KEY POINTS:
If it wasn't so pathetic, so trivial and so sickening, the Government's reaction to Air New Zealand flying Australian troops to Kuwait would be positively hilarious.
We need, however, to take notice of this puerile, politically correct stupidity on the part of our senior Cabinet ministers - Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and Phil Goff - because it shows us once again just how out of touch they are with the people.
I'll wager that at least seven out of 10 New Zealanders give as much of a damn that our airline flies Aussie troops to the borders of Iraq as they do that it flies fresh-cut flowers to Japan.
In fact, a Herald online poll asking whether the Kuwait charter mattered, attracted nearly 4000 responses, of which 69 per cent said it didn't and only 31 per cent that it did.
Furthermore, it seems to have escaped the notice of the inhabitants of the ivory tower that the question of the charters was first raised as long ago as January and a story of one of them was told in Air NZ's magazine more than a month ago.
Another reason we need to take note of this unwarranted reaction is that it shows us beyond a shadow of a doubt that Labour is a centre-left party only in an economic sense.
In its political, social and international thinking it is as far to the left as it ever was, committed to those age-old socialist principles that would make us a nation of amoral, androgynous, politically correct and pacifist wimps; dependent on the state for everything from our opinions to the food on our tables.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the loudest ministerial mouths that none of the senior officials of six government agencies who knew for months about the charters mentioned the matter to their ministers because they didn't think it was important enough.
And that includes the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, whose chief executive, Maarten Wevers, opted not to trouble our Dear Leader with such a triviality.
They were all absolutely right. The Air NZ charters were profitable commercial deals and in no way did they break any of the rules imposed by Clark, Cullen, Goff and Co by their policy on the Iraq imbroglio.
That the airline is some 80 per cent "Government-owned" is irrelevant. That shareholding is held by the Government on behalf of all New Zealanders - and at least 70 per cent of them would have no objection whatsoever to the deal.
But probably the worst fallout from this ill-considered outburst by our senior Cabinet ministers is that it has offended our transtasman neighbour big time.
Except in terms of Anzac, Australians have never held us Kiwis in particularly high regard and, after this debacle, a whole lot more of them will see us as a bunch of wankers.
In spite of protests to the contrary, there is no question that the Clark-Cullen-Goff tirades are an insult to Australians, for it is implicit in the criticism of Air NZ accepting the charters that Australia is wrong to be sending troops to Iraq.
Australia's Foreign and Defence ministers are perfectly entitled to take offence and the depth of that offence can be gauged by the Defence Minister's edict that Air NZ is never again to be used by Aussie Defence Department personnel - under any circumstances.
The degree of hypocrisy in our prime and other ministers telling their Australian counterparts to stay out of our domestic politics is breathtaking, for that is exactly what our lot have done by taking the stand they have.
The whole thing, of course, reeks of the sort of politics we have come to expect when elections loom - this year in Australia, next year here.
Our lot are terrified of losing the support of the far left, including the Greens; and the Liberals in Australia are really up against it and must be seen to hang tough.
My sympathies lie, for once, with the senior bureaucrats who find themselves in the gun over this storm in a plastic wine cup.
These state servants don't have a chance, of course, for this Labour-led Government has no concept of ministerial responsibility.
That was brought home to us unequivocally by the Prime Minister herself this week when she was asked to comment on the statement by a former senior civil servant that chief executives of government agencies were "being hung out to dry" by politicians.
Helen Clark said: "Ministers can't be held accountable for the failure of other people to do their job."
I seem to remember a time when they were. It went with the territory.
