eyeballs in pushing officials to get rid of ‘hurdles’ to ‘accelerating large scale water storage and irrigation in Canterbury’. Guess what the two hurdles were identified as? Water Conservation Orders and Council Processes.

    What do we see come out of the toothless NPS on freshwater this week? a fund entitled “Irrigation acceleration fund”. Subtle? not very.

    For those of you not up with the play, while the media spotlight played out on the sacking of ECAN councillors, the true fatal thrust to water in Canterbury was the amending of Water Conservation Orders (essentially National Park like status given to rivers that met the required tests under the RMA) so that there is no longer a right of appeal.

    and NOBODY in the MSM whispered a word… sigh.

    • BLiP 33.1
      11 May 2011 at 1:45 pm

      Of course, permission granted.

      The comments here have spurred me into tidying the list up and adding more to it. I’ve been busy with mahi – the evil, foreign-owned multi-national I work for has decided the best way to increase productivity is to not replace staff who leave. That means the rest of us have to pick up the slack. Do you think our salaries have gone up to reflect the extra work? Like fuck.

  34. Jono 34
    11 May 2011 at 10:43 am

    SOMEONE needs to put this up on Youtube and pass it on to the New Zealand media or else no-one will see or hear about it except for us geeky lefties that will not vote for the brat anyway.

    There is a lot more to this interview than the freely available highlights online.

    I followed someone’s instructions here and downloaded it via a hidemyass proxy but i don’t know how to convert it to youtube friendly …

  35. Richard 35
    11 May 2011 at 11:18 am

    Made total mincemeat of him. Makes you realise how pathetic NZ current affairs TV is. Can’t we get Stephen Sackur to come to NZ for the election campaign?

  36. randal 36
    11 May 2011 at 11:49 am

    richard you are right. current afairs in NZ is pathetic and that is the way these people want it. they know they can stand up to the hair and teeth jobs shoulder tapped by TVNZ and the others so to save themselves the bother they just dont have any current affairs at all! very convenient and then they say that the public isnt interested. well they would be if there was some blood on the floor every now and again instead of the saccharine hucksterism that passes for investigative journalism these days.

  37. Draco T Bastard 37
    11 May 2011 at 12:36 pm

    You know that there’s something wrong with the MSM when, confronted with scientific research, they go and get a businessman to cast doubt on the scientists research.

    • marsman 37.1
      11 May 2011 at 2:42 pm

      That’s disgusting! Phil O’Reilly, one of the Hollow Men is he not?

    • Redbaron77 37.2
      11 May 2011 at 3:03 pm

      Thats because in the early 21st century businessperson somehow makes you an oracle on any subject…

  38. happynz 38
    11 May 2011 at 2:58 pm

    HA! Whilst I was listening to the interview in the above clip my 14 year old daughter was sitting on the sofa behind me mucking about on facebook or whatever and she suddenly piped up and said, ‘Why can’t he just answer the question!’

    • Jim Nald 38.1
      12 May 2011 at 12:16 am

      Yeah, he’s got an excellent mind and intelligent speaking abilities for photo-ops.

  40. Fat Uncle 40
    11 May 2011 at 6:35 pm

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=118540

    wow at the Herald cuts…

    are they the ministry for propaganda?

    Cut out the explanation of the research- cut out the journalist saying you aren’t answering the questions and end with the journalist patting Key down…

    ffs

  41. Herodotus 41
    11 May 2011 at 7:20 pm

    John Key should be immortalised ” Compared to other countries we are 100%” compared to sum I achieved 100% in School cert English 🙂 !!!
    I only wished that JK was min of education when I was at school !!!!!
    This is pure magic and should be aired many times. The unfortunate thing is that this will be lost on many. Still even so late in the day nice to have a chuckle. Pure magic
    Anyone know when the full interview will be on again and where. There maybe some more gems that were missed on the 3 minute clip

  42. stever 42
    11 May 2011 at 10:57 pm

    The BBC site now has the audio which you can listen to worldwide:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00ggyh3/Hardtalk_11_05_2011/

    • wtl 42.1
      12 May 2011 at 12:06 am

      Another classic part is near the end, where Key goes on about NZers supporting the monarchy based on a poll that said 85% of people here supported bringing back knighthoods. Shortly afterwards, Sarkur points out that a poll he has seen says around 40% of NZers want a republic. Key responds by saying “There’s always some random poll that you can draw from but…”

      • Jim Nald 42.1.1
        12 May 2011 at 12:14 am

        OOOHHH I get it now! That is why they’ve been keeping him to photo ops!
        Doh!

  43. RedBack 43
    12 May 2011 at 12:21 am

    Everytime i watch Key’s answers my face meets the palms of my hands at regular intervals. I know NZ does have some decent journo’s but could you imagine Key getting that type of grilling with more regulararity. His tenure as PM would’ve been finished long ago. Since Muldoon’s over the top treatment of any journo’s not giving the Nats favourable treatment back in the early 80’s there seems to be an utter lack of consistent probing invesitgative journalism in NZ putting chancers like Key under real public scrutiny. That coupled with the severe scaling back in NZ based newsrooms.
    Sackur is not known as one the BBC’s hardest interviewers. But he was doing what any investigative political journo does well. Puts his subject under pressure and see’s how they react. In Key’s case not very well. Sackur having dealt with the seasoned Westminster politico’s for years was always going to have done his research on Key and most of it was not going to be favourable. As oppossed to the Herald who have just gone to their default position of being the Nat’s propoganda leaflet. The Herald article almost seems to hint that the big old nasty BBC had no right to harrass NZ’s glorious leader. Plus going to a NZ business bloke to refute the claims of a respected scientist must surely be the Herald’s idea of a piss take.
    Key must be asking himself “why can’t all international TV invites be as intellectually challenging as Letterman”?

    • Jono 43.1
      12 May 2011 at 3:45 pm

      Having watched the full interview, I actually think that your average viewer would think that Key does OK. Don’t get me wrong imho Key is evading questions, contradicting himself (most notably with the whole “academics and lawyers” and republic v monarchy statistics) etc

      But he is very good at doing it while smiling without ever getting aggressive and taking the bait. Most people, when proven wrong like he is, a few times just in this interview (!), or when caught out lying, e.g. the whole Kiwirail shares thing before the 08 election, would go on the attack or get really flustered. He just sticks to some semi-evasive waffle, might even partially concede a point to conceal the fact that he is getting caught red-handed, and remains mild-mannered.

      How does he get away with it? Well, in NZ, the casual mild-mannered approach is king. It’s a cultural thing. Politicians like Clark and Goff who are too serious, too intellectual, or too earnest invoke suspicion – they must be full of themselves if they aren’t constantly in self-deprecating humour mode or if they use technical vocabulary (tall poppy syndrome) – and are called “robots” “hapless ideologues” “ivory tower types” and so on. They are not “one of Us”. Key on the other hand is your “average white businessman familyman golfplaying aucklander” type who speaks the language of low-level corporate office. He ticks all the boxes for the Herald, most journalists, tv, etc. as being “one of Us” so he has significantly greater leeway on any subject anyway. He fits into what the Nats would see as the “mainstream NZer” mould quite nicely. Add to that his casual, friendly mild manners and our journos hesitate to attack him because they would be attacking a friendly one-of-us type bloke – they will be the ones seen as unreasonable aggressors. Even Sackur when he nailed him couldn’t bring himself to go all the way.

      Invoking “pragmatism” also gets him off the hook. This is an anglo-saxon misnomer to conceal a dominant ideology in this case a watered down neo-liberal approach. Neoliberals can afford to be conservatives in NZ, in the literal sense of the term, because we are not that far off a neoliberal paradise anyway. And Key like many other politicians will avoid rocking the boat by any means possible. This “conservative” line is seen as both “moderate” and “reasonable”.

      So the nicknames “teflon” “slippery” are all well-founded. Unless a respected journo nails him with an unrelenting line of questioning on prime time telly – and the PR boys will avoid that at all costs – he will remain our friendly PM whose policies go unnoticed and unchallenged behind the artificial veil that is his Image. If only they would show a few more vids on the news of him sneering and jeering nastily in the house, that could go a long way to undermining his “nice-guy-not-a-politician” persona. His honeymoon with a befuddled media is not even over yet and it’s almost election time so there is little hope of that happening…

  44. HC 44
    15 May 2011 at 2:14 pm

    It takes the BBC – a leading overseas media organisation – to show the true face of our useless “leader”. Again this proves the uselessness of most NZ media. Apart from a few exceptions the NZ media has become so useless and pre-occupied with “image” and “presentation” that no matters of substance are reported on in-depth. Like with our supermarkets we have something like a duopoly owning the newspapers, magazines and some TV and radio stations. Public broadcasting gets treated worse year by year.

    So many in NZ are so brain-washed, they do not get a chance to see “real” questions being asked to our leading politicians. Many do not even bother informing themselves, because they have grown up in a society where commercials on radio and television take up a per centage of broadcasting times, so that any program gets fragmented and listeners and viewers constantly distracted and otherwise brainwashed to simply be “consumers”.

    This interview should be a revelation of how useless John Key really is. He dodges questions all the time, contradicts himself, denies facts and make a total fool of himself. Sadly hardly anyone in NZ bothers watching or listening to Hard Talk!

    So no wonder we get election results that make critical and informed people wonder how that came about.

  45. Jono 45
    16 May 2011 at 2:06 pm

    At least one tv program showed a 45second extract of this – Media7 on TVNZ7

    TVNZ7 the best news in the country at 8pm where they take time to interview people and get to the bottom of issues unlike the tabloid headlines prevalent on TV1 TV3 Prime.

    TVNZ7 the channel discarded by our beloved national govt

    no surprises there – Key and Coleman are conducting their own Glorious Cultural Revolution

    with the motto “Kill Public Service Broadcasting”.

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