Ponytail-pulling the opposite of a power-imbalance — Key
It “looks awful” but most people would have thought it was a “bit of a laugh,” the PM says.
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 yesterday.
“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.”
He added,“ 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.
"I’m probably the most casual prime minister New Zealand’s had," Mr Key said.
"`There’s been some real advantages of that. Occasionally there’s some disadvantages. I can’t say any more than what I’ve said, which is, in the end, it was a very casual environment. I knew the people well. I kidded round with them a lot. That was part of that. When you look at it played back in the media this week, it looks awful.
"At the time, most people would have said it was a bit of a laugh. But, actually, I got that wrong, and I have to apologise, and that’s what I’ve done. Unfortunately, I can’t change what’s happened. I just have to live with that."
Watch the full interview here.
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Ponytail-pulling the opposite of a power-imbalance — Key
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