Island Life: A week in the life of that nice Mr Key
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I've bust all day so I haven't had a chance to say how much I love this piece. But now I do, so I will.
I love this piece so much, Mr Slack. In fact, it reminds me of something someone else * wrote a couple of years back. I believe you helped him out.
But seriously, as you say, Key's problem as a leader seems to be, at the moment at least, his rudderlessness. Maybe that will change, but at the moment, things are going very askew because of his inability to nail things down to the mast.
*(And yes, may god stone me a thousand times for doing what I did there)
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Do you think John Key is a weathervane or a weathercock?
I Know that Graham Reid has already used the title but I think with all the nasty stress he's been under it's time to suggest some "Songs in the Life of Key" for soothing tunes he could put on his iPod.
I'l kick off with:
Rankin' Full Stop (The Beat) Here Comes Richard (Billy Bragg) or Was it Worth it? (Pet Shop Boys) and Hey Paula (sorry, before my time!).
Any other suggestions? -
On a different note, is anyone else finding it a little peculiar that both of the woman involved in this case are constantly referred to as an "Indian woman" and a "Korean woman". I'm not sure why their ethnicity is constantly mentioned - seems like a way to make them even less anonymous given all the other details we know about them...
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PAS is balm to my mind- quirky, civilised discourse, and a helluva lot of info I'd never get elsewhere- thanks Pascinistas!
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Mr Worth must be gutted his case has been transferred to Wellington (odd that - usually it remains near the alleged scene or the victim... surprised a few journo's haven't picked up on the implications of that one... )
Since one assumes that the investigation is looking at things through the lens of a possible s103 offence, that makes the ultimate complainant the Crown and thus a transfer to Wellington is entirely ordinary. Field's case was handled in Wellington too, even though it was in Mangere and Samoa that the actual offending took place.
Also, because the communication took place, one assumes, by way of Worth's ministerial phone and email, that makes the location of the offences Wellington, at least titularly. -
Clef Richard 'n the shadows...
"Songs in the Life of Key" for soothing tunes he could put on his iPod. - Any other suggestions?
Just quickly before Neil Young starts on National Radio at 11 - I think Buffalao Springfield's classic For What it's Worth should be on there - and here's the classic muppet version (how do ya place a clip window directly in the post anyway?)
and something "Newsworthy" like The Beatles A Day in the Life I read the news today oh boy.... and perhaps some ENO for the rest of the ambience chasers
yrs
Roman A Clef -
Pascinistas
Hope that catches on - liking.
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Ian, just paste the whole url - including the "www" - and the system embeds it automatically.
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I now wait to see who wins the bidding war between Campbell and Sainsbury to hump his leg at seven.
Campbell, by miles. In both good and not so good ways.
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@ Sacha - ya mean like this?
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:)
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As I've said elsewhere, someone at the State Services Commission actually needs to sit Messers Goff and Key down and explain why workplace sexual harassment is serious shit, and not ammo in a political game.
Hmmm. First, I think if Goff's intent had been to play a political game, he'd have done so in Budget week. Secondly, when did this become a workplace issue?
The reality is that Key received an extraordinarily serious allegation -- that one of his ministers had been promising Crown appointments in pursuit of sexual favours -- and chose to let it die. It might have panned out okay, but for the subsequent matter. But it didn't and he actually does have to own that.
There is some scope for comparison to Clark's hear-no-evil stance on Peters (although far less obviously a victim), but I can't help but think that Clark, confronted with a heads-up like this, would have made damn sure someone found out exactly what happened. It seems that Key didn't.
And could I say this: I don't actually think the Prime Minister's office should be investigating claims of workplace sexual harassment.
But as far as I know, this wasn't anything do to with a workplace. And what was alleged is well beyond the bounds of workplace harassment and emphatically in the domain of the Prime Minister.
Key's about-face this afternoon on his willingness to meet with the Indian woman is just another step in a shambolic response. It is easily his worst few days as Prime Minister, and probably his worst since he entered politics.
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It's hard to believe that the media are still letting Key get away with this "Mr Key, what's your position on this?" "What should my position on this be?" nonsense. Helen might, maybe, possibly, have been treated with such fawning adoration in the first few months of Labour's last term, but I just can't imagine it. For one thing the media would've been asking serious questions about what had happened to the very adroit political operator they'd been following for the past however many years.
Which raises the contrast. Helen, for all her faults, didn't shuffle her way through a contentious issue. If her (clearly stated) position was no longer tenable, she stepped boldly to a new one and then resumed the offensive. The new position might have been shaped by public opinion, but you also knew that it was a position she held because she believed it to be the right (for values of right that may or may not include being totally morally defensible) one. Does Key even actually have a position on the issue of what Worth's been up to? It's hard to tell, because the man won't stand still long enough for anybody to pin him down.
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To return to the point I made much earlier in the day, here is the video of Isaac Ross using the same pronunciation of 'texts' as John Key.
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If the change was permanent then yeah, things would have changed.
But the way things have worked out historically for NZ (government-wise) it's just like shifting sands.
Some of those changes are permanent. National will not, for example, be reducing the minimum wage, repealing civil unions, or doing away with paid parental leave and working for families. And it will not be doing those things because they have now become part of the political background, and the political cost of touching them is too high.
To step back and take a longer view than just the last two governments, homosexuality is now legal, spousal rape is __il__legal, we have a Bill of Rights Act and a Human Rights Act, a nuclear free zone and an independent central bank. None of those things look like they're going to change either.
These changes have happened because of politics. They have made real differences to people's lives. It is simply the height of stupidity (not to mention completely empirically unsupportable) to shrug your shoulders and say, as you have, that it's all swings and roundabouts, the changes made by one government are reversed by the next, and that "nothing really changes". The fact that women can vote and we have pensions and pay GST rather disproves that.
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Hmmm. First, I think if Goff's intent had been to play a political game, he'd have done so in Budget week. Secondly, when did this become a workplace issue?
Russell: I'll admit I've just gotten back from Wellington, where I've been attending a funeral and getting roughly no sleep, but we are talking about someone being offered a job in exchange for sexual favours. Yes? How is that NOT a workplace issue?
And while I'm sure there are plenty of people who are going to differ, I don't give Goff any kind of pass here. My God, you have someone come to you with incredibly serious allegations of that nature and you sit on it. For months. You're being all "gentlemanly" and "dealing with it" through a serious of phone calls, while the State Services Commission has expended rather a lot of time and effort promoting a zero tolerance towards harassment and bullying in the workplace.
I'm severely underwhelmed by the whole farce, and I sure hope there are one or two women who are going to putting the slap on both Key and Goff at caucus next week.
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Key's about-face this afternoon on his willingness to meet with the Indian woman is just another step in a shambolic response. It is easily his worst few days as Prime Minister, and probably his worst since he entered politics.
Yeah, that's really what care about here -- the process story. Well, the process I actually care about is whether sexual harassment around Parliament actually gets taken seriously when its politically inconvenient to do so. I'm not very confident it is.
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Yes? How is that NOT a workplace issue?
The lack of a workplace would be the big one.
And while I'm sure there are plenty of people who are going to differ, I don't give Goff any kind of pass here ..
Clearly not ...
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The lack of a workplace would be the big one.
Perhaps... I just feel deeply icky about the idea of the Prime Minister's Office "investigating" allegations of that nature. If nothing else, I don't see how it could be done without giving the kind of people who think State of Play is a documentary occasion to cry "cover up". I just think Helen Clark is somewhere muttering "choke on it you bastards" under her breath.
Clearly not ...
Well, as I said IMO there's plenty of epic fail to go around. I just don't think there's any chivalry points to be scored by Goff here, and he might actually do himself a favour by keeping quiet.
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Well, the process I actually care about is whether sexual harassment around Parliament actually gets taken seriously when its politically inconvenient to do so
Given how easily Parliamentary staff can be sacked, without recourse, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if sexual harassment by MPs is treated as something of a game that nobody really talks about. SSC campaigns notwithstanding.
Amongst other things, MPs don't actually work directly for anyone. Ministers can have their portfolios taken from them, but the PM can't fire them. They can be ejected from the party, and in Worth's case that would be the end of it, but for electorate MPs they answer only to their electorate. It gets very, very grey. And when you're in that twilight zone, it's surely very easy to convince yourself that the rules don't actually apply to you.
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Shaz,
If he gets ejected from the party, Worth can stay on as an independent until the next election. I liked the Espiner "sense of entitlement" line...
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Shaz, are you sure? He's list, not electorate, so surely ejection from the Party would remove him from the list and thus from Parliament?
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I'm still trying to figure out why the matter wasn't put in the hands of Ministerial Services at the time.
Because this wouldn't be the domain of Ministerial Service (nor the Cabinet Office). Min Serv is responsible for providing support for Ministers - everything from travel to the employment of support staff. But they don't oversee the conduct of Ministers. That is the responsibility of the Prime Minister's Office. If the allegations had been about sexual harassment of Worth's office staff, employed by Ministerial Services, then Ministerial Services as the employer would be duty bound to investigate it as an employment issue.
But, as Russell pointed out, there really is no workplace involved here, and no formal HR structure to oversee the conduct of Ministers. There are rules, of course, in the form of the Cabinet Manual and Ministerial Office Handbook, but only some of those (such as conflicts of interest registers) are overseen by departmental staff (e.g. the Cab Office). The way in which Ministers acquit themselves, and oversight of their behaviour, is pretty much the sole responsibility of the Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff.
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3410,
surely ejection from the Party would remove him from the list and thus from Parliament?
Nope. Even if ejected from the Nats, we're stuck with him for 2 1/2 years more unless he decides to go.
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Shaz,
Or if he's convicted of a crime punishable by 2 or more years. I think..
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