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Prime Minister John Key - Source: ONE News
For the last two years National has proved it's an adept manager
of mini-political crises, scandals and disasters.
Despite relentless opposition attacks, cabinet minister
resignations, coalition in-fighting, earthquakes, recessions and
finance company bailouts, its approval ratings with the public have
stayed at very high levels.
However this week there were a couple of slightly out of character
missteps.
One of which was of its own doing, the other a result perhaps of
succumbing to some effective opposition politics.
Firstly there was the story about the taxpayer funded Community Max
scheme in Northland which aimed to help up-skill unemployed people
by paying them the minimum wage to grow vegetables.
Unfortunately when a camera arrived to investigate the $300,000
scheme, all that was left of the Community Max garden was one
pumpkin and an overgrown paddock.
On the face of it, it looked like a bad use of what we are told
repeatedly is very scarce taxpayer's money.
Not a good look for the government.
The pumpkin of course was quickly jumped on by Labour and used as a
symbol for lax government spending and sloppy oversight.
Labour MP Jacinda Ardern even proudly produced one in Parliamentary
question time to ram home the point in the media.
Now there is plenty of debate as to whether this scheme was in fact
that much of a failure.
The Herald followed the TV3 story up by reporting that the garden
did produce plenty of produce whilst it was up and running with a
number of its workers apparently going on to find other work.
Now the government tried to point this out, but was probably a bit
slow with its response.
And it didn't do its homework on the Community Max scheme
either.
As later in the week it exposed itself to accusations of hypocrisy
by once again ridiculing Labour for funding hip hop tours when last
in government.
It turned out subsequently that Community Max scheme had also
reportedly funded some hip hop programmes. Again not a good
look&..
Probably more damaging for the government though was the revelation
on ONE News that it was upgrading its three-year-old BMW limo fleet
with brand new Beamers.
This had viewers to Breakfast incensed. With the tone of the emails
I saw being: How could politicians buy new BMWs when at the same
time they were telling Kiwis to tighten their own belts?
However what was perhaps more surprising was how the government
could not have seen that this was going to blow up in its
face?
Some government ministers, although not John Key, were apparently
aware of the purchase some time ago.
Key says he only learned about it from his limo driver. One assumes
if he had been aware, his political antennae might have prevented
the purchase.
Now, on their own these incidents are relatively minor, nonetheless
they will be worrying for the National party brains trust.
People hate politicians being hypocrites. It drives them mad.
And every time National wants to urge spending restraint in future
it will face criticism from the Labour over the Beamers and the
Pumpkin.
Whether that's justified or not is in some ways beside the point.
Politics is often more about perception than reality. And on the
perception front some damage has been done.
And remember National was ruthless at exposing these types of
scandals when in opposition.
So Labour will feel it is well within its rights to keep on doing
the same thing.
Comment on Corin Dann's article below.
Read more Corin Dann commentary here.
Add a Comment:
Post new commentmonette said on 2011-03-02 @ 12:06 NZDT: Report abusive post
Kia Ora Corin, Can you do a focus on what the Maori community is doing in Christchurch especially the Maori wardens who are essentially a voluntary organisation. There are hundreds working in Christchurch at this present time and approx 20 are arriving from Whanganui(my home town)within the next 2 days to stay for three weeks. These wardens do an essential but mainly unrecognised and unappreciated job in our communities working with police, security, traffic etc. Kia Kaha Monette Robinson