Sun always shines in the land of Key

JOHN HARTEVELT

Perhaps it's the Hawaiian holiday home that's the secret to John Key's sunny optimism.

Back in his suit and speaking to an appreciative business audience at Waitakere yesterday, Mr Key had little in the way of good news to report.

There was still a projected surplus to look forward to in 2014-15, but it was not nearly so handsome. Growth would be "somewhat slower" than everyone had expected.

And although "not the most likely scenario", there was a chance that "really difficult challenges" would follow repeated downgrades in global growth.

While Mr Key was speaking, the media heard that the infamous teapot tape had been leaked online.

Immediately, Mr Key's careful commentary on the state of the economy and the year ahead was overtaken by the contents of that campaign trail chat with ACT's John Banks.

And that was before anything could be said about confirmation that a decision on the sale of the Crafar farms to the Chinese was imminent.

Mr Key had not known of the teapot-tape leak before he spoke but, initially at least, he seemed unruffled by the news. He tried swatting it away with the same old "I haven't heard it, so I can't comment" line.

But as is often the case with this prime minister, when pressed he could not stop himself disclosing parts of the tape - adding the time-honoured "if any offence was caused, I apologise" line.

It was awkward territory for Mr Key to navigate his way around and, although he tried to shrug it off, he can't have been the least bit comfortable with the episode.

Neither was he entirely at ease talking over the politically impossible Crafar farms sale. Unfortunately for Mr Key, his past utterances do him no favours now that the Chinese bid looks set to succeed.

He has encouraged concern over the sale of large tracts of farmland to foreign buyers, and he has pointedly picked China as the unwelcome source of extra debt under any spending plans more profligate than his own.

Worse still, his often-recalled comment about New Zealanders avoiding tenancy in their own land seems to be perfectly illustrated by Landcorp's part in the Pengxin bid as the farms' manager.

Mr Key yesterday asserted that a Pengxin/Landcorp partnership was "not necessarily" a case in point of that tenancy concern, but he offered little to explain why not.

Instead, he suggested there was, after all, no real worry about foreign land ownership since it remained at something like 1 per cent of the country's productive land resource. And anyway, the Government's hands were tied - the law was the law.

All of which is some way short of a satisfactory start to the political year and a second term as prime minister.

But perhaps from Mr Key's perspective, it's better to be done with the messy stuff early on while the Hawaiian sun tan still lingers.