DUNNOKEYO

Last month The Standard published a list of inconsistencies that have come from John Key in the past seven years.  As I read I recalled a line from Nicky Hager’s ‘Pundit’ blog during the 2008 election campaign.  “There’s actually only one John Key, just not the one on show.”

The Standard’s list starts two months before the 2008 election with Key telling Paul Henry on Close Up that he would always be honest.  At the time his nose barely wobbled.  However since then it has grown considerably, along with the scope and impact of the inconsistencies.

22nd May 2008 on Campbell Live Key said, “We are not going to sack public servants, the attrition rate will reduce costs.”  

By September 2011 his government had slashed 2400 public service jobs, and announced another 1000 were set to go within two years.  Using phrases like ‘ongoing changes in staff positions’ or ‘a reflection of the change programmes which have been undertaken,’ more than 3000 positions have now been cut. I wonder if local DoC staff affected by these cuts can tell the difference between being changed and being sacked.

On 27th July 2008, Key said, “We are not going to cut Working for Families [payments].” 

Less than three years later he announced that cuts to the Working for Families payments of ‘high earners’ would kick in at $36,350 p.a.  He who once earned $96,000 a week considered those on $36,350 p.a. to be ‘high earners’.  How richly ironic was that?  Read on.

During the 2011 election campaign, Key claimed that international credit rating agency, Standard and Poors, had told him a credit downgrade would be more likely with a change of government in New Zealand.  A week later S&P contradicted Key’s claim saying, “It is something we just don’t do.  We don’t rate political parties, we rate governments.”

And yet when the double credit downgrade had happened a month earlier Key had said in the House that it didn’t “really matter” because “hey it’s just private debt.” That was more than an inconsistency, it was an out and out untruth and a particularly pernicious one, because most people didn’t understand what it meant when he said it, and most media commentators and economists have never explained nor contradicted it since. 

In the simplest terms, Key was concealing the true level of New Zealand’s indebtedness, which is calculated on a combination of household, business and government debt.  Our true level of indebtedness is what determines our credit rating as a nation, which in turn impacts on how much our money is worth, how many jobs we need to hold down to pay the bills; and so it goes on.

It’s true that politicians in general are “economic with the truth,” but The Standard’s full list, which can be read online at http://thestandard.org.nz/an-honest-man/#comments, shows that John Key has taken that economy to a whole new low.  Combined with his serial brain-fades, he has now earned a new nickname. 

Someone owes Pinnochio an apology, while Dunnokeyo just owes us the truth.