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Written by Selwyn Manning on Thursday, January 26th, 2012
Audio Stream: PM John Key & ACT’s John Banks Tea-Party Recording Released.
A YouTube.com account under the name of 2Johns2Cups has uploaded audio of the Tea-Party discussion between Prime Minister John Key and ACT leader John Banks, recorded during the 2011 General Election campaign.
Image: Courtesy of Scoop.co.nz.
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We need a transcript…!!
A transcript should be forthcoming in a day or two…
If he thought Winston would poll three percent – he was mistaken. He will by the end of this present term be struggling himself to retasin power. There is the revelation of arrogance in both of them.
[...] Link to page that plays the teapot tapes. [...]
it is disgusting that gutless editors in the establishment capitalist press and state radio never published or broadcast this tape in the public intetrest
As I recollect, the ‘Herald On Sunday’, ‘Radio New Zealand’,and,also,’ TV3′ all had the tape. In my view, they all had a journalistic responsibility to report – in the public interest – a conversation between politicians (which was held in public) on political issues,during an election campaign (when public interest is, presumably, highest). After all is said and done, Democracy requires the active interest and participation of all citizens; this includes readers,viewers,voters, journalists, and,of course, politicians and political activists; therefore, there is no reason that (for example, PM Key’s deceptive claim that his conversation with John Banks was a private one – even though they had delibarately set up the meeting to attract the Media so that it could film, photograph and report them having their meeting) should prevent public reporting of such an obviously public event.
However, Mr Key and Mr Banks only wanted their meeting reported by the Media in a favourable way which suited their aims in the General Election. Let us recall that the reason they wanted the media to document and broadcast their meeting was to let the Media show that Mr Key (representing the National Party) and Mr Banks (representing the Act Party) were on friendly terms which were sufficient to persuade and convince National Party supporters in the Epsom Electorate to vote for a National Party candidate (Paul Goldsmith) on the Party List ballot, and, at the same time, separately, for an Act Party candiate (Mr Banks) on the electorate ballot.
For a National voter to split his or her two votes between both National and Act was a tactic designed by Messers key and Banks to give the greatest possible number of seats in Parliament to a Coalition Government formed co-operatively between National and Act. Messers Key and Banks wanted National supporters to vote in this manner because, under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system, the total votes gained New Zealand- wide by a political party on the Party List will proportionally determine the total number of seats a Party obtains in Parliament; any Electorate seats won by the same Party are allocated from the number of seats gained due to the total Party vote (the remaining seats,consequently, becoming seats which will be occupied by Party candidates from the Party’s list of fielded candidates). However, if a Party does not secure 5% of the public’s vote,nationwide,then,it does not gain any seats in Parliament – unless it wins an Electorate seat! The great advantage of a Party winning an Electorate seat (even if it has not gained 5% of the nation-wide vote) is that,under MMP, this Party is entitled to an additional number of seats in Parliament which matches the proportion of nationwide votes it gained;in other words, even if a Party (such, as Act), only received three percent of votes nation-wide, it will receive three percent of the votes in Parliament.
It is because a Party’s win of a single electorate seat results in additional seats to be occupied by List candidates that Act was determined to win Epsom – for, otherwise, its low support from the public may have transferred into a failure to win any seats in Parliament.
Epsom was Act’s best and almost only chance of winning one or more seats.So, because National and its leader (John Key) wanted to be certain of gaining enough seats in Parliament in order to form a Governement, Mr Key decided to try and help Act win the Epsom electorate and, with it, a few more seats based on Act’s nationwide vote.
Act and National could, then,as they did,form a governing majority in Parliament.
Although, Act did not gain additional seats (because it failed to win a sufficient nationwide vote to proportionally warrant even one seat in the120 seat Parliament) it, nonetheless, won Epsom – its single seat. So, Key’s and Banks’ plan to gain more parliamentary seats did not succeed. However, nonetheless, the advantage for Mr Key is that Act is not only a reliable Coalition partner which will ensure it has a majority to govern the Treasury benches but,also, allow it to enact policies which are more to the Right, in keeping with Act’s philosophy,of National.
This, then, shows the importance of Messers Key’s and Bank’s teapot conversation – for they were manipulating both the Media and the Voters.Therfore,it perfectly right and proper that we, the public – the citizenss – know what they said in their discussions.
This is typed ,at speed;please forgive typos.
Tried to set up the media to make an election event which backfired because a photographer inadvertently left a recording device on a table. Good job! It was just another media beat-up which went wrong. The public are not altogether dumb.