KEY POINTS:
It probably says more about New Zealand's importance to the world than its new Prime Minister John Key that only a handful of leaders sent him messages of congratulations on his election victory - and one of them does not really count.
The message from Fiji military man Commodore Frank Bainimarama went something like "good on you for getting rid of the wicked witch of the west" or words to that effect.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd received a similar one a year ago when he got rid of John Howard and Alexander Downer, who never let the self-appointed Fiji Prime Minister forget he was a self-appointed Prime Minister.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have taken the letter away - possibly locked in a vault. Key does not even have a copy.
Rudd telephoned Key, as did Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whom Key met last year when he detoured from a Washington trip up to Ottawa to see the leader of a fraternal Conservative Party. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also offered his good wishes.
Key will meet Rudd and Harper over the next few days in Peru where he is due this morning for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum - his first steps on to the world stage.
When Key announced a day after the November 8 election - just 13 days ago - that it was his hope to have the Government formed in time to attend Apec as Prime Minister, it seemed overly ambitious.
That seems an age ago. As they say, where there is a will.
As plans for Key's trip jelled this week, a working dinner with Rudd and a breakfast with China's Hu Jintao were both prospects.
He has much to discuss with both: the flow-on effects of the baby-poisoning tragedy by Sanlu - a majority state-owned company with a 43 per cent ownership stake held by New Zealand's Fonterra.
The company is being broken up and sold while affected families talk of lawsuits for compensation. Key met Fonterra this week to get an update.
Top of Key's agenda with Rudd will be climate change. Key may need the extra time a working dinner offers to explain to Rudd what National's climate change policy is. Until the election National had said any carbon emissions trading scheme had to be developed in conjunction with Australia's. Now it supports a review of the policy and appears open to a carbon tax as an interim measure.
But climate-change issues may take a back seat this Apec meeting.
Most of the leaders' summit is expected to be devoted to the global financial crisis. New Zealand's views will be spelled out in a speech beforehand - to business executives - drafted by the Reserve Bank, the Treasury and Foreign Affairs.
But Key has his own views, which are outside the institutional wisdom of public service mandarins. He made it clear publicly this week he wants to be able to draw on his own experience as an internationally successful merchant banker in the speech.
It should be easy tomorrow to see whether Key's will win out.
