Trans-Tasman: Key the smile & wave PM
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- Date published:
7:17 am, November 30th, 2010 - 65 comments
Categories: john key, Media -
Tags: smile and wave, trans-tasman, vernon small
In the annual Trans-Tasman ‘roll-call‘, amongst the normal love-struck schoolboy prose that we expect from the Trans-Tasman when referring to any National leader, is this judgment on the PM:
“Key needs an agenda, not just the consensus he is building around personal trust.”
In other words:
‘smile and wave is all very nice and good, John, but don’t you think you should do some actual work? You know, build that brighter future you promised?’
Meanwhile, Key is spending two hours today digitally smiling and waving on Stuff. Yawn. I’m sure it’ll give us real insight and display deep thinking. I’m sure we won’t just get trite responses from Key’s PR people.
All the same, go along and ask some tough questions: it’s about time he faced some. Vernon Small’s running it, he’s a good journo, so you can be confident he won’t just let through the patsies.
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Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...1 week ago - Swarbrick calls on Auckland Mayor to end delay of revival of St James Theatre
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- Release: Health NZ admits errors led to claimed deficit
Health New Zealand has exaggerated its deficit to justify job cuts. ...2 weeks ago
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- Diverse skills in community trust appointments
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- A busy year in the House
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- Public to have their say on disability funding
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- Securing the skills and experience NZ needs
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- Q4 plan sets NZ up for growth and infrastructure
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- Speech – Launch of the Second Te Aorerekura Action Plan
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The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Is Stuff going to do live chats with the leaders of other the other political parties?
Of course not. It’s Stuff.
Key is spending 2 hours on stuff digitally smiling and waving ?
The perfect way for the beehive staff to veto the questions like they do on talkback
Why go for the pretence of having an impartial media behind the stunt.
After all Key has his own channel on Nationals website,( which no one reads)
National has all ways pushed heavily that its PMs are a ‘man of the people’ ( Sunday night regulars at Antoines, yeah right). So Keys efforts are nothing new, but they are getting better at it.
How about TT’s view of Goff:
“Election victory is still remote. Goff has shown more confidence this year, stronger speeches. But still sounds a bit robotic – fails to connect. Mana a big disappointment.”
You also forgot to mention Eddie what else TT said about John Key:
“He is probably NZ’s most popular PM ever, as comfortable on the world stage as he is on the streets of home.”
Oh yes and TT gave Key 9/10 compared to Goff’s 6/10.
Thanks for playing select-a-quote eddie.
He is probably NZ’s most popular PM ever
Nah, that was Helen Clark!
Justin Bieber recently won Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards. Popularity doesn’t exactly equal competence.
What word did I use to put my comment in moderation?
[None. You share an IP subrange with someone else in moderation. Sorry. Lprent might have a look if he notices this. — r0b]
Thanks for looking into it rob.
[lprent: All fixed… ]
Haven’t seen that particular person for a while. I had to block 5 IP ranges to exclude whoever it was (and I have my suspicions about the identity).
Removed the auto-moderation on the IP. Go forth and comment.
I asked him on Radio Live the other day why I shouldn’t move to Aussie if he won’t raise the retirement age when Aussie’s baby boomers will cover 60% of their own retirement, and ours only 12%, due to comp super and they earn 30% more…
Answer: “Don’t worry about it mate, it’ll be better here I promise”…
I have to justify not making the move to my future kids and he needed to do better than that…
Well, we will have supplies of freshwater over here, does that help?
“Don’t worry about it mate, there’s lots of bullshit while I’m here I promise” …
One word Loota: Desalination
Surely some reflection for Labour from this.
Key needs an agenda, not just the consensus he is building around personal trust.
Agree with the criticism but the compliment shows how out of touch Labour’s theme of trust was or rather than Key couldn’t be trusted.
Perhaps a bigger worry is that a number of the Nats are finding their feet while at the same time Labour is looking in need of rejuventation.
Who are these Nats finding their feet? And ‘a number’?
Top probing question for our wondrous PM thus far:
I think they’re picking up.
“Matthew asks: According to your tax cut website, your personal tax cuts from the October 1 ‘tax swap’ are $12,600 a year on your PM salary alone. How is borrowing that money to give you a tax cut adding value to New Zealand?”
With a complete dodge and non-answer by Key:
“John Key: Tax policy is designed to achieve two objectives – firstly to raise enough revenue to pay for the govt’s spending requirements, and secondly to put in place the right incentives for people to work and generate investment. By lowering our personal taxes, we are not only narrowing the wage gap between NZ and Australia, but we have re-weighted the investment proposition in New Zealand’s favour.
It may be true at the moment that the Govt is borrowing to fund its deficit for a variety of factors, but that’s not always the case.”
Moderator: Sarah asks: How much of the National Cycleway has been built and how many jobs created?
John Key: Off the top of my head, it’s about 200 jobs so far.
Exact kms I don’t have to hand, but the important thing to note is that we’re about to embark on the major construction phase over summer.
It’s my expectation that by the end of 2011, the cycleway will have 18 different tracks, totalling over 2000 kms, with well over 500 jobs created.
I guess because National created these jobs, they are “real jobs” and sustainable, not the fake unsustainable jobs created under the last Labour government that evaporated during the recession.
Hooray, hurrah, the mighty “John Key Memorial Cycleway” yeah yeah (metaphorical cartwheel whilst clapping)…….ready in time for the end of oil. John the Great, visionary extraordinaire…..why am I waiting?
Yep, good question – stink answer. I might have to have another look, this might get interesting. No doubt Clueless has a gaggle of minders answering the questions but at least Vernon Small is letting through a few curly ones.
EDIT:
This might be better hosted on the Woman’s Weekly site.
it’s a con job… i asked a question 5 minutes ago on patsy wong and it hasn’t shown yet… there have been several asked after me that have… patsy questions.
You think that everyone question that gets asked, get through? Chances are the moderators aren’t even reading all of the questions that are submitted because there are too many.
I am sure they are deliberately choosing some soft, people-interest type questions. I wouldn’t even be too surprised if they inserted them themselves.
captcha: screen
How about Blue Chip?
SFO is not pressing charges, citing lack of evidence.
Helen Clark – the ‘oh God my eyes, don’t look at it!’ PM.
Heh! Two hours – more like 45 minutes. Still, as far as Clueless is concerned, less is best.
I will be polite …
Dear John Key
For Fiddlestick’s Sake, please drop the GIMMICKS ! ! !
he cant drop the gimicks.
thats all he is.
a gimmick from the folks who brought you don brash last time.
he has never made anything or invested in business.
all he knows how to do is to talk other people out of their money but in this gig he doesnt keep it he just doles it out to his mates.
The fluffy questions can be revealing too.
He never reads books. No other leader in the Western world would say that. Even Dubya had to pretend he did.
The great irony is: Key is popular, not because he is ambitious for New Zealand, but because he isn’t. He is the personification of intellectual mediocrity and absence of curiosity. This makes a lot of people very comfortable.
Thanks for not challenging us to do better, John!
”I have no interest in going to the United Nations, or holding any other elected positions”
– woteva. it’s clear that no one who can think would want you.
Is getting on the Board of Bank of America or the World Bank an elected or unelected position?
appointments by cronies don’t count
this would surprise donkey, but there are standards
Pity that Jim, I would just like him to f**k off somewhere else. (After he has handed on the cycleway to a competent minister…whoops foiled again)…..
Maybe the cycleway could be contracted out to the Chinese? No minimum wage requirements, or worries about weekends. And Key could boast that he got it done for a fraction of the budgeted cost. What’s Pansy’s number again?
If Pansy is still being hidden by Key, there’s Shipley
they’ll call it part of the Hobbit production and eliminate minimum wages and employment rights to build it.
Yes, I also thought that one was revealing, and a bit surprised.
He says he doesn’t have and down-time during the week and so doesn’t read books, but he does watch Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy.
He also chose vegemite over marmite, and doesn’t have any interest in holding other elected office or working for the UN etc – so he really is just ticking off something from his bucket list.
He can choose between vegemite and marmite, but had no position on apartheid.
Taking on the tough decisions.
He. Doesn’t. Read. Books. Incredible, haven’t the words!
Deb
Why are people surprised about that ? Wasn’t it one of the reasons he got voted in that wasn’t intellectual like Helen.. (reading a book = intellectual vs reading a tv guide ) He certainly is our own little George W Bush..
How do you know that he doesn’t read books? Bill English has an honours degree in English literature, I believe, and perhaps Key is a reader, not an intellectual maybe, but he could still read fiction, etc.
@Tanz
He said so today, in the Stuff “chat” that we’re discussing. He hasn’t read even one book, in the whole of 2010.
Of course, he could be lying. Let’s hope so.
In all fairness though, I remember early on when Helen Clark was PM, Paul Holmes interviewed her and went to her place, she showed him a stack of books, but said she didn’t have time to read them, one of them was ‘Smila’s Feeling for Snow.’
Being PM is most likely a 24/7 job, is it not, in all fairness. I could imagine Key reading spy novels etc, who knows, I bet he does read.
NB reading “Garfield” in the New Zealand Herald does not count.
You remembered the title of a single novel mentioned by Holmes 10 years after he did the interview? Shucks it must be great to have such an awesomsauce memory! I bet you can also remember what you had for lunch the day the interview screened. Isn’t the human brain astounding.
Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, CV. The very lowest.
nah…i reckon racist jokes are !!!
so have you heard the one about the Tuhoe cannibals or the one about the honoured Pasifikan being asked if his papers were in order or the one about the Asian NZer who isn’t a real NZer ?
funny shit..eh ?
Tanz.
It’s called “Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow”
What on earth is your point?
Really? Maybe he should re-read Oliver Twist in that case.
or Forster’s Three Cheers for Democracy? One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest? or maybe Sense and Sensibility?
John Key is a reality tv show that should have been canceled after its pilot.
You made me spit out my food.
It’s hard to imagine the man as a high trader on Wall St. He’s so soft centred and pliable…or is that all a facade? Bill English for PM, because he is bright and handsome!
I cannot tell if you are being serious or if you are kidding 😛
Serious, of course. He looks like James Cagney…nice. And he’s more right wing, Conservative.
yep I agree English has the charisma of a man who been dead decades and the dance moves to match… no one can beat Hodgson when it comes to zombie crunk style..
Serious! He’s film star material, and Conservative, the real thing.
Ah Tanz – where were you in 2002? Jeez Wayne that was a drubbing for Double Dipton if ever there was.
Wasn’t his fault. National had been in power for years, and as always, the public grew tired of them. Famalarity breeds, contempt, especially in politics. National/Labour always, nine years or so, if they’re lucky. He just had to carry the can, that’s all.
Hope Goff doesn’t have to use that excuse next year..
wow – your vote for Nat-MPILF is in.
yup…as a finance minister, he’s a great actor
and conservative, the mans so risk averse i imagine he wears 2 pairs of undies…
Also, what’s with eating turkey when you have the option of eating something pleasant?
It’s traditional in Key’s homeland.
Poor bastards.