"Judith Collins has been caught out not telling the truth.
She has misled the New Zealand public; she has misled her boss the Prime Minister; and her best defence is that she lied to us, by omission.
It is simply not good enough. She is no longer fit to be a Minister, she has failed the truth test. I have been saying this for a week now: She did not just pop in to Oravida, she planned it weeks out.
Now, we know she had a top level dinner and meeting with Oravida bosses and a senior official from the Chinese Government, all in a private capacity. There is no such thing when you are representing NZ as a Minister overseas.
Remember, her husband is a director of this firm. That’s the conflict. The Collins family stands to gain from the success of this company. You don’t just forget this sort of detail, you hold it back on purpose, and that’s what she has done.
I have always said when you put a Minister or MP in a tight spot, their default setting is to lie. They do not tell the truth and this is what has happened here. Collins has once again proven my theory correct.
She has misled the NZ public and that’s not acceptable. She has lost the confidence of a nation. She has misled the PM – and that’s where it always used to get terminal for Ministers with Helen Clark in charge. But John Key has decided to tough this one out. It’s the wrong decision. He should sack her.
He sacked Nick Smith for less in my opinion. Collins simply tried to bluff us, but she has failed and she has been caught out. She’s not indispensable. Her reputation is shot.
It’s clear the Chinese saw her visit and subsequent website appearance as an ‘endorsement’. But the Prime Minister continues to claim it was just a ‘promotion’. There is absolutely no difference. It’s the same thing. It’s semantics Prime Minister. The John Key of old would have crucified Helen Clark for such garbage. He needs to step back and see this for what it is.
He has been implicated in Judith Collins’s web of deceit. She has misled Kiwis and she has misled the Prime Minister. She is no longer fit to hold the warrant as Justice Minister."
I can’t say it anymore direct than this: She should be sacked.
8 comments:
Ouch. I'd like to say "quite right", too, but Mr Garner has missed a few bits out. I'll elaborate shortly.
The crusher has been crushed
With specific reference to the dinner, the outstanding question is "did she buy, or was she bought?"
Key warbled on about being a parent and not wanting to be too harsh on his errant 'child', the naive Judith - what cr*p. Sad to think that people might swallow that spin.
John Key is soon to head to China..
“My visit provides an opportunity to brief China’s leaders on the outcomes of the Government Inquiry into the Whey Protein Concentrate Contamination Incident. I will be able to report to China’s political leadership, and assure Chinese consumers, that the Inquiry delivered a strong endorsement of the New Zealand food safety system,” says Mr Key.
He plans to use his position as Prime Minister to reassure the Chinese that the products of a private company, Fonterra, are safe. Fonterra will have already advised the Chinese that their products are safe but we are meant to be reassured that Mr Key’s status will have extra influence over the Chinese and really drive the message home. This is portrayed as an example of political influence being used for good and one presumes it is expected to be effective, or Mr Key wouldn’t bother.
In the same week, we are meant to accept that a very senior cabinet minister’s involvement with another private NZ company in China is not significant.
Good points, corokia green.
The resounding silence from the Right Wing bloggers shows how damaging the "Collins Affair" has been to the Government. The Opposition parties now have the chance to do their stuff and their ability to counter the dampening efforts of National's spin-team will be revealing in terms of the election result. So far, the Left Wing have made hay from Collins.
Her crocodile tears and Key's faux anger, were pathetic.
same comment, but without huge gaps between the paragraphs.
The only rightwing blog I can stomach is home paddock ( even then nausea can be an issue) and no one there seems to want to talk about it. I heard Collins being interviewed on Morning Report and was gob smacked at her arrogance, she seemed to be have a lot of trouble with the concept that she could have possibly made an error. She hasn’t actually apologised properly, one of those I’m sorry if anyone was offended comments is not an apology.
I hope you have plenty of fun in your days to make up for the shit that goes down in the comments on HP. That blokeinauckland seems to want anyone who disagrees with Ele to be struck off, it was him accusing me of ad hominen comments that was one of the last straws for me over there (I make an effort not to do so) he was just plain wrong. As for the recent abuse from Pauline- the whole thing is going even more downhill. Not much actual discussion of issues, but then the ‘issues’ Ele raises are the same old ones, “Everything is wonderful thanks to National” “Cunliffe is tricky”, “Tax is bad”,. “Irrigation is wonderful” and “the Greens can’t be trusted”.
Much more interesting fare elsewhere online. I’ve just found AC’s blog ,there is Pundit and I have taken to commenting on the ODT online. There’s Frogblog of course. Democracy Now is a good site to visit to get out of the inward looking NZ scene, same with the Guardian, Resilience.org and Radioecoshock.
We have got a lot of easterly rain coming down today, it’s been a dull, damp growing season and most of my spring sown onions rotted. I made onion soup with the ones that were starting to rot on the outside and will have to use the only good ones right away because they won’t keep. I’m watching the sweet corn, it went in late, cobs have formed but we’ll need a bit more sun. My dried beans (6 varieties) are not very dry yet, but on the plus side the runner beans are running wild and we’ve got spuds the size of, well, really big spuds.
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