Barry Soper: Hillary Clinton's visit to NZ all about the money

Tickets to see Hillary Clinton in New Zealand cost up to $500 a seat. Photo / AAP

This time next week two women will be going through their paces in Auckland.

There'll be no need for speech trainers, they know the drill, it's all in the posture, relaxing the stomach muscles and breathing evenly.

Former American First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be in town to do what she does best these days - make money. Last year she made much more than that chump Donald Trump by telling her story - and so did her old boss Barack Obama in just one night when he was here just over a month ago to pick up his half a million buck pay cheque.

His was an invited audience, hers next week will be a paying one with tickets costing up to $500 a seat, which is probably the reason they've now resorted to giving some away to build up the numbers.

The other woman going through her paces will be former prime minister Jenny Shipley who, we're told, will facilitate the conversation with the Secretary, which basically means Clinton will say what she wants to with little prodding. It promises to be the same saccharine affair as it was when actor Sam Neill allowed the remote Obama to go through his paces.

The blurb tells us Shipley will explore the stories from Clinton's post-election book with the title What Happened when we all know the answer to that, she was beaten by The Don.

The Democrats sound a bit like our own National Party, constantly reminding us she won the popular vote by about three million over Trump. But it's winning the electoral colleges that matters there just as it's having other political mates here.

One thing that Clinton and Shipley have in common is losing, but in fairness losing to Helen Clark would have been easier to take than losing to Donald Trump.

Even though Clinton has over the years had an impressive public service record, even putting up with Bill for the sake of the Presidency, she let herself and her volunteers down badly on election night.

I was at the Democratic Party headquarters in mid-town Manhattan, along with several thousand volunteers who'd worked tirelessly for 18 months to get her elected, who were anticipating the election party of their lives. In the early hours of the morning they were told to go home, Secretary Clinton wasn't conceding defeat, they were told.

The radio in my cab on the way back to the hotel, just 15 minutes later, told a different story. She'd made the concession phone call to Trump.

Clearly it was one speech she wasn't prepared to, or wasn't emotionally capable of, making. Pity, her volunteers felt that she at least owed them that much.

Don't expect her to be asked about that at next week's gig though - which is more about money than remorse.