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.
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