Key’s trip cancelled
Media were told this morning that the PM’s trip to Europe to meet David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy has been cancelled.
It would have been a tough call. A huge amount of planning would have gone into the trip, and it is not the sort of thing you can just reschedule for a month down the road.
But I think the right call. If the trip was scheduled even a week later, then one might have been able to do it. But going overseas within a week of the earthquake would have led (unfairly) to a perception that the earthquake is less important.
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Tags: John Key
September 7th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Doesn’t matter what decision he makes the left will squeal its the wrong one.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Key has done the right thing.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Absolutely the right decision.
I heard him being interviewed late on Saturday afternoon, and commend him for his restrained answer when asked why he had raced down to Christchurch. I was screaming at the radio that it was partly because the journalist in question and his mates would have pilloried him if he HADN’T raced down to Christchurch!
September 7th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Sad that our shallow media comment like John Armstrong’s in this morning’s Herald is always about the ‘look’ or the PR aspect rather than substance. So the country sucks up the lost deposits, the lost opportunities etc so we can all feel comforted Daddy is home and looking after us.
And if he had gone, the heartless capitalist that he is, just dying to drink from the Queen’s bone china… As if. Is it only journalists who are mesmerised by the dizzy dreams of business travel?
Not that we can expect much better from the Herald after Deborah Hill Cone’s shallow sneering at Canterbury people in last week’s Business Herald (I hope she is cringing this week and hoping we have all forgotten now her Christchurch snobs have coped so admirably) and the Sunday editorial lambasting everyone for not doing some George W histrionics to rally the shocked citizenry.
Let me add my tuppenceworth. I though Key, Carter, Brownlie etc gave us superb leadership as did Mayor Bob Parker. Low key, intelligent, assured. As were the USAR, Orion, the City Council etc etc.
Despite the meda panting to ramp up the ‘traumatised by the carnage’ or, as one media dollybird memorably opined, ‘it’s real surreal’.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:07 am
They’re just pissy that they lost their chance for a free tagalong ride BeaB.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:20 am
I understand why Key has cancelled, understand also how pathetic the commynists are and how they’d bray but (there’s always an f-ing “but”) how much more can Key do in NZ that he can’t do from Europe?
BeaB, couldn’t agree more.
The political leadership during this crisis has been a revelation.
We are very lucky that the right people were in the right positions at just the right time.
As an aside I tried to de-politicise that last sentence by using “correct” instead if “right”. Didn’t work. Wonder if there is a message there.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:22 am
“Doesn’t matter what decision he makes the left will squeal its the wrong one.”
..and the right will squeal it’s the right one.
No big deal, just the way the world works.
Personally I’d rather he went. Brownlee can handle it.
Oh hang on… Yes it was right for Key to cancel the trip.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:24 am
There were a heck of a lot of “right people in the right positions” – Civil Defence, police, fire, urban rescue, building inspectors, contractors etc etc. It hasn’t been handled this well without a heap of preparation and a lot of effort by a lot of people and organisations. Key and Parker have been doing their bit ably, alongside many.
Key has made the correct call to stay here for now.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:39 am
” It hasn’t been handled this well without a heap of preparation and a lot of effort by a lot of people and organisations”
Quoted for truth. An awful lot of luck involved as well, but yes it shows what forward thinking (and investment) can do.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:56 am
The effort the Left wingers went to to jack up the Republican debate while he was visiting the Queen has now been wasted.
September 7th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
It’s the old damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario but considering the circumstances the PM has made the right decision.
However I would of loved to be a fly on the wall at the afternnon tea with the Queen because no doubt the conversation would of touched upon the subject of her retirement.
It is not entirely unwise to consult your fellow heads of state to determine the lay of the ground as it were, so afternoon tea with the Queen would be an interesting and stimulating occassion.
September 7th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Whoops keys biggest critics come from the right. The left just knee jerks.
September 7th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I heard about the quake on this site. I’m in Korea. My friends and rellies are OK.
Mayor Parker performed very creditably. I think I’ll refrain from calling him Sideshow Bob in future. John Key did OK too. As for the Troughmaster General, he was invisible all day.
cheers
David Prosser
September 7th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
David Prosser
Parker is the Mayor who is behaving like I would expect a mayor in a crisis to behwve. Anderton is not the mayor he is an MP and he like most other Chch MPs is behaving like a local MPs should so of course he is mostly invissible.
I hope the morons from outside Chch who critise Key, Parker or Anderton never have to be is a disaster zone or have over a 100 frightning quakes. Because no matter how stupid your comments I’d wish this on no one
http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html
September 7th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Neighbours and other Christchurch folk I’ve been speaking to are grateful for the support of John Key in the aftermath of the earthquake, whose aftershocks are wearing down resilience.
However, I wonder if he and Goff could please protect us from this imminent influx of do-gooders:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671683
My grandkids, the kids of my neighbourhood, and all their mates are ok. While some kids were frightened more by the big aftershock last night than by the initial quake, all that I know of are coping well and in their 80s will be interviewed by Net reporters for nostalgia anniversary pieces on the big local quake.
Let these well-intentioned therapists go somewhere that can’t help its own kids.
We don’t want these folk making victims out of our healthy, strong kids.
September 7th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Funny you say that because here in Melbourne Kiwiblog was where I first heard about it too! Checked my blog reader on my phone before I checked the papers and I was like “whaaaaaaaaaaatt???”. Scurried over to the Herald and couldn’t believe it. The early coverage reminded me of those fake news stories they create for disaster-related museum exhibits… so surreal that it was true .
September 7th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Perhaps the decision to stay was based more on necessity than how it would ‘look’. Not many seem to have considered this possibility, which I find as weird as it is also tiring…
September 7th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
..and the right will squeal it’s the right one.
If Key had left, I would like to think I’d have criticised him for it. There is an emergency at home, and it’s his job to make sure things are running smoothly and use his power to fix them ASAP if they’re not.
I would also take this opportunity to praise Goff, I’m equally impressed with what he’s said as I am with Key’s actions.
September 7th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
after the way the press treated the Pakistani President for his Euro visit while the floods were in full swing back home Jono didn’t really have a choice, regardless of the fact that the 2 disasters are chalk & cheese Jono would’ve been tar & feathered with the same brush & this to me smacks of being afraid to “undo” all the goodwill & good press he’s so far garnered from this disaster.
Also funny how the National Govt have the luxury well at least in their first term of picking & choosing what they attached their name to. Economy & the need to borrow 1/4 billion a week labours fault, a quick & decisive response to a natural disaster national’s & bob “not a dirty commie’ parker
September 7th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Living it up with the Queen whilst ordinary NZers sit huddled under tables, shovelling silt and demolishing walls would not ahve been a good look so it was a fair enough decision. From what I have read you will be hard pressed to find anything to be critical of at the moment- disasters like this in NZ seem to bring out the best in everybody. Even the press has performed admirably.
September 7th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Agree JK has made the right call.
And couldnt help but contrast JK on Saturday with what we would have had with Clark.
She and a caste of thousands of minders and flacks would have been in for the photo op at a house in a Socialist suburb
JK by contrast was dignified along with Bob Parker looking like leaders.
As for the MSM pleaaaaaaaaase those young pretty things all breathless and talking up a storm.
September 7th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Trying to bring Clark into this seems a weak diss op. I’m confident she (and most of our past leaders) would also have risen to the occasion.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I disagree.
Key should have gone.
Politics is a team game and he has a deputy who knows more about Chch than anybody else in his team. Now is the time for him to throw the deputy in the deep end and Key to do overseas what only leaders can do.
Now if the earthquake was in Dunedin, Wellington, Hastings or Hamilton, it would be a different matter.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
# Pete George (6,802) Says:
September 7th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Trying to bring Clark into this seems a weak diss op. I’m confident she …. would also have risen to the occasion.
I’m not.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Good call.
It wouldn’t have bothered me if he went but then again the earth isn’t shaking the shit out of my home, if the folk around Christchurch are happy with the decision then so am i.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
the people of CHCH have really dodged a bullet here .. if Labour had won the election, their Civil Defence Minister would have been Carmel Sepuloni with Sue Kedgley the Greens spokesperson .. what a shambles that would have been
September 7th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Key and Goff have announced a joint trip to Christchurch – that’s also a good move, if they go together on a united mission it should stop most of the petty pickiness. The problems in Christchurch are far to big and important to be dicked around with petty politics.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Clark would have raced down in a police motorcade with Chris Carter overhead in a helicopter.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Did any of you see yesterday’s blog post by Tracy Watkins on Stuff trying to have a go at the government’s response to the Christchurch Earthquake? 125 comments giving her an absolute pasting! http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/blogs/tracy-watkins-on-politics/4100967/Questions-will-be-asked
And then just to top it off she does a Claytons (or should I say a Chis Carter) apology today. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/blogs/tracy-watkins-on-politics/4103948/The-question-has-been-answered
Many have called for her head!
September 7th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Good on Shonkey, poor bugger was damned if did and screwed if he didn’t. I bet some of our mates in the lefty MSM are spewing though. All the breast beating and tut tutting that could have been had over the next week had Shonkey left town. They must be immensely disappointed.
September 7th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Unless John Boy Wee can use a shovel he might as well go and visit the Poms and talk more shit.