John Key

John Key has set his retirement date from the New Zealand Parliament now he's stepped down from being Prime Minister. He's going on April 14th.

He had good political instincts but I've just received a notice announcing his retirement and in it he makes a statement which illustrates why I don't like him:

"We got New Zealand back on its feet, got people into jobs, got back into surplus, and tackled natural disasters"

This is an insult to all hard working Kiwis. For starters, NZ was not off its feet when he came into office. Maybe overseas that was the case but NZ was relatively unscathed by the GFC. Then NZ had been in surplus and was on track to get back in the black without National at the helm.Unemployment was also falling by the time National came to power, so that had nothing to do with Key there either. And lastly, natural disasters happen, you don't tackle them, don't be silly, you react and deal with the aftermath and those who did that were the people living in the affected areas.

So go and live in your holiday home in Hawaii John Key, take up whatever chairmanship has been offered to you, or whatever the reason was for your leaving, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. All in all, you left NZ worse off than when you took office.

[Edit to add: Now we know why John Key resigned. The Pike River mine disaster families have many hours of video footage taken from inside the mine, taken after the explosion, which shows John Key had been lying for years. The video footage will be bled into the media during the election year, and Key simply didn't want to have to campaign while explaining why he lied. Key handed a hospital pass to his hapless and weak deputy Simon "Bill" English]