}

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

John Key’s departure - videos

Yesterday, NZ Prime Minister John Key announced he was stepping down on Monday. Here are some videos about that, starting with Key’s own statement and press conference, followed by some significant reactions.

First up, John Key’s entire speech and press conference afterward (the audio isn’t great):



The reaction of Bill English, widely tipped to be the next Prime Minister:



Labour Leader Andrew Little responds:



Andrew Little later spoke to John Campbell on RNZ’ Checkpoint, and points out that on a personal level, Key is decent:



Jim Bolger, who was Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997 (including when I arrived in New Zealand) also talks to John Campbell about a being a prime minister, stepping down, and on John Key:



Finally, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reacts. While his may have had a certain effusiveness, others also chimed in, including Australia’s Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, among others. Australia is New Zealand’s largest trading partner and its most important ally.



I posted my own reactions in a post yesterday.

4 comments:

rogerogreen said...

This is stunning. I mean the civility Little showed to Key.

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

That's the rule rather than the exception, actually. The Greens Co-Leader was similarly magnanimous when asked by the press, but I didn't find any videos of him at the time I was putting this post together. However, they did release a statement, which gives the general flavour of what he said to the cameras:
https://www.greens.org.nz/news/press-release/green-party-statement-resignation-prime-minister

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

And Labour's official statement:
http://www.labour.org.nz/statement_on_john_key_s_resignation

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

The leader of the populist New Zealand First party, Winston Peters, made the only negative comments (not sure if the video is viewable outside NZ):
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/winston-peters-says-john-keys-reasons-stepping-down-not-credible