Key's 'Eva Peron' tour of the States avoiding the emissions issue

You'll have to excuse farmers if John Key's much trumpeted speech in New York last week declaring that Kiwis would lead a global research initiative to cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture doesn't leave them braying with joy.

It's not that they don't like the cheerful little fellow...it's just that he's so damn blatantly desperate to have New Zealand leading the world at something, that he's blindly about to all but sink our economy.

And no - those sentiments are not unrealistic. It is incredulous to think that the Government of the day would commit a country that is banking on its agriculture sector, into an emissions trading scheme that would see the same sector heavily penalised.

It all smacks of that 'little fish' chip on the shoulder we seem to carry around as Kiwis. If we're not at the forefront of everything (think mountaineering, women's vote...domestic violence) then we'll push our way forward, puff out the shoulders and say 'we'll do it mate', even if it does mean less money in the economy, slow economic growth and the difference between profitability and quitting the farm.

Isn't that what asking for a seat on the UN security council was all about after all?

And in all of it there is a distinct immaturity about our attitude, a need to be the teachers pet and to receive adulation from other countries who are not dumb enough to sign their countries to a death warrant.

What happened to the Lange 'up yours' nuclear ethos? Since when did we try to brown nose everyone?

Forget leading the world in research John boy, and sink that money into other agricultural research that scientists are clamouring to do...you know, the kind that puts more money in our pockets - yours and ours.

Farmgirl back online

Farmgirl is now back online after a maternity break and has plenty to write about. Much has been happening in between, including some interesting new developments with PKE, Ravensdown's annual report and of course our rock star PM making the rounds in America, still looking like the nerdy boy at primary school who just topped the spelling bee!

Be sure to keep the discussion and comments coming.

Obama teaching us all something in his restraint

Time correspondent Joe Klein is right on the mark when he says Obama's first 100 days have been the most impressive of any president since the mighty F.D.R.

Too often politicians world-wide have been guilty of vote hunting and over-reacting in order to keep the masses happy. How wonderful is it then to see a President prepared to talk about patience and common sense.

"There's an impatience," Obama says, "that characterises Washington, that insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits there is all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died down...instead of confronting major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way."

Klein says Obama's combination of candour and vision and his patient explanation of complex issues shows Obama at his best and signals a change from his predecessors and from the way society is at the moment - away from the kind of quick fix, sugar rush , attention deficit society that marks the postmodern age.

New rules for Wall Street so that in any one year of the economy 40% of US corporate profits don't come from lending as has previously happened and initiatives in education, energy and health care mean Obama is making his mark in a resilient manner.

There won't be a fix for today's problems by tomorrow morning. Everything has to be worked for, to be gained and then rewards will come, he seems to be telling us over and over again.

If only John Key's first hundred days were just as impressive....

And the tension grows between English and Key...

You could just about taste the tension emanating from Bill English's mouth on Q and A yesterday and it wasn't sweet.

The two have disagreed publicly on when New Zealand will emerge from the recession and on the face of it that's not a big deal...except when you hear Bill English's very courteous and contained comments when asked why they aren't towing the same line on the economy.

Asked about the difference, Mr English said Mr Key "has always had a very positive view about New Zealand. I certainly wouldn't want to say he is wrong but he is setting a high hurdle here and it's our job as a Government to meet those expectations - that's a feature of John Key's leadership."

The body language says it all and so it should. Bill English is probably a very frustrated man right now. He's the one who has to deal with the sops while Key gets to meet, greet and shear the sheep.

Key is politically naive whereas English has suffered from his previous leadership of the party. How disappointing it must be then for him to have run the country behind the scenes, sort the rubbish and wonder what could have been had he only waited his turn for the leadership.

Me thinks the National party decry to much that there is not a rift growing between these two. Whenever a party feels forced to defend a situation you can bet that there's something that's caught fire in the background.

Although these two do not represent in any way the philosophy of the Lange/Douglas era, they do share something else in common...a cooling off of their friendship that could be disastrous for the party as a whole.

Key challenged to shear sheep

And he's coming over the top of the back now, gently does it. Oh dear, he's left a layer of wool on, a softer coat, but now he's back, he's plunging that handpiece over the sheep's belly, mind the nipples John!

But wait he's showing marvelous adaptation to the skill of shearing, he's getting into his stride now, he's tucked that sheep tight between his legs and he's showing it who's boss.

Down he goes, the last blows, then flick on to it's feet, a kick on the backside and a note pushed between the sheep's teeth.

"There," he says. "He's all ready. Finely shorn, and now with super speed...please applaud your Government's state of the art new investment in rural communication...the messenger sheep."

John Key developing a spine?

Could it be that John Key is actually muscling up...losing that schoolboy impish grin and becoming the Master of his party?

Certainly the rhetoric has changed somewhat in past weeks. Now we see him holding Nick Smith's hair by the ahem...short and curlies and notice how Johnnie's lingo has lengthened into a more stylish adaptation of the English language -especially when he used the word "bollocking" to describe his conversation with Internal Affairs minister Richard Worth.

Suddenly the PR machine has taken hold and it now appears that it's vital for the PM to appear accountable, strong, resolute, in complete and utter bollocking control of his ministers, and hold on....just like Helen Clark it seems.

The man you'd most feel comfortable having a beer with is shifting away from his 'nice guy' image and has issued threats to his ministers, stating he wants accountability, outcomes and results and if anyone needs to be strung up, a la Mussolini style, he alone will be the one to do it.

And what over? Nick Smith, a senior minister is not even allowed to make suggestions on cutting down plastic waste, while Worth made an idiot error of judgement in allowing himself to engage in private business while on a Government sanctioned trip to India.

But do we like the new John Key? Time will tell but for now punters it's fair to say as in the great words of that Seekers song "The Carnival is Over".

Never mind saving kiddies, give it all away

Excuse the pun but it beggars belief!

Our do gooder PM is now suggesting that if we don't spend the pitiful $10 bucks extra a week he's offering in tax cuts, we could do the right thing and give it to charity because apparently many charities are going through a hard time right now.

Sorry to have to tell you this John, but you're a bit out of touch luv...you see we're all going through a hard time right now...and those very people the charities need to reach are the ones that could do with the extra $98 per week you've awarded yourself and your wealthy peers.

Could the bloke sound anymore naive then in his speech to Philanthropy NZ conference? There is political innocence and then there is sheer idiocy.

At a time when most people are struggling to pay their mortgage, raise their kids and ahem ahem, save for retirement, the mere hint that others may in fact not really need this tax cut (ie. the rich) is mocking to say the least.

But this is National we are talking about...the party that helps the rich get richer while the rest drift away.

And then there's the boil of superannuation and the fact that the pot will be dry by the time most of us get there...if he was going to suggest doing anything with the tax cut, surely it should be that it goes into saving for retirement?

As for his request for an 'American culture of giving' - look no further than the mess that country is in right now.

Forget the giving to charity Johno, and live in the real world, a world where people are struggling to buy fresh vegetables to feed their children...help them to help themselves by increasing their tax cut so that their children don't end up needing the very foodbanks and later the unemployment benefit that the wealthy is never going to foot the bill for.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

English needs to stop throwing toys out of cot

For goodness sakes...in the words of some undoubtedly great Kiwi orator, 'get over it Bill'.

Yesterday's report on ACC budget failings and whether the previous Labour government hid the deficit leading into the election was nothing more than a silly finger pointing exercise.

Who really cares at the end of the day whether the Cullen has-been gets slapped on the wrist...it's stupid school boy stuff and only serves to remind us of how petty the squabbling became between English and Cullen in the past nine years. English's need for revenge highlights a weakness in his character that he shouldn't be pandering too in these problematic times.

Because, apart from yesterday's aberration, English looks to be doing his best to rectify the deepening mess we seem to be sliding into. The news this week has been all bad, and English has aged before our very eyes since his government took power.

While Key gets to swan off and talk rubbish about an open trans-tasman flight path which will be unlikely to happen during his tenure as Prime Minister, English is left to struggle at home, almost a one man band, attempting to find a path to economic recovery with ten cent pieces rather than $100 notes.

The man is, in everything but name, our Prime Minister, while Key remains a figurehead, so who cares about who did what last election Bill?

Just keep your eyes locked firmly on the future and the rest will take care of itself.

PGG in major financial trouble?

Business commentator David Hargreaves has written a damming article on PGG over the 50 percent bid for Silver Fern Farms when the company didn't have the finance to back it, and the subsequent financial problems the company has found itself in.

David finishes by stating that Craig Norgate may be getting 'that call' from John Key soon.

The writing, as they say, might be on the wall...

Read the full article here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4851777a1865.html

Government in need of straitjacket if it tries to save ailing business

He's kidding right?

John Key's suggestion of a Government cheque went down about as well as the sale of Fisher and Paykel fridges yesterday.

This is not America. You can't compare the 1600 jobs Fisher and Paykel might dump (and eventually will anyway as more and more product gets made offshore) with the 3 to 4 million jobs Obama hopes to save or create, plus we don't have the coffers to stump up when businesses go bad.

More likely the Government will help by easing foreign investment rules to enable Fisher and Paykel to gain an investor, but even if that happens the company should be locked down to keeping what is left of its production base here.

It would be bold and somewhat cheeky for a company that has moved a lot of its business offshore in recent years to take any sort of help from Government, particularly when other New Zealand businesses have gone or are disappearing in the same way and will not be extended the same comfort.

Key's words may have been just that - a ploy to buoy the share value. Let's hope that's all he intends to do.

'Awesum Johnnie'

With a little 'Keewi engineeoity', as the lad himself likes to drawl, Prime Minister John Key has catapulted from biking past houses with 'kids more fortunate' than him to the kind of capitalist wealth and power Wall Street bankers salivate over in their dreams.

Lucky then there is no Obama here to whip the rich boys into shape. Oh to be the proverbial fly on the wall for their future meetings.

Obama: " This gift is simply not acceptable John. You must be held accountable."

Key: "I know Barack but hey look, I only bought you Fiji as a gift from the New Zealand taxpayer. It's cheap as chips mate. I could have really gone to market and bought you Australia instead."

Who can forget the election night speech...such hallowed words,
invigorating, uplifting. "We did it," and the toothy grin reminiscent of
a night of mischief in a prep school dormitory with Bill English.

One wonders whatever happened to those kids he used to look longingly at as he
cycled past. Still, he got his own back didn't he, because right now those 'kids' are likely to lose their jobs, be bogged down in debt while forced to look at
their esteemed leader, smiling, like a thousand Cheshire cats following the Pied Piper and his merry rats, night after night on the television and wondering where it all went wrong. 'Up ya...ya middle class morons,' would have been a more acceptable description of Key's election night pre-pubescent elation.

So Christmas rolled around, as did the financial meltdown and Obama told his people that "this was America's time to put people back to work and to restore prosperity". New Zealanders' held their breath, anxiously waiting for our own leader's inspiring rhetoric that would make us bound out of bed with endless optimism, and say YES WE CAN! to every banker refusing to drop interest rates.

And so the Sainsbury teddy bear put up his best Christmas sparklers, and invited one and all to drinkypoos. Helen beside John. John scratching, itching, desperately resisting the urge to say 'nah nah nahnah nah' and then the piece de resistance.

Sainsbury (something like this anyway): "So John, do you have a message for the New Zealand people for the New Year."

(Cue the "Yes we cans, the timeless creeds, the eternal spirit of our nation speech.)

Key: "Weeeeelll I hopes ya all have a good holiday cos I'm bloody going to. See ya next year sumtimes."

All he needed was a pair of cowboy boots and a penchant for talking about 'them guys' and he could have passed for George Bush's illegitimate twin brother. And if all of that was making you uncomfortable in light of the ease and pace with which America's new leader was delivering his vision, add in a podium tumble and a humiliating tussle at Waitangi and Key began to resemble
more of a blethering baboon than a leader of the South Pacific.

What has made the entire saga that much more bizarre is watching a statesman like Labour leader emerging from the long shadows of the Helen era, one that seems to possess that rare quality seen in politics - dignity.

When Key is alone, (when Bill isn't pulling those tight strings from beside the press gallery Prime Minister podium), amusingly, the media look more and more to Phil Goff to provide them with a leader like summary of the event at hand, and it is becoming harder and harder to establish who really is the PM.

Take Waitangi for instance. Sure it was a debacle but it wasn't the shoving that made it so - it was Key gaffing when trying to explain the significance of Waitangi. You got the impression that the guy didn't really mean what he said, or know what he was supposed to say.

So unimpressive was his speech that One News cut to Goff who gave them exactly what they wanted to hear.

And why is this important?

Because in the current climate, as past history has shown us, the ability to look as though you are in control, to inspire, to aspire is crucial. In this respect Key is failing and allowing Bill English to look more and more like the 'mean ole' puppet master.

And even if Key has a serious lack of ability in his position it can be masked, as Churchill showed during World War Two. Churchill the man was not a visionary, nor a masterful politician. He was a shrewd orator able to manipulate his people to great heights. Even if Obama does nothing more than talk for the next four years it will at least lift his people, and help them to help themselves - a sentiment our Prime Minister desperately needs to learn.