This week it was reported that our Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister gave a speech to a select group of Australian and New Zealand business and governmental leaders. The tone of his presentation made me realise he’s finally thrown in the towel. The government’s astounding vision for New Zealand now apparently involves us becoming the Mexico of the South Pacific, by which our undervalued labour force and weak currency are to be re-branded as “competitive advantages”.

Mind you, I have to credit John English for using the current round of budget cuts as an excuse to quietly terminate Don Brash’s ridiculous 2025 Taskforce on “closing the gap” with Australia. The gap is already wide enough to comfortably sail a small fleet of supertankers through it, so the only sensible thing to do now is work closely with Australia to jointly develop high added value products and services for burgeoning Asian markets. Attempting to compete with or catch up to Australia is so completely the opposite of the approach we should be taking that I barely know where to begin.

Grappling with what is quite possibly the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes; standing amidst the quicksand of quake wreckage and floundering financial institutions, one could perhaps be forgiven for acts of desperation. But within the same spirit of collegiality shown by our cousins from the West Island, who mucked in and helped in Christchurch, now is precisely the time to talk more about regional associations and tighter cooperation and not how we can under-value ourselves in order to steal a few crumbs off our neighbours’ table.