Spare Room Be our guest…

By Kirk MacGibbon

Two words flashed across my brain when I saw John Key’s Asian crash charade on television: Gerald Ford. Maybe you’re not aware of the fact that, more than anyone, Gerald Ford perfected the step fall like no other president before or since. Ford never actually won an election. He took over the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned. In fact he only became VP when VP Spiro Agnew was forced to resign over tax issues. Gerald was supposedly a pretty good footballer in his day, but jesus, put a set of steps in front of him and he’d create a slapstick act. In fact, he wasn’t too good at going up them either as you can see here. Americans just weren’t ready to entrust the mightiest economy in the world to a guy who couldn’t master a set of stairs. Mind you, he didn’t break his arm in two places, like our PM. Not even the Great Leader herself – the Rt Hon Helen Clark – damaged herself when she took a spill during the recent election campaign.

While I’m on Clark, can I just say that while I have the utmost respect for her, there is clearly a Labour party campaign going on to hijack the ‘Greatest Living New Zealander’ poll currently being run by the New Zealand Herald. It beggars belief that Clark could be put above the likes of Colin Meads, Witi Ihimaera, Shayne Carter, Ralph Hotere, Sir Ron Brierley, or my personal nominee, Graham Brazier. It is truly a miracle that this man is still alive at all. I can vividly remember (well maybe vivid flashes) Hello Sailor playing at Mainstreet – a great venue at the top of Queen Street back in the early 80s that now is probably more well known for the fact that a woman was shot dead outside, by accident.

Brazier was one of the first genuine rock stars and a genius of a song writer. “Billy Bold”, “Blue Lady”, no-one has come close. And he’s a bloody decent bloke too. Its a longish story, but the Christmas before last, I got a call early on Christmas morning – it was Graham, who’d been told by an old school friend that I thought he was the shit, and he had got my number to ring me in Kaitaia to wish me merry Christmas. It was one of those moments. Actually I didn’t have much to say except ‘thanks’ – everything else just seemed too ‘fannish’.

But I digress, we appear to have a rather clumsy leader, in thoughts, if Bill English is to believed, as well as deeds. On that score he seems to have some similarities with former Labour Leader Mike Moore, who also came up with ideas at a frightening rate. It used to drive his staff mad, but thankfully, while he’d come up with gazillions of ideas, he didn’t have a hope of remembering all of them, so you’d act on the good ones and hope that he forgot the bad ones. Apparently NZX boss Mark Weldon is a bit a bit of an ideas man too, so next month’s summit should be interesting. Actually the comparison with Mike Moore strikes me as particularly relevant. Mike didn’t have much time for ideology or dogma. He was seen as a good, honest bloke, in touch with the heartland. He looked for pragmatic, centrist solutions that would resonate with middle New Zealand (it is a tragedy that Mike didn’t win the 1993 general election, which would quite literally have changed the course of history, particularly for Clark). It seems that Key doesn’t have a lot of time for ideology either – probably because he’s unaware of the word. And despite his nouveau riche sheen, middle New Zealand seems to be warming to him.

And while I’m on the New Zealand Herald, has anyone noticed that political reporter John Armstrong appears to have a job moonlighting as John Key’s PR man? First, John A. tells us that actually John K hasn’t been swanning around Hawaiiki doing nothing. He’d been planning a summit for weeks, although John A hadn’t got around to actually reporting that until after Key had got back. It seems Mr Armstrong just took someone’s word that yes, it had been planned much earlier. But it was strange that a John Key spokesman, when asked why things weren’t happening, rather sniffily responded that as far as they were concerned unless a bank fell over there was no need to come back early. Yet John A breathlessly tells us in subsequent columns all about how hard John K has been working. Then John A explained the lack of big announcements over the break as a deliberate strategy to avoid having nothing left to say later on. Well, here’s a news flash – instead of worrying about keeping their powder dry to effect a ‘rolling maul’ of policy announcements, they could attempt conveying a sense of urgency by doing more.

Now it seems the Parliamentary press gallery has just accepted Key’s post Cabinet press conference pronouncement that the Government was prepared to step in and bail out some nameless but very large companies that could fall victim to the credit crunch. What the???? Jesus, should we be taking our cash (ha!) out of the banks and be buying gold or something? Is it Contact Energy, Fletcher Building? For the Government to get involved in rescuing a company it would have to be either a big employer or managing a whole lot of mum & dad’s money. You’ve got to tend towards one of the big managed funds, it’s inconceivable that one of our major corporations could be at risk.

Whoever it is though, you’ve got to think that they’ll be sleeping a little easier these days knowing that the Gummint is ready to step in and rescue them. Its really quite extraordinary. I can’t remember the US or UK governments pre-announcing a corporate rescue package before the public was even aware that anyone was in trouble. Anyway, it’s great knowing Humpty Dumpty has got it all covered and mums and dads everywhere can rest easy that it’s only the billions they had in finance company debentures that they’ve lost.

Since I started with two words, I want to finish with two more: ‘Will he?’ Or ‘Won’t he?’ That is, will TV3’s Mike McRoberts actually make it into Gaza to file a report? Never has so much been reported from so near, without actually stepping foot in the place. Surely when the Israelis started letting journalists in without escorts that would have been McRobert’s cue to go and ‘get’ some news himself. My advice is go and stand in one of those muddy fields in the background and just say you’re in Gaza…

Read more posts by The Outlaw:
Of CEO Styles and Pedalling Wealth
Being Rankin’d and other tales from the Gulag Archipelago
Of History and Relevance
Where’s Our Government?
Of Honeymoons and Little Men