Spare Room Be our guest…

By Kirk MacGibbon

Am I the only one who thinks it’s kind of weird that a few weeks after an election victory, won, if Cullen is to believed, purely on the desire of the people for a change of undies, that John Key almost immediately packs a few extra pairs of his and buggers off to live (for a while anyway) in Hawaii?

I guess these are the little differences that we will need to get used to, now that we’ve got Croesus as our leader. Or maybe he was misled and thought he was buying a pad in Hawaiiki? Key is not the first prime minister to opt for holidaying overseas — Helen Clark didn’t hang around for beaches and barbies either, although her “holidays” tended towards climbing mountains, or cross country skiing.

And how does he square his Hawaiian retreat with the fact that he’s also our Minister of Tourism? What’s he saying to people while he’s over there? “Yeah, of course New Zealand is an absolutely wonderful place to come for your holiday, that’s why I um, choose to, um, not holiday there myself. Look, you get sick of it when you have to live there all the time… “

It’s just another example of how Key just doesn’t quite get the “people” thing. I saw it on election night, when he allowed an overzealous Diplomatic Protection Squad to push and shove their way through the waiting throng while he walked serenely behind, oblivious to the Mugabe-like image he projected.

It may well come back to haunt him. If he is to last much longer than a single term he needs to build a connection with the public and earn their respect and trust. It’s the only thing that will save him when the honeymoon inevitably comes to an end. When many New Zealanders are concerned for their futures, and all indications are that we are have not even begun to feel the true impact of the global credit crunch, people will remember the articles about his multi-million dollar Parnell house and $5 million dollar holiday home. And woe betide him if he ever has to call for New Zealanders to exercise some belt tightening. We only just bought his line that his household had economised during the petrol price spike by swapping a nearly new European SUV for a brand new European car.

He may also want to take note that overseas jaunts, particularly for long periods of time, are not just dangerous for African dictators, who leave as leaders and find themselves homeless when someone else decides they can do the job better. Both Shipley and Bolger arrived back from OEs to find firing squads awaiting them.

Anyway, I know we’ve got a National-led Government now and so need to temper expectations of bold, decisive leadership, either at home or on the world stage. We were a little spoilt there when Clark really did raise New Zealand’s profile in international affairs to the point where we were boxing way above our weight — and doing it impressively. It’s a pity McCully seems determined to return us to international mediocrity.

His spluttering response to Green MP Keith Locke’s claims of Government silence by saying that he “made himself available” to any media (presumably by keeping his cellphone on) was pathetic. Self-defence is one thing: the Israeli response has been overwhelming and utterly devastating. Some 700 Palestinians are dead so far in response to rocket attacks (who makes Hamas’s rockets anyway? And why are they — thankfully — so hopeless?) that over a period of years have killed a grand total of four people. Israel managed to kill that many of its own soldiers in a single recent incident.

McCully’s protestations of “availability” were also somewhat undermined. I was listening to the midday news on Radio New Zealand on Friday 9 January — the Government’s response to the latest Israeli killing of civilians was preceded by the words “A spokesman for Murray McCully….”

I guess I thought that given the extraordinary times we are facing, the Government might have actually made more of an effort to convince us all that it was taking matters seriously. Seriously enough for a few of them to man the pumps and be seen to be doing some work. Instead we’ve had the usual skeleton crew approach that has seen the more junior ministers featuring. One at a time.

There was some talk of a 100 day plan of action. Now, I’m not entirely sure as to when the 100 days officially started, but if we assume, for example the day after the election, November 9, then we’re currently sitting at day 57. If we take the start date from the day that writs were returned (27 Nov), then we’re at day 41. If we took out statutory holidays then we’re at 53 and 37 days respectively.

But if we counted from the day that Key signed the coalition agreement with the Maori Party and took out the weekends, then we’re hardly even into it at all. And it shows.

On 23 December, Finance Minister Bill English issued a statement (and posted a video of himself on YouTube talking to a camera that he appears to have set up on a coffee table in front of him). The occasion was the release of GDP figures that revealed the third consecutive quarter of negative growth, which according to Mr English “underlines the urgency of the Government getting on with a programme that’s going to protect people from the sharp edge of recession.” But having spelt out the gravity of the situation New Zealand faces, he appears to have turned out the lights on the way out.

Australia’s newbie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd managed to find the time to address the nation in a New Year’s address.

Gordon Brown’s been announcing multi-billion pound rescue plans and impressing Europe (except for the Germans) with his newfound zeal for Keynesianism.

Barack Obama hasn’t even taken office yet and already he’s staking out positions and ready to rip.

The latest announcement from our Prime Minister that I could find on beehive.govt.nz was on 30 January when Key said something about Air NZ’s biofuel yawn.

I’m sorry, maybe I’m being unfair, but I just expected more…