PASS THE BALL.

A great solution. The 2o11 Rugby World Cup Broadcasting Rights are shared out nicely.

We like.
Lots.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

What did McCully and Brownlie yack about over Satay sticks at Chow in Woodward Street tonight.

What does Rick Ellis have against helicopters?

What is Mark Ellis doing in Wellington?

Is the fact Shane Jones is seeking the limelight have anything to do with the fact the Goffs position as leader of Labour is looking tenuous?

A GAME OF TWO HALVES - NZ A WINNER ON THE DAY

Today has been an extraordinary day in NZ history. We have never made any secret of the fact that we believed that the last election offered our country the first real chance to unite our nation. John Key delivered our aspirations when he brokered a deal with the Maori Party.

Now it was never going to be a case of happy families. It was more of a blended family unit. Step brothers and sisters. Both parties were from different backgrounds but they were essentially " good people"and they wanted to get on together.

Now in any family you get scraps, arguments and in as with any close relationships, you tend to take things for granted. You say stuff and expect that everyone understands everything instantly.

That's pretty much what happened with the Maori Party Maori Television bid for the rugby world cup delayed coverage. They thought their step bros had understood what they were up to.

Problem was their step bros didn't pay as much attention to the bid as they should have.

Then when things got all pear shaped - arse covering was the default play. Chuck in obfuscation,
and stir in a bit of " it was their fault not ours " and then there was sand flying, and a bit of biffo.

And the uppity wankers from down the road - TVNZ and TV3 saw there was a chance to look like the good guys.

In walks dad ( Key) who has an antenna for natural justice.. He sees through the arse covering , the obfuscation and blame game and makes the only call he can, foul against the Maori Party.

He give them advantage and says Play On.

Shit.

We are left in thrall.

We have had a cock up . Fibs.

We have a leader who acknowledges the cock up.

He applies natural justice and sorts it.

Egos are dented. Behind the scenes there have been tears, and stamping of feet.

But the good thing, the very best thing, is that everyone is still playing in the sandpit.
Finally, in John Key we have a leader, who despite the worst of arguments can sort out the shit and get everyone working together for the sake of our nation.

Is that good or what!

TRANSTASMAN HAS A PLAN

We think that its also the governments plan . We have for some time believed, like TransTasman, that we are as a Nation, are on the cusp of a period of extraordinary transformational change.

The paper says our future centres on our relationship with Aussie, Using energy as a transformational platform for economic growth, planting more trees , leading the development of sensible environmental policy, sorting out the Pacific, sorting out our fragmented research industry, broadband, and digging ourselves out of a fiscal hole quickly.

It is a well thought out White Paper and gives a voice to the thoughts of many.

What it needs to light the fire , the paper says is for the government to make some bold moves soon. We agree, we have seen some evidence that the government has a good plan, the broadband option that stopped the Telecom monopoly that could have crippled the competition needed to give customers the best deal. Groser is leading some fascinating policy ideas on climate change and agricultural emissions.

And the government has started the debate on what lies beneath and how best we can harness it and protect our environmental values.

So we reckon much of the white paper is in train. What we need now is for the government to articulate that grand plan and make it the catchcry of all New Zealanders. New Zealand the future today.


A Road Map for Transforming Nz Inc

THE WINNER OF THE BEST SELF PROMOTION AWARD GOES TO........

NZTE - New Zealand Trade and Industry. The gloaty government agency is widely regarded around the Wellington public sector traps as the department of puffery. They spend heaps on crap , less on measuring it and look real flash poncing around in the name of increasing trade opportunities. Now it hasn't all been bad - there have been a few good initiatives. However they have generally been held in contempt by the doing departments, for nearly a decade.

And it was expected that this government would look at folding some of their functions into MFAT.
So it no surprise that we see that NZTE boss Tim Gibson resign today... we wonder if this slightly earlier departure than expected had something to do with the fact that the NZTE New Zealand International Business Awards last night were not flash. Apparently the night was plagued by technical glitches and was as one insider said - not a good look for the department famous for creating good looks.

So with the departure of Gibson will the Government seize the opportunity to make NZTE the MiniMe of MFAT?

McCULLY NEEDS TO DISESTABLISH RACE RELATIONS OFFICE

As a country we are pretty grown up when it comes to Race relations - Joris de Bres is a dick. McCully has our vote to woop his arse. He went over to the UN Anti Racism conference under his own steam, (some one needs to find out who sponsored his trip) but pontificates as the Race Relations Conciliator. Bad Bad form.

So its time for him to go. enough of his PC crap. Scrap the office - we don't need it any more.

BLOGS GET AROUND FIJI MEDIA BLACKOUT

We believe that Frank Bainimarama is going about doing the right thing the wrong way. He wants changes to the Constitution to give equal status to the Indians who populate his country. However coups and military dictatorships aren't the right way to do things and we definitely don't agree with media blackouts.

The least Bainimarama could do is stay staunch and proud and loud. Hiding behind censorship does his credibility no good at all.

Now whatever side you believe in - it behoves all good people to support the few who can get the news out from Fiji. And with the media black out now in full swing it is the blogs who will keep up abreast of what is happening there.

Here are some. While we don't necessarily agree with what they are saying we will do all we can to give them a voice. Most of the Blogs below link to many others.

RAW FIJI NEWS

TALKING FIJI

DSCOMBOBULATED BUBU

INTELLIGENSYIA

HOOTON ON GROWN UPS

We wish that the NBR would put Hooton's column on line - even if it was after midday - its always a bloody good read - short and to the point but erudite laced with irony and lashings of subtlety and we are having lunch with him next week at one of Auckland's finest dining establishments.



Ooops we digress. Anyway we went out an bought a copy of NBR and got some hamsters to type it out again -

When Murray McCully was Housing Minister, tenants in Wainuiomata reported that paint fumes were making their homes unliveable. The complaints kept coming but Housing New Zealand kept denying them.

Eventually, Mr McCully had had enough. Without telling anyone, he had a government limo drive him to Wainuiomata to visit the main complainant. The fumes were overwhelming. Mr McCully sorted the problem and everyone was happy, except Housing New Zealand. He appears to be taking the same common-sense approach to his job as Foreign Minister.

Adolescence

Prior to 1984, New Zealand had a toddler foreign policy, dependent on the UK and the US. Our approach since has scarcely been more sophisticated, being based on the ludicrous notions of “independence” and “New Zealand leadership”.

In truth, there can be no such thing as an “independent” foreign policy. Foreign policy, especially for small states, is about interdependence: assessing one’s own interests and those of others, seeing where they align, and working together to achieve them, even when this requires the odd principle to be compromised.

A foreign policy that was truly independent would be entirely ineffectual.

“New Zealand leadership” is even more preposterous. The theory was that if New Zealand became nuclear-free, even at the cost of our security guarantee, other countries would be sufficiently impressed to follow. Later, the idea came to cover everything from trade liberalisation to climate change to goody-two-shoes foreign aid. Other than ironically securing Helen Clark a job at the UN (how “independent” does it make us to slavishly follow that corrupt body?) it has failed utterly.

No country awaits New Zealand leadership. The US and USSR didn’t abandon their nuclear arsenals; the EU hasn’t opened its market; no one will follow New Zealand in destroying their economy with an all-sectors, all-gases emissions trading scheme; and everyone else understands that states don’t give charity, they pursue their interests with cash.

A strategy of “independence and “leadership”, divorced from the interests of friends and allies, does not even work for great powers, with the only recent example of someone arguing otherwise, other than Ms Clark, being George W Bush.

To believe that one can be truly independent from others, and that one’s own recklessness will impress them, is to be the one thing more annoying than a toddler. It is to be an adolescent.

Adulthood

The unlikely figure of one-time larrikin Mr McCully has emerged to lead us into adulthood.

His speech this week to the NZ/US Council was firmly founded on New Zealand’s interests. “New Zealand”, “NZ” or “we” meaning New Zealand appeared 78 times. “United States”, “US”, “America” or “you” meaning the US appeared 40 times.

The content was about working with the Americans to fight protectionism to prevent a Great Depression; the benefits to New Zealand of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan; opportunities for American and New Zealand scientists to work together to combat climate change and the importance to New Zealand and the US of a stable South Pacific. It gave no ground on the nuclear issue. It included nothing Labour Leader Phil Goff could disagree with, emphasising that Mr McCully, as Foreign Minister, speaks for both main parties, consistent with the ideal of a bipartisan foreign policy.

But Mr McCully’s speech was not arrogant. It was common sense. Everything he said was based on facts gleaned from his conversations with his counterparts rather than lectures he plans to deliver to them. It included no highfalutin rhetoric about New Zealand’s importance to the rest of the world. “Leadership” was used once, in the context of the need for American leadership if trade liberalisation is to be progressed in the Pacific. And finally, after so many years, the nonsense about “independent” and “independence” appeared not at all.

We agree with Hooton on the issue of the UN - it is a very very corrupt organisation and we think it was a masterstoke by the current administration to back Clark into the post. They win if she lessens the corruption and they win if she falls flat on her face.A classic Dark Arts manouvre - very House of Cards.

MCULLYAVELLI -

Tracy Watkins from the Dom Post has penned a interesting piece on Murray McCully in the Dominion today. We have worked with him. We have worked against him . We respect him.

This quote from the original Prince is one that perhaps the modern day Minister of the Dark Arts should note.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
Niccolo Machiavelli