What a world where a supposed journalist writes this:
The trouble is Key’s desire to be reasonable. Despite his intention to say no more about his reasons for losing confidence in Worth, he keeps responding to the media interrogation and seems unable to draw a line under the question.
The best approach would be, simply to state: “I have nothing more to say on the matter. Any other questions on any other issues?” Muldoon, Lange, Bolger and Clark all quickly learned how to kill a question line [though none of them ever refused to say why they sacked a minister]. Key needs to do that, too.
What a world where a PM keeping secret his reason for firing a minister is being “reasonable”. What a world where a “desire to be reasonable” is troublesome. What a world where Key needs to learn how to not answer questions. Glad I don’t live in that world. If Key were “reasonable” he would be upfront with us.
Ralston spends half his column going over the Worth smut: ‘Did woman A have it coming? Was woman B a skank?’ None of it matters. The only question is: ‘why did the PM fire a minister and force him to resign as an MP’. Key says it has nothing to do with the sexual stuff. So it’s all irrelevant. Which is why Ralston and Whale want to distract us with it.
This isn’t even really about Worth. It’s about Key. Did Key make the right call in firing Worth? Why won’t Key tell us what the reason was? What happened to Key’s promise of open government? The Herald editorial gets it:
The silence of the Prime Minister, John Key, is more problematic still. At first declining to comment because it was the subject of a police investigation, he later said he had “washed his hands” of Worth (who had resigned as a minister and, later, as an MP) and had moved on. But it is not satisfactory for the matter to be left hanging. Cabinet protocol may not require Key to disclose why he lost confidence in his minister and the caucus lost confidence in its colleague. But justice requires that we be told.
This is not simply a question of prurient gossip… In the interests of transparency of the executive, the matter must be brought to a tidy close – and not simply left to fade away.
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