Welcome to Planet Key

I've never been a fan of John Key.  Sure, I lean pretty far towards the left so I find his politics pretty objectionable, I can't stand his constant butchering of the English language and I still cringe with embarrassment when I think of his appearance on Letterman, but those are not the only reasons.  I've always found it disconcerting how Mr Key invariably phrases sentences so to avoid any responsibility for their content.  Just count the number of sentences beginning with "On the advice I’ve had..." or similar.  It's a lot.  The Banks/Dotcom/GCSB saga has taken things to a new level.

In the Banks-Dotcom spat, Key seems to be adopting a "see-no-evil" approach with his refusal to read documentation that may require him to think about sanctioning Banks.  This is pretty cynical given his "holier-than-thou" approach as an opposition MP and during National's first term.  I suppose it's understandable though given Key's primary objective: to preserve his coalition and hang onto power at any cost.

The latest Dotcom scandal involving the GCSB really takes the cake though.  Despite providing the only democratically elected oversight to the GCSB, Key seems to think that he didn't know the agency was illegally spying on Dotcom absolves him of all responsibility.  Something is badly wrong here - either Key DID know and is lying, or Key has been woefully negligent and incompetent in his duties as prime-minister.  You can't have it neither way.

I think part of Key's charm is his casual attitude to the pretty serious business of running a country, at least as far as Joe Public is concerned.  The contrast with Helen Clarke's iron fist approach couldn't be sharper, and Key has rode the resultant popularity wave for a number of years.  Unfortunately for NZ, having someone tell us everything is going to be OK and not to worry about things isn't going to stop NZ's decline towards becoming an economic basket case.  Nor will his casual approach or total reluctance to accept any sort of responsibility for the decisions he makes or the actions of his ministers. Key has always tried to take the line of least resistance when setting policy to ensure his all-important personal popularity will stay intact.  I can only hope that NZ voters are smart enough to see through the ruse, but given the idiotic response of most NZers once Maori got involved over the proposed asset sales, I don't hold out much hope.

Also discouraging is Labour's almost complete inability to articulate a response to the situation.  I thought they might catch onto something when Key so flippantly described "Planet Key", showing just where he seems to think NZers priorities lie and how out of touch with the country's problems he really is, but they utterly failed to capitalise.  What we are left with is a government, led by a man who has just demonstrated he is devoid of integrity, which is selling out NZ's future to stay in power today and an opposition who are unable to come up with ideas which are compellingly different.