Tuesday, August 7, 2007

NZ Inc - not

The primary brief of any Government to my way of thinking is to run the country for the benefit of its citizens. This should ensure that the place is well defended and prosperous. That's it. No farting around with telling us which chocolate bars we are allowed to buy from vending machines at work, telling us how to bring up our kids, whether we are allowed to prune trees and all the other crap this mob gets involved in. Not only involved in but pursues at the expense of its core business.
A well defended country? We could probably fend off a single front assualt from a batallion of Plunket nurses but beyond that we would be pushed. Prosperous. Well they are doing their best to kick that in the guts as I type. I am not shy at lauding the way Singapore is run as a country. This is done in a very pragmatic and business (with a capital B) type way. Zero natural resources and so it makes itself work by recognisng that you can't do anything if you don't have cash flow. Attract investment by running the place like a business and working bloody hard. Make surre money floods into the country by making it an attractive place to invest. Once you are prosperous then you can start saving whales, building concert halls and all the other extras. And extras they are - you have to put food on the table first.
What does our mob do? History man Cullen says we should be all trying to make things all prosperous like and should invest in the share market and stop being obsessed with buying houses. Then his mate Goff wipes a quarter of a billion off the Auckland Airport share price at the weekend just so he can score points at the marxist City Vision meeting in Auckland. The bloody headmistress then endorses his comments before saying that this was Labour Party speak and not Government speak - there's a difference? In somantics maybe but not in substance surely. We then get some crap about decisions about influencing a trading company is not government policy. However matters in this quarter (interfering with trading companies) are left to the Minister of Land Information (David Parker) and the Minister of Something Else (Pod Scum) who must have deliberations outside the earshot of cabinet ministers incase any decision be later subject to legal appeal - or something.
Spare me this crap. Auckland Airport is either a proper trading Company or it isn't. If the rag heads from Dubai (and most of the ones that came here looked to be sharp western businessmen) had any sense they would steer clear of New Zealand as a sound investment destination. The big ticket numbers in this country are being controlled by people who shouldn't be in charge of a corner dairy. Do the Sue Kedgelys of the world really think that Dubai (or anyone else) is going to invest billions in Auckland Airport and then downgrade it to an airstrip for cropsprayers? Does Phil Goff (whose experience in the business world you could document on the back of a postage stamp with a builder's pencil) really think Auckland Airport is ever going to turn into a feeder for Sydney? The worry is that they might. Why don't we stop all the pretence, call the place Venezuela and get our Banana Republic badge right away?
I got a truly terrifying piece of news yesterday. The Headmistress is visiting my place of employment on Friday arvo. She is coming to unveil a macracarpa phallus that has appeared ouside of the main entrance to the farm in the last week or so. It is called 'The Seed' and is symbolic of something - the profligate waste of money and loss of focus on core business that typifies the mob that runs the farm to my mind. Who runs my place of employment? Well it ain't a conglomerate of overseas business men, I'll give you the tip. I will ensure that I am not on the premises on Friday afternoon as vomiting on the Prime Minsister is not a good look. I have asked my secretary to ensure that the PM is wearing a fluoro safety jacket for the ribbon cutting as this will make her immune from injury should a ton of macracarpa topple over and scone her - now wouldn't that be nice?

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