Cunt Key

[Winston001]

Mate - these are politicians we are talking about here. All of them very self-serving on both sides.

We fund these arsewipes with taxpayer dollars to hire spin doctors and researchers to dig into each others past so they can sling mud at eachother in election year. Waste of our hard earned money.

Agreed. We are a tiny nation far removed from our markets with a slowly declining standard of living. So what do some MPs ask their staff to do? Sniff around listening to rumours and scanning emails on the off-chance they will find something about another MP.

Such triviality makes me sick.

[Pwalo]

That to me is the issue and all others in this thread are non events.


Skyryder[/QUOTE]

Good to see you keeping an open mind on the whole thing then.

[Winston001]

"There are good times just around the corner...." there's a song with this line in it....

My political memory goes back over fifty years. The one thing I have learned in that length of time is that no political party in New Zealand (or anywhere else for that matter) has ever had "all the answers"......with the best of intentions, each and every party has done whatever they thought was right at the time, but none of them have ever provided the universal panacea - and nor will they. A lot of what happens in NZ these days comes from offshore - oil prices, bank credit squeezes, commodity prices - you name it. Our government of whatever persuasion, is at best reactive, very rarely indeed, proactive. We are at the arse end of the globe, miles from anywhere and tiny to boot. The big boys don't give a hoot. We do the best we can in the circumstances we find ourselves in. Don't expect changing the colour of our government to solve all our problems - it don't work like that any more if it ever did.......changes are cosmetic, not fundamental.......bloody little ray of sunshine I am and all.....

WOOAAHHH

This is KB - no room for any sensible stuff here. Youi'll get banned!!

[Winston001]

Whatever they say or claim, no politician is to be trusted. They just want you to get them re-elected. Other than that, they care not a jot for you and yours.

Yes....and No.

The politicians I've known are genuine about wanting the best for their local community and New Zealand. They do care about you and me because we are such a small place that politicians can't live apart from the average person. On a beach, in the supermarket, tramping, our polies aren't guarded by police, you can walk up to 95% of them.

However - politics and power are subtle and addictive experiences. Once you've had them, its hard to walk away.

Also if you have ideas you want to put into action, you have to get other people to agree with you. To achieve that, you'll need to agree to their ideas. And thus......compromise occurs.

None of this means anything if you don't get elected, and specifically, you need to be on the winning side. Ethical highly intelligent politicians (like Simon Upton and Don Brash) are wasted if they aren't in the winning team. Even then the loud abrasive types overshadow them.

For all the criticism on KB and in a hundred pubs around the nation, how many of you have ever been a politician? It is a hellish job and one I could never do.

[k14]

No the numbers are important. He knowingly lied on this and believed that he would no be found out. This as I said is not a mistake. Mistakes are wrong decisions made in the best of interest. We all make mistakes none of us are perfect in that reguard but our mistakes are made in the best of interest and it is only in hindsight that we aknowledge them. Key was adamant 50000 max. No doubt on this number at all.
Then when he realised that the reporter knew this was not true he changed his story.....100,000 YEP......instantly so as to reduce damge. This is not an honest admission of a mistake but that of a slick operator fast on his feet. Now I personly have some admiration for people who can do this but that is tempered with some ethics and honesty. Key has failed in this and suggests a man less open to the truth than those he accuses.


That he lost on the deal is not the issue. He has been leading us to believe that he only held 30,000 and then blamed those who acepted this as the truth for not asking.

In short he blamed those that accepted his honesty for not asking 'exactly' how many shares he had.

That to me is the issue and all others in this thread are non events.


Skyryder

Yes well that is the other theory that is plausible. The reason I don't agree with it is what does he have to gain over lying intentionally about having less shares than he really did?? It doesn't make sense to me, what did he have to gain by leading the public to believe he had 50000 shares instead of 100000?? Maybe I am naive but we'll have to agree to disagree.

[imdying]

Transparency International publishes its index on its public officials and politicians. That's the the Government not the countries buisness.

Situation reversed, you'd be the first one to say that it includes all of the public officials as well, not just the government, and thus not a true reflection on the government itself... your hypocrisy is pretty transparent.

I am enjoying watching the forum cut you down whilst you continue to try to make something bigger out of this than it is, not least of which is because the crowd you support is unarguably considerably more corrupt than the ones you're trying to sully.

Or have you not noticed that which is plainly obvious to the rest? Or maybe you're the only one with their tinfoil hat on right?

[vifferman]

The politicians I've known are genuine about wanting the best for their local community and New Zealand. They do care about you and me because we are such a small place that politicians can't live apart from the average person. On a beach, in the supermarket, tramping, our polies aren't guarded by police, you can walk up to 95% of them.

However - politics and power are subtle and addictive experiences. Once you've had them, its hard to walk away.

Also if you have ideas you want to put into action, you have to get other people to agree with you. To achieve that, you'll need to agree to their ideas. And thus......compromise occurs.

None of this means anything if you don't get elected, and specifically, you need to be on the winning side. Ethical highly intelligent politicians (like Simon Upton and Don Brash) are wasted if they aren't in the winning team. Even then the loud abrasive types overshadow them.

For all the criticism on KB and in a hundred pubs around the nation, how many of you have ever been a politician? It is a hellish job and one I could never do.

Good post, Mr Winston.
However, I believe (and I'm just plucking this out of my butt here) that while there are those politicians who fall into the "are genuine about wanting the best for their local community and New Zealand" category, and have run for parliament because they have a desire to change the way things are done, there are also that weird breed of politician who rose up through the ranks of school committees, Rotary, etc, and just love being on a committee, having meetings and making rules and passing votes and all that nonsense. They're weird! And they love rules'n'regulations and bureaucracy.
WHich brings up another point: to some extent it doesn't matter who is in power (unless they're total nutjobs) - we still have mostly the same lot of career bureaucrats actually running the country, and increasing the burden of bureaucracy that's weighing us down. Unfortunately, Labour has done a very good job of breeding these guys, and now we have more than ever before, and a whole lot more 'hangers on' who are employed as contractors at very great expense. And of course they want to maintain the status quo, and preserve their comfortable lifestyles and unproductive paper-shuffling, report-writing jobs, so an awful lot of what they do revolves around making their little packet of bureaucracy entrenched in the very fabric of The System.

[Skyryder]

Yes well that is the other theory that is plausible. The reason I don't agree with it is what does he have to gain over lying intentionally about having less shares than he really did?? It doesn't make sense to me, what did he have to gain by leading the public to believe he had 50000 shares instead of 100000?? Maybe I am naive but we'll have to agree to disagree.

Only Key would be able answer that. Why not ask him?

But your arguement in no alters the fact that he lied and then blamed others for not asking. I fail to see how you can disagree with this when it is on record.

Skyryder

[SPman]

the only guarantee we have is that there are some really ignorant people out there and they tend to follow who ever offer them the most easy cash available. Labour will bring out some new financial "benefit". Just look at the free schooling thing ..... great success for them!

And National are offering $50 a week tax cuts.......the cycle goes on......

[slofox]

Yes....and No.

The politicians I've known are genuine about wanting the best for their local community and New Zealand. They do care about you and me because we are such a small place that politicians can't live apart from the average person. On a beach, in the supermarket, tramping, our polies aren't guarded by police, you can walk up to 95% of them.

However - politics and power are subtle and addictive experiences. Once you've had them, its hard to walk away.

Also if you have ideas you want to put into action, you have to get other people to agree with you. To achieve that, you'll need to agree to their ideas. And thus......compromise occurs.

None of this means anything if you don't get elected, and specifically, you need to be on the winning side. Ethical highly intelligent politicians (like Simon Upton and Don Brash) are wasted if they aren't in the winning team. Even then the loud abrasive types overshadow them.

For all the criticism on KB and in a hundred pubs around the nation, how many of you have ever been a politician? It is a hellish job and one I could never do.

You're talking flamin' common sense as well Winston - YOU'LL get banned too!

[vifferman]

And National are offering $50 a week tax cuts.......the cycle goes on......

Well, I guess they had to do that. Neither party has any real answers or decent policies to offer that distinguish them from one another, so their tactics have to be scaremongering, the blame game, and offering bribes. Even if they did have some really good ideas, the average drone in Un Zud's not really interested - the bottom line is "What's in it for me?"

[Flatcap]

And National are offering $50 a week tax cuts.......the cycle goes on......

That's not a benefit - it's just stealing less of our money

[Skyryder]

Situation reversed, you'd be the first one to say that it includes all of the public officials as well, not just the government, and thus not a true reflection on the government itself... your hypocrisy is pretty transparent.

Pretty weak argument this. Stating what I would say if the sitation is reversed and then concluding that my hypocrisy is transparent.

Transparent on your fiction. Time you had a Tuis

The rest of you post is not worthy of comment.



Skyryder

[imdying]

Pretty weak argument this. Stating what I would say if the sitation is reversed and then concluding that my hypocrisy is transparent.

Transparent on your fiction. Time you had a Tuis

The rest of you post is not worthy of comment.

Fortunately it wasn't written for your benefit... your unfounded vitriol is obvious so I wouldn't waste my breath

You're just like your mates, there is no doubt you'd twist it to suit your means, don't think you're fooling anyone.

[MisterD]

And National are offering $50 a week tax cuts.......the cycle goes on......

There's a pretty strong economic argument that this is exactly the kind of fiscal stimulus the economy needs at the moment - just bear that in mind when you're lapping up the Cullen attacks on the basis of "we can't afford it", and "borrowing for tax cuts" and whatever other negativity they come up with.

Do you trust someone who paid 5x over the odds for his trainset? He's incompetent and the Aussies did him like a kipper.