Spare Room Be our guest…

By Kirk MacGibbon

I’ve been thinking about what constitutes a “CEO style”. The words have come into fashion since Mr Key arrived on the ninth floor of the Beehive. I have never, ever heard of them being used in relation to a New Zealand prime minister before. As far as I can tell, they seem to refer to a situation where a person has little, if any, experience in running a government, but did rise to a second-tier (perhaps even third-tier, I can’t be bothered googling him) management position in a large, multi-national merchant banking operation. Key has never actually been a CEO.

I guess some elements of the media have done their best to find a term that can adequately describe the “style” of the current leader of the National party, particularly since combining the words “Key” and “prime ministerial” risks being labelled oxymoronic. “Steeped in the political tradition” won’t fly, ditto for “gravitas” ; “steely” is laughable; “focused” … hmmm; “ruthless”, nope; “charismatic” (sigh)…

When you really think about it, none of the descriptions that have been applied to previous prime ministers back to, arguably, Bolger, can be applied to Key with any credibility.

And so we have Key’s CEO-style of running a government. Clearly the media need some words to describe Key’s leadership style, because we still seem to be on that honeymoon everyone talks about. Perhaps they still feel obligated to convey a notion of competence to the public and in doing so, help stifle the development of any kernel of doubt that we don’t so much have a leader as a puppet controlled by a shadowy junta pulling strings to give the illusion of dynamism.

I accept the need for a new term, if only so we can contrast Key’s style with that of his predecessor, Helen Clark. Clearly we’d had enough of that particular management style. But while on that subject, congratulations to Helen on her (apparent) appointment to the third highest position in the UN. Why is it important for media to include that point? Seems a little unnecessary, even condescending. Should we start congratulating Clark on her bronze…? “Nice race, Helen, shame about the bronze, but at least you medalled.” What’s the second-highest position? Something obvious like the deputy secretary-general? Actually to be honest I’m not interested, except to wonder whether Clark will bring her “prime ministerial” style to that position, or will she develop a CEO-style all her own? I wait with bated breath.

Anyway, back to Key. We could describe Key’s style as relaxed, laid-back, directionless, wishy-washy, muddling, inconsistent, incoherent, rudderless (the sharp reader will of course instantly recognise this as a little joke contrasting him with The Great Helmsman), or even perhaps worst of all, uninspiring.

For a man who managed to amass some $50 million in just 20-odd years to propose to tackle the serious recessionary environment we are now living in by building a national cycleway is completely unacceptable. It is limp. For a start, having worked in local government for a number of years, I know that many councils are already spending huge sums to build cycleways around their regions; have been for years. Wellington and Hutt City for example, have been slowly working towards a cycleway right around Wellington Harbour. They, along with Transit, have already built one along the motorway, the Hutt with Wellington.

So Key’s idea could only really ever have been implemented as a plan to link all the existing cycleways into a national network. Something that has only very recently been acknowledged. And if you want to do that, let’s simply resurrect the old PEP schemes and get the terminally unemployed on to it, right away. I suspect that if that happened we’d see quite a few people deciding to get off their asses and retrain rather than linger on the dole doing what Key’s doing for an annual salary of around $400k, which could (perhaps uncharitably) best be described as “two-fifths of f#@k all”.

And just what benefit are we going to get from a national cycleway anyway? Since when did pedal power lead to economic prosperity? Is someone going to ditch their cycle tour through the Pyrenees or France or Tuscany to come and pedal along parallel to State Highway 1? And how much are these hordes of people going to spend once they get here? They clearly do things on the cheap, I don’t see stacks of Avantis lying around outside the Park Royal or the Hilton. I haven’t seen too many rich tourists pedalling around admiring the scenery. People with money don’t pedal. At least not for days on end. When did Key last take his family on a cycle tour?

If New Zealand’s future lies in a cycle track then frankly, we’re buggered. We’re not going to be saved by a nine-day-fortnight either. Australia has just handed AUD$42 billion in cash back to Australian families to spend how they see fit. People are positive. They’re spending billions on infrastructure. In Brisbane, where I was working last week, there is a plan to spend $19 billion just on the commuter rail network. They’re building a second bridge over the Brisbane River. They’ve got busways for Africa. They are doing stuff (and yes, I did get to use Muldoon’s old joke about Kiwis moving to Australia raising the IQs of both countries. And they laughed). In contrast, our government doesn’t appear to be doing anything meaningful at all.

Key’s CEO style has seen ACC Minister Nick Smith, who spent just about his entire opposition years as spokesman for the environment, blundering around select committee rooms, sacking board members (although I fully supported the firing of Ross Wilson: You live by the sword, you die by the sword, Ross.) and generally unnecessarily (disingenuously) scaring the bejesus out of everyone in order to effect what could probably more effectively be justified on simple efficiency grounds.

But I’ll leave my last comment for one of Key’s recent ones in relation to cutting some peripheral departmental programmes. After trotting out a twee line about hugging polar bears, CEO-PM Key stated: “That means some programmes that weren’t working, you have to stop those. And if they are not in line with the current Government’s initiatives we have to disband those.”

Two things: Shouldn’t we bloody well simply expect that programmes that don’t work don’t continue, after they’ve been evaluated? And what does “not in line with current Government initiatives” mean?! Programmes that are working have to stop because it offends against some nebulous, unspecified Government agenda?

If this is a CEO style at work, then perhaps we need to look at the recent contribution of a number of CEOs to the current financial disaster. Because apparently we’ve now got one running the country, when what we desperately need is someone with a vision, and the strength and presence to take charge and implement a coherent and inspiring vision. If Key can’t, or won’t, do that then maybe he should just pedal off into the sunset … Me? I’ll take my car, thanks. All 12 cylinders of it.

Read more posts by The Outlaw:
Being Rankin’d and other tales from the Gulag Archipelago
Of History and Relevance
Humpty Dumpty and putting things back together again
Where’s Our Government?
Of Honeymoons and Little Men