Quotes of the Day – Unequal New Zealand and its Prime Minister’s “amnesic position” on Apartheid

Teamster / December 10, 2013

Welcome to a new series called Quotes of the Day.

Today’s quotes were taken from an article in the UK Huffington Post. The first is about growing inequality in New Zealand. The second condemns Prime Minister Key for not sending any anti-apartheid activists to Nelson Mandela’s funeral and for his “amnesic position” on apartheid.

Unequal New Zealand

During the period when Key and others in the banking industry were making their fortunes, NZ went from being one of the most equal countries in the developed world to being one of the most unequal, a trend that is continuing under Key’s government. The OECD credits changes in taxation and labour law for the dramatic changes in the distribution of wealth

and

English: Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, Gauteng, on 13 May 1998 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Key unconcerned by apartheid

Hypocritical and revisionist, perhaps. In an entirely different category, however, is the apparent indifference demonstrated by the New Zealand prime minister, who refuses to even discuss with the media his stance on apartheid at the time of Mandela’s imprisonment.

Prime Minister John Key of the conservative National Party will be attending the funeral as the leader of the NZ delegation. Yet Key is irritated by the fact that media continues to ask him about the issue.

“I’m not going to bother going into it,” he told TVNZ’s Breakfast, a morning news show, after being pressed on Monday once again about his attitude towards apartheid in the early 1980s.

“I was about 20 years of age, I had a whole lot of other things to do at the time.”

Read the full article here http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/yasmine-ryan/apartheid-new-zealand_b_4411734.html

Also read: World’s Press Blasé About John Key: David Cameron’s “Unidentified Guest”, Misses Out on Obama’s Selfie