Opinion: John Key does political dodge on tax dodging

Opinion: John Key does political dodge on tax dodging

John Key pulled a nifty move this morning to dodge the ongoing fallout of the Panama Papers and find himself a political safe haven.

After spending most of last week defending New Zealand's tax laws, the Prime Minister told Paul Henry he is now calling in an international expert to review the disclosure rules.

This is one of the classic U-turns the Prime Minister uses.

It means he can now answer any questions on the Panama Papers by saying "that's why we have the international expert reviewing it".

It means that John Key can dodge the questions on tax-dodging quite nicely, thank you very much.

This is a clear response to the rising global pressure over the Panama Papers with big protests in London over David Cameron the latest iteration.

John Key will know as well as anyone that there is heaps more to come about New Zealand with a reported 60,000 references in the Panama Papers, and the Kiwi journalist Peter Bale who heads the Center for Public Integrity telling the Nation there was lots of specific references to come.

With Winston Peters and Andrew Little calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry the PM had to do something.

To be fair, John Key started leaving himself a bit of wriggle room early on by saying he was open to change if proposed by the OECD.

But today he went a step further and deployed a full-on political dodge tactic.

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