A short YouTube clip where Sir John Key recounts being interviewed on TV during a Christchurch crisis and the confusion over casualty figures. He describes conflicting reports (e.g., 13 reported dead), police estimates ("50 body bags minimum", "maybe 75 or 100"), and the difficulty of speaking definitively as Prime Minister when information is imperfect.
Questions this video answers
13 people dead.
50 body bags minimum.
Maybe 75 or 100.
Chapters
I remember they shoved me on the 6 o' clock news that night and they were reporting 13 people dead in Christchurch at the time. And I remember walking out there and I said to the police commissioner, what's the story? And he goes, well, there's a lot of people dead, but certainly not 13. And I said, how many are dead? And he goes, I don't know, but Maybe, maybe there's 75 or 100 or something. And I go, well, I'll make sure of that. And he said, well, there's 50 body bags minimum, right? And so we went out there and we started saying that stuff. And you sit there and you go, once you say that, as Prime Minister, you have said, you know, you make the use. And then, then they came back and went, oh, maybe our information's wrong. We're sitting there. Oh, God. You know, I mean, obviously you don't want people to be dead, but you don't want to be telling the world that lots of people have died when they actually haven't. So. But you get. And you assume the information is going to be perfect and it's just not perfect.
