John Key lies [updated]

Two years ago, if you believed the Key Government, the biggest problem facing Bill’s First Budget was whether or not he could somehow forestall a credit downgrade. Government cheerleaders cheered when our hero pulled it off.

Not so much today.  Those cheerleaders are resolutely silent.

And the talk elsewhere now is not about last week’s downgrade—due in part to “increased spending by the government”—but about John Key’s lies about it.  About the lie he told parliament after last weeks’ downgrade that an even bigger downgrade would have happened under a Labour Government—and he knew this (he says) because Standard and Poors told him.

 Bullshit, says Standard and Poors. They aren’t now, never have been and never will be so partisan—and, frankly, any former manager of Merrill Lynch knows that as a fact you can take to the bank, whatever he now says he heard second-hand from whichever ill-tamed unnamed source.

He lied. Perhaps to take attention from the downgrade itself. But he lied.

He can’t help himself.  It just comes naturally.

He lied to you about tax cuts. Before the last election he promised “a tax cut programme [fully costed and funded] that will not require any additional borrowing” – a “pledge to deliver about $50 a week to workers on the average age.” It was a lie. As their borrowing grew, their tax cuts fizzled, spluttered, then died in a political sleight of hand: a small cut with one hand, a larger rise with the other. (And no fear saying Smile and Wave never saw the collapse coming.  You don’t think a former Merrill Lynch manager would have noticed when Merrill Lynch went under?)

He lied about it, and you bought it.

And how about this boast of his in parliament a couple of weeks ago, boasting about “his” achievements as Prime Minister:

We have grown for eight of the last nine quarters, we will be back in surplus by 2014-15, our debt is one quarter of the OECD average, we have interest rates at a 45-year low, unemployment is starting to fall, we have created 45,000 jobs, … we are likely to create 170,000 jobs in the next 4 years, we have reformed the Resource Management Act, and, by the way, we are on track to win the Rugby World Cup.

More lies.  More bullshit. More hyperbolic nonsense.

• “We have grown for eight of the last nine quarters…” Any “growth” has only been in inflated figures—and even those show any “growth” as virtually a statistical anomaly. The claim is a nonsense.
• “…we will be back in surplus by 2014-15…” Any “surplus” expected in 2014-15 is expected only by Treasury, and only on their delusions of world economic recovery and local economic “growth” of over three percent a year for the next several years. Do you see any of that coming? The claim is a fiction.
• “…our debt is one quarter of the OECD average…”   Government debt is now $28.5 billion and growing, thanks solely to Bill English’s continued over-spending.  This rapid and worrying rise in government debt was cited by both Fitch and Standard and Poors in their downgrade. Moreover, the OECD includes the UK, USA, Japan, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece … being just “average” in this company would be a very disturbing place to be indeed. The claim is irrelevant, at best.
• “…we have interest rates at a 45-year low…” Interest rates have been set at a 45-year low by every central bank in the world because the world is in the middle of a 75-year historical world financial crisis, brought about by those same central banks. This is not an achievement, it is an admission. Of failure.
• “…unemployment is starting to fall…” Really? Since the official unemployment rate rocketed up to between six and seven percent, virtually doubling under his Premiership, the adult rate has remained virtually static—figures helped, perhaps, by the more than 100,000 New Zealanders who left under his watch for Australia, with the rate of departure increasing in recent months. Meanwhile, a quarter of young people are now out of work and likely to remain so for some time, and nearly one-third of a million New Zealanders have been on a benefit for nine out the last nine quarters, with no sign of that falling either. Key’s claim is a joke. A disgraceful joke.
• “…we have created 45,000 jobs…”  There were just over 2.2 million New Zealanders in work when the Key G0vernment came to office. There are now just over 2.2 million New Zealanders in work. 2.2 million minus 2.2 million equals …
• “…we are likely to create 170,000 jobs in the next 4 years…”  More flatulent fiction.
• “…we have reformed the Resource Management Act…”  The Act was “reformed” not to free up land to help make housing more affordable, nor to give power and property rights back to property owners, but to give more power to planners and make life easier for the government’s road-building machine. In other words, not to help you or I, but themselves. The claim is a lie.
• “…we are on track to win the Rugby World Cup…” We? Is he next in line behind Stephen Donald?

His boasting is a litany of orchestrated ooze.

The fact is John Key lies.  He twists. He wriggles.

He’s a flake and a faker.

Why does he lie? Simple answer: if reality is only your side then there’s no need to fake it.

You only need to lie when reality is not going your way.

And once you start lying, there’s no way again that anyone else can trust you.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, Steven Joyce lies too. [Don’t just trust Gareth, you can check the logs.]

Q: So how can you tell when a politician is lying.
A: Their lips are moving.