Audrey Young: Why Key has been woeful on Paul Henry

Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Getty Images

A full day and a half after Paul Henry's awful comments on New Zealand's Governor-General, John Key lamely criticised them yesterday saying they were "totally inappropriate".

He did a little better in addressing the feelings of those hurt or offended by Henry's comments - which went wider than "Sir Satch" himself - to proud Kiwis with foreign accents and dark skins.

"If New Zealand is where your heart is, then that makes you a New Zealander," Key said yesterday afternoon.

As a Prime Minister, Key usually makes up for his inexperience in politics with good instincts for leadership, as the recent earthquake showed.

But in this case, his response to Henry's suggestion that the PM should select a Governor-General who looks and sound more like a New Zealander has been woeful.

It has been late and lame.

There could be several factors for that.

Let's be generous to the Prime Minister. He had just returned the afternoon before, Sunday, from a holiday abroad with his family and his antennae were not sharp.

Second, interest groups, talk-back hosts, political parties and the media are all guilty of over-cooking "offensive remarks" - that if you are typically relaxed like Key, you might not distinguish the faux offence from the federal case.

Key's supposed insult to Tuhoe for suggesting they might like him for dinner is a case in point. Real offence may have been taken by a few but most people did not translate his humour into offence.

Another reason for Key's slow reaction to Henry is his special relationship with him.

Key usually starts his media week with a personal appearance on Henry's show that almost always ends in a contest of repartee with Henry. They can both be very, very funny.

They both enjoy taking risks and stretching boundaries in humour.

In Key's previous appearance with Henry, they finished up in banter over the identity theft of former Act MP David Garrett and Key joked about not needing a passport to get into a National Party event.

His special relationship with Henry and contest of wits means Key is less likely to upbraid him when he crosses the line. All of that could account for why Key did not respond strongly on Monday morning.

But he had a full eight hours between then and his post-Cabinet press conference on Monday afternoon, where he resolutely refused to pass judgment when pressed, and pressed and pressed.

He has not been short of a word against Andy Haden or Hone Harawira, but there was not a mutter nor a murmur of criticism for Henry.

To be ungenerous to the PM's staff, it looked as though they hadn't monitored the issue properly and hadn't briefed him on the impact it was having.

To be ungenerous to the PM, it looked as though he didn't think the comments were offensive enough to respond to on Monday.

By yesterday it looked as though he had kept his fingers in the air for a little longer, or his instincts had caught up with him from holiday.