OUR JOHN AND NZ INC

We have been pondering the speech John Key gave to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce this morning. We have been thinking about John Key the man and John Key, the Prime Minister. Thing is there is no difference – what you see is what you get. Perhaps we noticed it first when the Chamber's CEO Charles Finny said “So now John it’s your turn” after Finny had warmed up the audience.

Yip that’s right, no “Prime Minister” just John. Our John.

You see more than anything we think that Key’s style means that we may actually achieve what is often talked about but never delivered - NZ Inc.

New Zealand Inc. means we all work together for a common purpose. So despite being told by our John that we should be well positioned to weather storm ahead he also said it was going to be tough. There was no need for a call to arms, it was implicit.

You knew that he meant we were all in it together, part of a big team.

Now we often listened to Clark speak and we never felt that inclusiveness - that we were working with the government. Instead we felt like someone was making the decisions for us and woe be tide if we didn’t do as we were told. There was a pecking order and look out if respect wasn’t paid. It was Them and Us.

Sure we know that John's government wont get everything right but we are confident that we will be told the truth, that there will be more transparency, that they will listen and they think we are all grown up enough to make decisions – witness Tony Ryall's decision to let nurses decide who will lead their national body today rather than leaving it up to him to impose his views on the lynch pins of the health sector.

It is a new age and while there maybe financial rocks in the sea of commerce in the months to come we reckon we picked the right leader to chart our course.

Rob Hosking has also been pondering some similar issues – at NBR.