How do you rate John Key's grip on policy matters?

8:15 AM Thursday Mar 6, 2008

National leader John Key has admitted that he blundered over his party's Treaty settlements policy. He said on breakfast television that National had not previously had a date by which it wanted settlements completed.

"This was wrong. Our goal is to settle all historic treaty claims by 2014.".

The policy blunder followed criticism over an apparently uncertain party position on Labour's change on Monday to foreign investment rules..

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How do you rate John Keys' grip on policy matters? Here is the latest selection of Your Views:

Richard (Timaru) | 10:21AM Thursday, 06 Mar 2008

Personally, I think it is the media making a mountain out of a mole hill. My take on his comments on the Labour's change with the airport was that he needed to go look over what they did. But the media, in their gutter journalist tactics, decided to make far more out of that than listen to what he said, especially that guy from TV3 Duncan who throws his arms around when he talks who was unable to understand what I need to look over the change means. So it was blown out into far more than it was. As for the treaty claims, heck, can you remember every piece of policy a party has? I can't even remember things from last week. These politicians are human, they do forget things. But don't let the media know that, or they wont be able to blow something up and spin it in the way to try and get a story. I personally feel some, like TV3 are more interested in creating and sensationalizing the news, rather than doing their job of simply reporting it.

James Leary (New Zealand) | 11:03AM Thursday, 06 Mar 2008

John Key is not only the "slippery man" but his lack of depth as evidenced over the last 48 hours clearly makes him the "shallow man" and that goes along with Nicky Hager's the "Hollow man" description of him.

Anne (Glen Eden) | 01:05PM Thursday, 06 Mar 2008

Unfortunately (because I want Labour gone) his grip on policy matters seems appalling. Worse, I believe it's because National are hiding their preferred intentions. Labour will find it difficult to win this election but National could lose it easily, especially by accusing Labour of 'populist' moves in such a scathing tone. Does this mean that National is equally committed to ignoring the will/wishes of the people as Labour has been? It is about time politicians came to terms with 'democracy' and that it means enacting the 'will of the people' not deluding them in election year and then ignoring them until the next election year. If there is going to be talk about 'the future', it needs to encompass a new relationship between the govt and the people: that the former serves the latter, its purpose is to make our lives easier not harder and that the direction of govt policy must be mandated by the people. In the days when MPs were accountable to the wishes of their electorates, an election was enough because issues could be dealt with as they arose. As only some MPs now have electorates and those that do are instructed to ignore electorate wishes to follow the 'party', an election every 3 yrs is insufficient mandate. Alternatively, I would like to see compliance with the 'electorate' made mandatory and binding on Parliament.