Trade First Then Talk Human Rights with Saudi Arabia – Key
Trade First Then Talk Human Rights with Saudi Arabia – Key
John Key has defended his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, saying a free trade agreement with the Kingdom will allow the two parties to talk about a ‘range of issues’ including human rights abuses.
He’s the first Prime Minister to visit Saudi Arabia, but critics say he shouldn’t do so because of the country’s human rights abuses, including beheadings.
Mr Key agreed that Saudi Arabia was doing things New Zealand disagreed with, but that it shouldn’t prevent trade between the two countries.
“I utterly reject them and don’t believe they should do that,” he told Q+A’s Corin Dann. “But they are taking it against their own citizens. They’re not looking to basically get to the point where they murder New Zealanders in their own country or in parts of the region that they travel to simply because we disagree with their perspective on the world.”
My Key pointed out here were many countries that New Zealand had disagreements with. “We do trade with them, and we do travel and go and see them. The question is, over time, can you make changes? I think if we get a free trade agreement, for instance, with Saudi Arabia, we have got a much stronger relationship from which we can talk about a range of issues.”
Pony Tale Pulling Situation ‘the Opposite of a Power Imbalance’ – PM
Prime Minister John Key has once more defended his pulling of a ponytail of an Auckland waitress, saying he would need to be a bit more careful in future, but that it wasn’t a case of abusing his powerful position.
“I think it’s the opposite to what some people might think - that there’s a power imbalance. It’s actually the opposite” he told Q+A’s Corin Dann this morning. “I’ve been mucking in sort of a little bit and having a bit of fun. I accept that, but, actually, in doing that, I’ve badly misread a situation.”
“And all I’m simply saying is from every experience that you have in life, you can’t reverse things that have happened as much as you might 100% want to. But what you can do is learn from them, and I have to mark this down as something I got wrong, and therefore I have to learn from it.”
Mr Key conceded that the media coverage of the incident this week “looks awful” but that most people would have thought it was a “bit of a laugh” and that many knew him as a friendly guy that liked to interact with the public.
Here’s a link to the full interview from today’s show:
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/sending-troops-iraq-trade-saudi-arabia-ponytail-video-6300699
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz
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