In This Edition: The clear thinker – Keith Rankin – New Zealand’s Straw Mattress
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The clear thinker
Dear Sir,
A nice little story currently doing the rounds to liven up your day.
An aeroplane carrying the Greens Party elite was about to crash while travelling to an election meeting in Whitianga.
There were 5 passengers on board but only 4 parachutes. The first passenger said, " I'm Rod Donald, joint leader of the
party. Aotearoa needs me to halt the development of genetic engineering, I can't afford to die..." So he took the first
pack and left the plane.
The second passenger, Jeanette Fitzsimons, said, "I am also a joint leader of the party and many look to me for guidance
and inspiration. I'm anambitious woman and intend being the world's first Green's prime minister." She just took the
second parachute and jumped out of the plane.
The third passenger, Nando Tanzcos, said: "I'm also a 'joint' leader and I'm needed in Aotearoa to prove to everyone
that dope is harmless and doesn't stop you from being a clear thinker." So he put on the pack next to him and jumped out
of the plane.
The fourth passenger, Sue Bradford, says to the fifth passenger, a 10 year-old school boy, "I am tired and worn out from
protecting the rights of the downtrodden and unemployed. My job on this planet is now done. I will sacrifice my life and
let you have the last parachute.
The boy said, "It's okay, there's a parachute left for you. Aotearoa's clearest thinker has taken my schoolbag."
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Keith Rankin
Dear Sir,
Scoop is my main source of NZ, here in South Africa. I don't often read the detail but do glance thru your headlines but
ALWAYS read Keith Rankin's missives. Many thanks for bringing us his commentaries. They are really great - on all sorts
of subjects.
cheers Charles
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New Zealand's Straw mattress
Sir,
A feature by Greg Sheridan of The Australian appearing in The DomPost today sums up the lacklustre future we Kiwis can
look forward to as a result of our under-achieving and unreliable past brought about by having virtually no consistent
and long term goals.
I have, over the years, regularly written outlining my concerns over the governments' (of all persuasions) inability to
formulate a cohesive, multi-partisan approach to how we nurture our global alliances.
The feelings presently being voiced across the Tasman as articulated in this feature, reflects the culmination of 20 or
so years of indecision, about-turns and outdated ideological foreign policy decisions practised by New Zealand.
Crawling to the Australian and American administrations in order to get some traction for a US-New Zealand free trade
agreement is being seen as just that. Crawling
No amount of posturing by Helen Clark, the Government or the Greens is going to change the fact New Zealand is now seen
to have taken a radically diverging path to that from whom we now seek favours.
We have made our bed, now we must lay in it. It is just a shame the mattress happens to be filled with straw rather than
the infinitely more comfortable feather-down that it could have been.
Mirek Marcanik