Andrea Vance | Sunday Star Times | 30 Nov 2014
I can’t recall. Translation: prove it.
The limits of our politicians’ memories are stretched often. Either that or their credibility.
This week the brain fade continued to trump truth as the go-to arse-covering response to troublesome questions.
During the height of the row over campaign donations from Kim Dotcom, John Banks alternated chanting “nothing to fear” with “I can’t recall”. Thankfully, he did remember to show up for subsequent court dates which saw him first convicted of filing a false electoral return and then had that conviction quashed.
Ex-Labour leader (twice removed) David Shearer forgot tucking away $50,000 in an offshore bank account. For three years.
Successor David Cunliffe was probably genuine when he couldn’t remember advocating for dodgy donor Donghua Liu (after denying it). But the excuse is so worn-thin everyone assumed he was telling porkies.
Greens co-leader Russel Norman had his own brain-fade over visits to the Dotcom mansion. He didn’t deny the meetings and recovered after checking his diary.
Minister Hekia Parata blacked-out consultation over the resignation of education secretary Lesley Longstone. Like her boss John Key, she returned to Parliament to atone.
Key’s memory may be a black hole. Previously, he forgot urging spymaster Ian Fletcher to apply for the GCSB’s top job. And he “couldn’t recall particular occasions” when he’d met Fletcher, a childhood acquaintance.
He had “absolutely no memory” of a GCSB briefing on the Dotcom raid; signing papers about the purchase of a fleet of luxury cars; he drew a blank on how many Tranzrail shares he owned; his position on the 1981 Springbok tour; and how he voted for the drinking age.
With the benefit of the doubt, Key’s amnesia can be explained away. He has a work-load that would cripple most.
But Key’s biographer John Roughan has noted his extraordinary ability to recognise years later people he encountered briefly.
Cameron Slater’s volley of texts were sent on Monday, the night before Key fell into a fugue state.
Central to National’s success is Key’s integrity. After Tuesday’s Dirty Politics reports, he did a circuit of TV and radio, removing himself from the relationships between Slater, chief-dirt digger Jason Ede and formerly fifth-ranked minister Judith Collins. The text messages unpicked all that work, directly connecting him again to WhaleOil.
But such is the level of trust in Key, when he calmly repeats “I’m in the clear”, that is the take-home message. He drowns out the confusing din of spuming rivals and indignant commentators. Those unconvinced by his explanations will shrug – the public expect politicians to speak with forked tongues.
Given the levels of public acrimony towards Slater, the Opposition scent blood and the beginning of Key’s end. It’s all been said before – 2012 was the year of the brain-fade. By the 2017 election, this row, too, will have faded from public memory.
– Sunday Star Times
