by Kennedy Graham
In politics, it is said – especially by those not in politics – truth is the first casualty. You do not have to be long in this game to know that ‘truth’, whose ‘true’ meaning philosophers spend aeons in the hereafter debating, is an elastic commodity on the parliamentary market. But among politicians themselves, there is a kind of unspoken consensus as to where the boundaries, however blurred they might be, do lie.
Perhaps I am still learning this game, so I shall look for guidance, from anyone except the One Who Spoke, over the reply given by the Prime Minister to Jeanette Fitzsimons on her last day in the House. We’d welcome comment from readers, too. It is, after all, you whose gaze remains unclouded by the mist that arises from the witticisms in the House during Question Time.
It all has to do with Copenhagen. There a Youth Delegation, composed of 12 young Kiwi adults, sought a meeting with the PM to listen to him expound his views on the future of climate change for our country and his Government’s policies to combat the threat. Their letter seeking an appointment is here.
Granted, the Prime Minister is a busy person and Copenhagen was a critically important conference. And the Youth Delegation was composed of people who were, well, young. All of those factors go to ensure that, actually, he should have met with them. But he did not. At least, that is what they told us, on returning to New Zealand.
In her last Question Time two weeks ago, Jeanette asked the Prime Minister a series of questions pertaining to climate change. Wrapping up, she asked him why he had refused to meet with the Youth Delegation in Copenhagen.
The PM blandly replied that he had met with them. He wondered where Jeanette had got her information.
In politics, credibility is everything. This exchange was a relatively minor matter in the greater scheme of things, although the symbolism of meeting with the youth at Copenhagen would not have been lost on anyone except, it seems, the PM himself. So it is worth exploring a bit further. No doubt the PM judged he could get away with hitting Jeanette’s question for six into the Gallery, at some cost to her own credibility as she exits the place (despite his tribute to her in the first reply). But things have a habit of coming back to bight.
The Youth Delegation, in response to the exchange in the House, felt moved to send a letter to us. It is unequivocally clear that the PM did not agree to hold a meeting with the Delegation, but by chance happened to interact with two of the group when they were seeking to elicit an answer to their letter.
Does this matter? Yes, it does. This kind of thing goes to the heart of politics. Political fault lies less in getting it wrong than in misleading the public.
The PM would have known, during the exchange, that he had not had a proper meeting with the Delegation. So be it. He could have said that he was sorry he’d been unable to meet them, that it was just not possible to squeeze it in. He could have undertaken to meet them at some future time. He could have even decried the merit of such a meeting – asserting that he had higher affairs of state to attend to over the next 18 months. We might decry such a balance of priorities, but at least there would be genuine debate.
But he did none of these. In full flight, he took refuge, as he is increasingly prone to do, in the smart reply. Wrong-foot the opposition and move on fast. That may, or may not, have worked in currency trading. It does not work – for long – in politics.
The Prime Minister, fresh from the Letterman show, is slipping from grace. He is in the illustrious company of ‘misspeak’. Bill Clinton, fronting up to the grand jury during the Lewinsky affair, pondered the meaning of the word ‘is’.
Hilary Clinton, in the heat of the ’08 presidential campaign, explained that she had misspoken about ‘running with our heads down’ from sniper fire on landing in Bosnia during the crisis there in the ‘90s. Each survived, politically, but with reputation seriously tarnished. Tony Blair is facing comparable tests in the British enquiry into the Iraq war.
John Key, we Kiwis believe, is a likeable bloke and that’s the way he wants it. Even on that puerile level of analysis, he needs to apologise to the Youth Delegation. Twitter gets around. On the more serious level of the credibility and the mana of our head of government, he should apologise to the New Zealand public, in the House of Representatives.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Society & Culture by Kennedy Graham on Wed, February 24th, 2010
Tags: copenhagen, john key, Youth delegation
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
John Key tells lies.
He told lies before he was elected and he continues to tell them now.
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You say that like it is a revelation fly, he is a politician after all…
My vote for the good Dr as one of the few honest “blokes” in Parliament…
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excuse me, trifling or rifling .. the truth?
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Ken,
your prose is lovely, and your indignation on behalf of the Youth Delegation is admirable.
The decency of your approach to John Key’s failure is so unusual in this arena that one might be tempted to consider your choice to present the PM with options to redeem himself as naive, were it not for your careful enunciation of all the possible parameters.
‘More honesty in politics’ might seem to be an oxymoron to some, but here I congratulate you on this achievement. Our Young Greens need the support of the older heads in Parliament as much as their representaton by our youngest new MP.
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“It does not work – for long – in politics”
Cumulative stuff, that electronical recordage, that newspaper reportage and that word of mouthage.
“Remember the time he lied about his uranium shares? Well, yesterday, while he was talking to the Southland Federated Farmers…”
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That’s a nice story but heaps of assumptions in there and a bit of leap to say he is ‘lying’. Why would he? It’s such a piddly thing. Speaking of nice ‘stories’, is Kennedy Graham actually working on anything else? His posts on this blog are usually lovely prose but I’m struggling to understand what issues he’s progressing?? If he wants to write stories he should go off and be a story-writer. If he wants to be a green politician maybe he needs to wade into some Green issues? Seems to be heaps Canterbury at the moment. ISn’t that where he’s from? Maybe he could lend a hand there rather than sitting in his office blogging on sandcastles in the sky.
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Since when, skinman, is calling out the Prime minister for misleading the House a trifling matter? How is it that in standing up for the Youth Delegation – made up of many political flavours – he is not doing constituent work?
Are you asking that he blogs on every issue he is working on? Is that what you expect? Maybe he’s blogging on this one as the best medium to let his youth constituents know he’s fighting for their interests.
I think your personal attack here is way off the mark and pretty ignorant. Just because Kennedy chooses to blog on some things here and not others doesn’t imply he is lazy or uncaring. Get a life!
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While I can understand Key not meeting with the youth delegation (as these things are mostly stunts) this reminds me of the Ian Flemming novel where (a big wig) cheats at cards (a small thing) and turns out to be the main baddie.
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“Speaking of nice ’stories’, is Kennedy Graham actually working on anything else? His posts on this blog are usually lovely prose but I’m struggling to understand what issues he’s progressing??”
critical thinking over rhetoric (something the other (alleged) Greens are big on)?
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Hey frog, I think it’s a pretty serious matter when someone accuses the PM of lying when they chances are he wasn’t. Massive leap of logic I think. So I think it is entirely appropriate to call Mr Graham out when he makes a personal attack on the PM without really knowing whether he’s right or not. That strikes me as pretty ignorant frankly. And when did I say I think he is ‘lazy’ or ‘uncaring’? I think you’d do well to just calm down a bit and be less reactionary. Perhaps you could tell me exactly what he is working on? That way you’d be informing me and maybe changing my view of Kennedy Graham which is probably more productive than just telling me ‘get a life’.
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I reckon Key tells lies casually, based on who he’s talking to and what they’d like to hear. Doubtless he’ll be able to argue away or bluster over most challenges to his veracity, but that doesn’t obscure the fact that he doesn’t talk straight.
It will be his undoing, imo.
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Though not as important as meeting the Youth Delegation in Copenhagen, we had a similar incident with John Key, who is our local MP. The Kaukapakapa residents and ratepayers association lead the opposition to Genesis Energy building a gas-fired power station in our community. In July 2008 the association asked for an urgent meeting with Key but were told his electorate diary was full until after the election. Not happy with this response, they issued a media release to which Key responded publicly, saying he had met with the group several times in the past. As it happens, this was the first time the association had ever asked to meet with Key, and he’d confused them with another group entirely.
When this mistake was pointed out (in the media and during Question time in Parliament), Key offered to rearrange his meeting schedule. The local group was happy – until it was discovered that hours BEFORE confirming to the association he was now available to meet with them, Key’s electorate email newsletter was distributed with this little gem in it “A local group that is against the proposed thermal generation plant in our area is claiming that I am refusing to see them. This is incorrect. I am in fact seeing some of them later this month.”
So it was made to look as though he had this meeting scheduled all along when in fact it was a last minute flip-flop.
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Pants
on
fire
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