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Our awesome Prime Minister

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Published in Company News on 3 April 2009 by

Had a fantastic day in Auckland on Wednesday at the KEA World Class New Zealander awards. The morning was an excellent workshop led by Stephen Tindall and the night was the awards dinner.

Our new Prime Minister John Key is relaxing into his job.  The Wellington Chamber Breakfast speech last week was great but on Wednesday night he gave just a fantastic and funny speech.

You don’t see many Prime Minsters like this.

Part 2 …

The power of KEA is enormous.  How else could you get to sit next to and have dinner with the CFO of Microsoft? (I can promise you there is nothing now that Chris doesn’t know about online accounting :)

It was a few days of little sleep. Continuing my power networking I was in a cab at 5:45 the next morning to make it home in time for the Wiggles. With our recent push into Australia it was useful to understand more of the Australian culture.

 

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7 comments

Miki Szikszai
3 April 2009 #

Brilliant !

Roger
5 April 2009 #

Wow. You know your county is a significant world player when it has to justify its significance with stories of a (ex) kiwi-guy working for iPod in NY. Should someone tell John-baby that the company is called Apple and that they are in California some 4000km away on the other coast?

He should have used the story of a Wellington start-up that is taking on the world with it’s online accounting system… Not only would it be easier for him to get his facts right, but it actually is quite a remarkable story.

If this was the speech of a local high school principal at the end-of-year prize giving I would be impressed. But the ‘leader’ of our nation?

Roger
5 April 2009 #

In all fairness, the pizza hut story was pretty funny though :)

Rod Drury
5 April 2009 #

I agree the iPod/Apple thing was a bit cringeworthy but I really like this guy for a few reasons.

1. He has a sense of humour and importantly his self depreciating style will resonate with kiwi’s. It’s important especially for a Tory party that they reach out across all of New Zealand and not be elitist. In part 2 he talks passionately about important things like broadband and what is happening internationally. The iPod story was particularly relevant to the KEA event.
2. He is unscripted. He is comfortable enough to just talk.
3. He is making business OK. We all want better schools and hospitals but JK is making clear the importance of growing great business so that we can pay for the social services we need.
4. He is not afraid to take a stand. JK is one of the few leaders to talk against the Obama spend up program.
5. He is inclusive. The Helen Clark congratulations was genuine and much appreciated.
5. He is accessible.

I’ve seen JK live twice in the past couple of weeks and most people at those events have come away very impressed. I really think positive leadership is important and I believe he really is making a positive difference and creating the right sort of culture for New Zealand to be successful.

Paul Lattimore
6 April 2009 #

Guys,

Re the Ipod comment. Given that the previous PM had no idea who Johnny Farnham was, I wouldn’t even give this cringeworthy status.

If Steven Joyce or Maurice Williamson had made the comment it would be a different matter, but this guy is big picture personified, and I’m sure it was only Rod and a few others in the IT game who even picked up the anomalies. How schooled up is John on Xero? Now that’s a question I’d like to know!

Rich
6 April 2009 #

Its nice to actually hear the Prime Minister speak rather than the QA or sound bites we get on the 6pm news, shows another side to the man – thanks for posting this.

Ben Reid
7 April 2009 #

So if the Key/Joyce rolling maul of headspace continues at this pace for another 3 years what could NZ be in 2011 when the downturn is history?

I agree, Rod, a PM for our times and, hurrah, our industry.

(gush) ;-)

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