Dialogue: A boat called New Zealand

By JOHN ROUGHAN

That Cup is an uncanny barometer of the national condition. From the KZ7 summer, through loopholes with the big boat and the Winebox, into the hard grind of 1991 and on to 1995 when everything came right, the America's Cup has bobbed like a buoy on the crests and troughs of economic confidence.

After San Diego, as Team New Zealand knuckled down and prepared for the first defence, the country tightened sail. Immigration was restricted and interest rates raised high against property prices.

Then, during the Asian doldrums, the sails were let loose, though not quickly enough to prevent a brief stall. As the breeze freshened last year the Reserve Bank began gently trimming and went into the glorious summer with the economy moving well.

This week the bank tightened a little more, though business can no longer feel the breeze. Worse, there are new hands on the helm and who knows what they will do?

The dollar has taken a slide, business confidence has dropped and the spirit of Team New Zealand has taken a hammering.

And in both the economy and the Cup we knew the change was coming. Not the complete defections of Captain Coutts and his first mate of course, but we knew they were getting out of the cockpit.

Likewise, business knew there would be a change of government but they say they were not prepared for it to steer so far left. They are dismayed by the dogma they see in decisions such as the renationalisation of accident insurance and the Employment Relations Bill.

They are talking themselves into excessive despondency, just as others have done this week over the next defence of the America's Cup.

It is easier to decipher politics than it is to sift wheat from the chaff spoken by corporate yachtsmen, but there are a few solid grains which can make sense of the Cup debacle.

Sir Peter Blake was ready to leave the team after the triumph at San Diego. Match racing is not his life. He had achieved a goal, he had other things to do.

Team NZ's corporate backers desperately wanted him to stay to run the defence. They probably offered him a fortune. When they contemplated the Viaduct Basin sometime later, they had no regrets. When Coutts and Co contemplated things they decided to do Sir Peter's job next time.

But it is not the same job next time and it cannot carry the same reward. Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth have decided to run a Swiss challenge in which they can be sailors again. They explain that it was just one of those epiphanies that happen on the sea.

I think it happened on the hard tiles of corporate rejection, probably somewhere in North America, when they came to accept that nobody would finance Team NZ to a level that would give them what they wanted to run the next defence.

They had travelled the world looking for a global brand sponsor - a Nike or an adidas - to buy out the local "family of five" sponsors and fatten the purse. They failed, which is less a reflection on them than on the national predicament. Global brands would sooner be on a competitive boat from a big economy than a champion from a small one.

Coutts and Butterworth sold their skills in a bigger economy, exactly as many of our artists, scientists, technicians and other talents do. And exactly as our Lion Nathans do when they grow to a degree that their centre of gravity is in a larger market. Sir Peter Blake has lived in England for 30 years.

There is no reason to resist the trend, or resent it. It is the price of a low population and plenty of room, which most New Zealanders value. Coutts and Butterworth do not want to live anywhere else. Doug Myers will not move with his company. Sir Peter Blake is a New Zealander to his core, whether here or at home.

Team NZ obviously does not need to pay a fortune for the management of the next defence. The facilities are established, the boats are still the best in their class, the designers and the sailors know how to do it now.

So it is with the economy. The way to maintain a world-class living standard is not to resist the free movement of people, money and goods but to see that training and competition constantly produce talent and quality.

Business leaders sense the country no longer has Government that speaks their language, a Government moreover that is determined to direct more of its sponsorship to the crew.

But it is not stupid. It knows what must be done to keep the country competitive and how to do it. It is compromising a little competitiveness for the sake of electoral popularity, but it knows there is a point beyond which it proceeds at its peril.

So let's get a grip - on the economy and the Cup.