KEY POINTS:
Monday
We noted last week that the Prime Minister is getting to be quite the joker at his weekly post-Cabinet press conferences with his off-the-cuff jests mostly aimed at himself. Today he mentions that bids on Trade Me for the plaster cast on his broken arm have reached an astonishing five figures - very good news for the Fred Hollows Foundation, the charity that will use the money to boost its work in the Solomon Islands. Key, who spent a day there last week on his way back from an emergency Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Papua New Guinea, will sign the cast and host the winning bidder to morning tea. Quips Key of the auction price: "I am getting worried if it gets too high I might have charities breaking the other arm." Later in the week, Key recounts to the Waitakere Business Enterprise Club how he had gone back on stage at the fateful Chinese New Year function after falling and breaking his arm. He thought the audience was disappearing in front of him and that he was blacking out. He tells Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, who was also at the Chinese function, that it was good to have him standing beside him as he thought he might have fainted. Harvey, a one-time lifeguard, said he and his wife, who is a midwife, had both thought Key was in shock in the medical sense. Harvey had made a point of remaining on stage to keep a close eye on the Prime Minister until he left.
Tuesday
John Key may have his "rolling maul" spin on the Government's phasing-in of initiatives to combat the international credit crunch, but the Greens can go one better in the rugby stakes. They have hired Scott Compton, previously the All Blacks media manager, as a press secretary.
Thursday
To Waitangi. And the lower marae where Labour MP Shane Jones makes reference to a previous speaker, Hone Sadler, having mentioned Labour was no longer led by "a petticoat". Says Jones: "Well, let me assure you there was some serious weaponry under that petticoat."..... Meanwhile, Education Minister Anne Tolley confirms the way to a boy's heart is through his stomach. She is chatting to a bunch of Hamilton secondary school students and asks what she can do for them as minister. One responds, "Bring back meat pies". Well, funny you should say that, the minister replies. Just that day, she had ordered the removal of the requirement that schools be allowed to sell only "healthy options" food and beverages.
Friday
From the sublime to the ridiculous or vice versa - depending on your point of view. The Orewa Rotary Club is continuing its New Year tradition of getting prominent politicians along to deliver a state-of-the-nation speech or something similar. Last year Progressives leader Jim Anderton followed in the footsteps of Winston Peters, Don Brash and Sir Robert Muldoon. This year's guest is Act finance spokesman and former Labour finance minister Sir Roger Douglas, who addresses the club on Monday... Meanwhile, a break with tradition (sort of)... Andrea Smith, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs diplomat who was most recently the Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser, is to be New Zealand's new Ambassador to Turkey. Nothing strange in that - except, by a quirk of fate, her three male predecessors seconded to the Prime Minister's Department - Brook Barrington, Peter Rider and Alan Williams - followed one another in becoming Ambassadors to Thailand on their departure from the Beehive.
