War stories hit and John Key runs
Philip Matthews wonders if these things are connected.
Neither profound nor memorable
‘‘It has been a privilege, an honour and a blast,’’ former prime minister John Key said during his valedictory speech in Parliament this week. The final speech was neither profound nor memorable, Newsroom columnist Tim Murphy wrote, but, like the man himself, it was ‘‘quick, matter-of-fact, in the vernacular and heartfelt for those he cared about’’. So what did he achieve in eight years? Even support partner Act said Key’s legacy is more about what he did not do than what he did do. RNZ columnist Finlay Macdonald argued that Key ‘‘remained a popular prime minister by never committing to anything, but [he] leaves behind a backlog of neglect and deferred decisions’’. Even Key could not have smiled his way through the worsening crises in areas like water quality and housing.
Theatres of war
On his last day, Key dismissed rumours about his sudden departure from politics. Rumours have apparently ranged from affairs to hacked emails to family scandal. None of that was true, he said, but the sudden appearance of Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson’s book Hit & Run on the night before his valedictory got the rumour mill going again. Did Key know this bad news was coming? Or was it just strange timing? The authors allege that our SAS troops were involved in war crimes in Afghanistan in 2010 after a raid personally approved by Key killed six innocent civilians and injured 15. Opposition parties and a broad range of commentators called for an inquiry but low profile Prime Minister Bill English surprised everyone by taking a wait and see approach.
Terror in London
Hager and Stephenson’s critics will be hoping that New Zealanders think seven years is a long time and isn’t war always hell and the innocent suffer? They might wish for those blase responses. A day later, the SAS story was pushed into the background by the immediate horror of a terror attack in central London. In an attack claimed by Isis, British-born Khalid Masood drove a car through a crowd of pedestrians and stabbed an unarmed policeman before he was shot dead. Masood killed four people and injured around 40 and the attack, on the anniversary of an attack in Brussels, was strongly reminiscent of an incident in Nice in 2016 when a truck was driven into a crowd. Which is why some thought it was in bad taste when, just a day after the London attack, President Donald Trump climbed into a truck for a macho photo opportunity.
Not so south
If the Canterbury weather has been feeling a touch warmer and more tropical lately, it could be because the Kaikoura earthquake in November 2016 moved the South Island more than 5 metres closer to the North Island, according a study published in the Science journal. As in the Christchurch earthquakes, the big news is about how little we know. Or as Dr Ian Hamling of GNS Science put it, ‘‘The major takeaway is the sheer complexity of the event ... I don’t think any seismic hazards model in the world would have considered [this] possible scenario.’’