KEY POINTS:
John Key has missed a plum opportunity to cement himself centre-stage with New Zealand's movers and shakers.
The Deloitte/Management magazine Top 200 awards are a "must" in this country's corporate calendar. It is the event where the nation's top business people are unashamedly honoured by their peers and politicians preen as they promote their positions to the movers and shakers in what has become an annual "giant network".
But on Thursday night, the man who wants to be our next prime minister was nowhere to be seen.
Instead of glad-handing the corporate elite in Auckland, he was off touring New Zealand endeavouring to raise his profile by visiting some 40 towns in 12 days, giving out DVDs of his life story (and views), and trying to make a connection with New Zealanders to improve his ratings in the preferred prime minister stakes.
His minders no doubt believe this will promote Key as a "man of the people".
But you would have to question how many inhabitants of those 40 towns might just feel vaguely insulted by the notion that National expects them to form a connection with the prime ministerial aspirant during such fleeting visits.
You would also have to question why Key's minders did not strategise to get him back to Auckland for just one night - to take a prime top table spot - particularly as an opportunity was going begging to align him with the awards' "Going Beyond" focus.
With Helen Clark off in Uganda - infuriating the British press by "txting" messages during the Queen's address - Key was presented with a prime opportunity to network with the corporate elite and assure them he did have a strategy to take this country forward when voters finally get around to "Going Beyond - Clark."
This was a marked contrast to last year's event where Key busily promoted himself as the heir apparent to Don Brash, who had just signalled his retirement as National Party leader.
There was huge excitement as corporate strutters like Microsoft's Chris Liddell crowded around Key urging him to develop a strong ambition for National and New Zealand. Twelve months on, the country's news organs are busily dissecting his leadership and asking the "What does Key stand for" question. Corporate NZ is asking the same questions.
We know he is ambitious for New Zealand. But we don't yet know how he plans to fulfil that ambition - or what the end goal is - if National wins next year's election.
Partially this is because National has adopted a "me-tooism" approach by inoculating potentially difficult policy areas in foreign policy and climate change where its policies now run relatively parallel to the Government's line.
But it's also because National has muffed some of its attempts to get defining policy issues in front of the public. Key can't afford this practice to continue.
The Herald-Digipoll demonstrates National has strong support in Auckland - and from males.
But while Key has come from the corporate world he can't afford to take the movers and shakers for granted.
These are the people who make investment decisions and they want to be assured Key does have policies being worked up that will help turn around the brain drain that he uses to politically advantage himself against Clark. Judging by Key's rather naff DVD - there is little substantive policy under development let alone truly transformative measures.
I downloaded the DVD from the National Party website and found myself cringing at the artificiality of the 12 minutes of staged intimacy with our aspirant prime minister.
Key in his previous life as the hard-nosed boss of Merrill Lynch's global foreign exchange business would not have put his face to such vacuous nonsense.
It basically demonstrated - yet again - why Key needs to get a "kitchen cabinet" group of outside advisers around him who can tell him straight: Don't go down that path. Take a more ambitious route.
He could start by talking to the winners of this year's Deloitte awards. Entrepreneur Lloyd Morrison who was named as New Zealand's top executive has built a small infrastructure investment empire from scratch. Kiwibank's Sam Knowles whose state-owned bank took out the honour for the most improved performance. Or John Palmer - the nuggety chair of Air NZ and Solid Energy - who was awarded the gong for the country's best company chairman and has the guts to tell the truth about the impact of the Government's climate change policies on New Zealand business while National is too frightened to get into the detail in case it is labelled a denier.
The winners are all unabashed promoters of New Zealand success. They are not afraid of staking out positions and driving ambition forward.
Pity Key wasn't there - it might just have rubbed off and reminded him how much he needs to lift his own game if his ambitions for New Zealand are to be realised.
