Firstly I just want to get something out of the way: the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, is a visionary and a genius.
(Australians: Yep that’s right, Helen Clark’s no longer the NZ PM. Yeah I know, we liked her, didn’t we? Especially whenever she sledged John Howard. But she was in office for a while, so voters over here decided to give a new bloke a go. And he’s pretty cool. He’s already mates with K-Rudd. Kevin signed the plaster cast on Key’s broken arm and everything. Rumour has it that Kevin wrote “Hey John, say fish and chips again! Haha!”. Key was so impressed he auctioned the cast online (once it was removed) and got $18,500 for it. True story.)
John Key is the type of guy who, if you put him alone in a room with a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, three minutes later he’d come out with it solved.
Apparently in his university days, he solve his professors’ unfinished equations, Will Hunting style.
I also have it on good authority that he is a man you do NOT want to play a game of Scrabble against.
Waiting for John to finish reading the newspaper so you can do the cryptic crossword? Sorry, you’re out of luck my friend. He will have already done it, with one eye on the sports section.
You get the idea.
What good would a NZ PM be without a herd of sheep?
As an example of John Key’s brilliance, consider his reponse to the global economic crisis which he had to deal with soon after taking office. With leaders around the world scurrying to introduce bail-outs, nationalise banks, and generally shitting themselves, what does Key do?
He announces that he’s going to build a bike track.
Just let that sink in for a minute.
How is that for some lateral thinking folks?
You couldn’t even say that was from left field. That’s some zen-like Yoda-style wisdom right there guys.
Rudd had to drop AU$42 billion on a national broadband network just to try to outdo the guy.
And so that brings me to the point of this post. One of Key’s stated aims at last year’s election was to stem the flow of Kiwis to Australia, and hopefully try to lure a few expats back to NZ as well.
However, since the election there hasn’t been a lot of talk about how this is going to be achieved. But that’s no big deal, election promises are made to be broken, right? Maybe it was a “non-core” promise, John Howard style.
If you thought this, then you would be wrong, way wrong. John Key’s already six steps ahead of everyone.
What is the one thing that Australia doesn’t have that could be attractive to some of NZ’s best and brightest?
Knighthoods.
Key announced a couple of months ago that his government was going to re-introduce the titular system that was previously abolished by Helen Clark’s mob when they were elected.
It might have seemed like Key was just some mad monarchist pining for the good ol’ days of British colonialism, but no, this bloke knows all about cause and effect and the like.
The thing is, when he said he wanted to lure back expat Kiwis, he didn’t say which ones. He doesn’t want the ones sitting on Bondi beach being sponsored by the Kevin Rudd surf team. No, he wants the high-fliers, the luminaries, the ones that have done New Zealand proud on the world stage. Think Peter Jackson, the guys from Flight of the Conchords, John Clarke, or anyone from the Finn family.
What could appeal to voters enrich the culture of New Zealand more than to have these high-achievers back living and working in NZ?
In a word: brilliant.
It also got me to thinking, this is a pretty small place, population-wise. Surely the odds of one getting tapped for one of these honours has to be better than just about anywhere else. Which means, if I hang around for another year or so, and become a citizen, I’ll be eligible. All that remains would be to do something vaguely notable.
Has a blogger ever been knighted?
