Hard News: Key Questions
177 Responses
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The thing that surprises me about this whole subject is how quickly people seemed to have forgotten (had a brain fade?) the past Prime Minister behaviour when she was given a grilling
Remember "corn gate" or this when describing her interviewer
"a sanctimonious little creep" who forgot she would only answer written questions as anything else was an ambushOf course our PMs should be above this sort of behaviour but it is not something new or only from the right
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
RNZ gave me and Mike Williams a transcript of the Gower/Key conversation when Mike and I were in the studio this morning. I have discarded it since but it involved Paddy asking Key what might happen if North Korea invaded South Korea and then the US and Australia went to South Korea's defence, and Key saying he didn't want to speculate but that NZ had a record of defending South Korea. So while I think Key said more than he needed to, I also agree with you that this is a bit of a beat up. I think pretty much all New Zealanders would support helping a friendly now-democratic country, and major trading partner, defend itself from invasion by a loony dictatorship.
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
Raymond, I agree with you in the sense that Helen Clark tried in her third term to remove fundamental rights of free speech and would have represented a major threat to the continuation of a free media had she and Winston Peters been re-elected in 2008. Which is why I don't think "Clark would have do me it too" should ever be used as a defence for ten current or future prime ministers.
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Matthew Hooton, in reply to
I meant "Clark would have done it too"
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Sacha, in reply to
(There's a Edit function - shows when you point to the bottom right corner of your post for 15 mins after you submit it.)
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
it involved Paddy asking Key what might happen if North Korea invaded South Korea and then the US and Australia went to South Korea’s defence, and Key saying he didn’t want to speculate but that NZ had a record of defending South Korea.
That's kinda what I thought it would be. It seemed like too-detailed an answer for an innocuous question like "What are your thoughts on the North Korea situation?"
As far as Helen being a threat to a free media goes, Key's unwillingness to set a firm line around the TPP's IP clauses is at least as much of a very real threat as whatever you might imagine Helen posed. Helen had the BSA supporting her reaction to Campbell, whereas I can't imagine that Key will even try and get a ruling from them or the Press Council in this case because he's got no leg to stand on.
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The PM needs to do better than that on questions of war and peace. Like, that's a question to which a correct answer is: "I'm not going to discuss that hypothetical", or "New Zealand is committed to a peaceful solution and calls on the DPRK to de-escalate" or whatever the line is. It's really important to stick to the line that's been carefully formulated to do the least to cause war in the Korean Penisula, and not start rabbiting on about unforseeability, or the mountain of conflict, or whatever.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
huge amounts of aid to recover
See, that's the great advantage of megatonne weapons on a 1km grid. No survivors, the place uninhabitable for many years and hence no need or possibility for reconstruction.
An apology a few years down the track, and you're home and hosed.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Precisely. The raving about him having declared war seems to have led some people to overlook the sheer ineptitude of what he did say.
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And really, sticking to the line is not hard. "Sorry Paddy, but I'm not going to comment on that hypothetical situation" or "As I said, New Zealand calls on North Korea to ..." is pretty much Media 101, and it isn't even problematic in that context.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
The thing that surprises me about this whole subject is how quickly people seemed to have forgotten (had a brain fade?) the past Prime Minister behaviour when she was given a grilling
Not me! I specifically mentioned it in the original post. As I said, Clark did herself no credit with her response. I wrote here about the BSA finding on complaints from the Prime Minister’s office, the Life Sciences Network and individual citizens:
What the authority did do was to uphold TV3’s right to conduct a demanding and aggressive interview without tipping off the Prime Minister in advance as to its specific content. Complaints about the interview per se were not upheld ...
But, on the other hand, the authority takes the view that there was a public interest justification for the story and the interview, but believes that the Prime Minister had a right to know when she was interviewed what was specifically being alleged against her, and by whom ...
... The authority again endorses the right of the broadcaster to conduct a tough interview in the public interest. But it believes that tough questions ought also to have been asked of the source of the allegations.
It's a genuinely different situation to Key being asked straightforward questions about his own actions, not telling the truth and then throwing a hissy fit.
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Sacha, in reply to
Key being asked straightforward questions about his own actions, not telling the truth and then throwing a hissy fit.
concise summary
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Korea 101. There was a wee war back in the 50s. NK headed off down south and the “Goodies” were left with a wee corner around Busan. Enter the big boys led by Nuke ’em McArthur who cut the peninsula in half and then headed north all the way to the border. In other words the UN / USA / “Goodies” had the whole freaking lot to themselves. Enter China. Down we go again back to the old demarcation line and lets sign a ceasefire. They are still technically at war.
Now. That is why it was not a good look from the PM – in China – talking about who we will back if the NK decided to head south again. Because I suspect the “Baddies” – and historically this means China – will give the NK a bit of a hand again.
Whoop Whoop – Pull Up Pull Up
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
The ethnic constitution of the US military is very skewed away from the population as a whole, and also away from the wealthy. It's poor black and white kids from deprived states who compose the enlisted ranks.
Elvis Costello has also said that "Oliver's Army" has a similar premise, but for unemployed British youth.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Because I suspect the “Baddies” – and historically this means China – will give the NK a bit of a hand again.
I suspect China, although it has plenty of spare young men, will be working to preserve peace and stability. Too much invested in globalised trade, too many memories of unstable times, too many young people comparing North Korea now with China of the Mao era. But yeah, the rest I agree with.
And while we're getting stuck into our fellow Kiwis saying dumb shit in or about China, how the hell can Patrick Gower not know which is Xi Jinping's surname and which his given name? Oh, wait, I see that article has been mostly cleaned up, but still has this clanger:
Mr Jinping took charge of China's 1.3 billion people three weeks ago. His wife, Peng Liyuan, has real star power – a folk opera singer with fans across China.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
And really, sticking to the line is not hard. “Sorry Paddy, but I’m not going to comment on that hypothetical situation” or “As I said, New Zealand calls on North Korea to …” is pretty much Media 101, and it isn’t even problematic in that context.
Quite. The whole "Key is rushing to declare war on North Korea" beat-up has completely missed that he shouldn't have said what he did. The outrage hasn't been over his choice of answer, it's been over the incorrectly inferred context. Insert the context of Gower's question and Key's full answer (as opposed to whatever choice snippets might be used) isn't in the least bit warmongering. It is, however, terrifyingly impolitic.
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Cosmic - Key is accused of smoking Dope as Thatcher, likely one of Key's Idols, exits.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876297
Goes some way to explaining the brain fade - perpetual short-term memory loss - a dope head in a suit.
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It's a small country.
Compared to Russia, Canada, America, China, Brazil and the like, yes. Compared to many, many of the world's countries, no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area
I know I'm being pedantic, but NZ is bigger than the UK. It's not a small country, there's just not many people.
And totally agree about John Campbell's interview with Rennie. As I posted on Twitter:
Congrats @CampbellLiveNZ on in-depth chat with Mr Rennie. Almost 15 minutes, & no shouting. We need longer interviews, & better manners
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We have Kim Dot Com to thank for challenging the machinery of govt that lead to the revelation that there are up to 85 cases of illegal spying by the NZ Govt since 2003 - involving both the Key and Clark governments..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876344
Although Key can't remember anything - should GCSB head Ian Fletcher's have to resign over his comments earlier in the year that GCSB had not unlawfully spied on any NZ Residents or Citizen's other than KIm Dotcom?
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
should GCSB head Ian Fletcher’s have to resign over his comments earlier in the year that GCSB had not unlawfully spied on any NZ Residents or Citizen’s other than KIm Dotcom?
Your appalling abuse of innocent apostrophes aside, there’s no suggestion that Fletcher presided over any other illegal activity. Given the concept of compartmentalisation that pervades intelligence services it’s not unreasonable for him not to have known. It’s also very unreasonable to expect that he would have had a full review conducted of all past domestic operations to check their legality. It’s not his job to investigate the legality of operations that concluded before the start of his tenure; supposedly it’s the job of the Inspector-General to ensure legal compliance on an ongoing basis.
The outcome of this report should be all the ammunition required to overhaul the oversight of our intelligence services and turn the Intelligence Select Committee into a fully-fanged monitoring body in the mould of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in the US. Not holding my breath for National to support such a thing, but given that the sin is across both major parties it’s less of a face-losing exercise.
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Your appalling abuse of innocent apostrophes aside
My bad was editing down a longer post re "Fletcher's denial".
Operating outside the law was standard operating procedure - my view is that Key, Fletcher & even Ferguson would be in the know.
The Kim Dot Com saga has been precipitous.
To rebuild confidence in democracy and the office of both the Prime Minister and the GCSB - the GCSB needs to be rebuilt by someone other than an acquaintance shoulder tapped by the PM. The denial by Fletcher creates this opportunity.
Under both Labour and National GCSB have acted unlawfully - The GCSB and Prime Minister’s management (as mininster in charge) of the security interest of the nation needs to be far more accountable and have regard to the law.
Part of the initiative for the Kitteridge report is to prepare the ground for Key in setting up the defence - That they (Labour/Clark) did it too – it isn’t good enough – it is criminal.
Key's fall back brainfade position has become so overused it is purely bullshit - Key should resign and there should be consquences for Clark.
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Cosmic – Key is accused of smoking Dope as Thatcher, likely one of Key’s Idols, exits.
You think he knew who Thatcher was? She was PM in another country when he was at uni. Like 'The Tour', I figure he probably can't recall who she was or what she did.
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DexterX, in reply to
Thatcher was part of the driving force that deregulated financial markets opening the flood gates that released the wave Key surfed as a merchant banker stoner dude - Key would have worn Iron Maiden T Shirts under his suits in the 1980s thru to the 1990s – his homage to her greatness keeping the “Iron Maiden” close to his black, black heart.
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The GCSB report is out this arvo - Key will no doubt play the victim of circumstance beyond his control/recollection.
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Paul Williams, in reply to
I was mostly joking but you're right, he'd see her in the same light as Hayek (of whom Thatcher was a huge fan)
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