By: Barry Soper | Thursday, October 04, 2012 6:30 AM

Amnesia's a common problem with politicians. They'll say something one year and forget it the next hoping the rest of the population suffers from the same brain fade.

Usually it has something to do with election promises, although these days easy access to information over the internet makes fudging the facts a little harder.

State Homie John Key's memory doesn't serve him well. There have been many occasions during his time at the top that he's told us he can't remember something or other.

Even before he got the job he was asked during a television debate to cast his memory back to when he was a student at university in Christchurch when the notorious Springbok tour protests were raging all around him. The city was a hotbed of radicalism, as was the whole country, but The Homie couldn't remember what position he took during the tour.

Then just a few months ago the country was celebrating its 25 years of being nuclear free. Again he was asked whether he supported the anti-nuclear legislation, as he does now, or whether he was against it. It was that old familiar line, he couldn't remember.

And that's again the case over when he first knew about his super spy agency being involved with Kim Dotcom. He's always claimed he only found out when he was told on September 17 that the spies were illegally snooping on the internet giant.

But a review of the spy agency shows he was briefed about their operations in February when the Dotcom involvement was briefly raised. He's the minister in charge of the agency and just a month earlier the cops had battered their way into Dotcom's mansion which just happens to be in his electorate.

The American style raid raged across the news bulletins and screamed out in the banner headlines. No one who was even vaguely interested in the news would have been unaware of the raid or the name Dotcom.

So the following month when it came up at the spies briefing one would have thought Key's antennae would have been red alert rigid.

But no, he couldn't remember. Trouble is it seems the spies, with the exception of their boss who's directly answerable to Key, can.

So he'll now have to front up to the grizzlies in the Parliamentary bear pit the week after next to put the record straight.

Let's hope he remembers!

Photo: Getty Images