Regarding Rodney's 'Pay as you listen' Breakfast. I can assume the Left bloggers will deride it (as they do anything that ACT/Hide says does, even if it makes sense), but In the same vein...they would be applauding the inventiveness and 'belt tightening' if it were a Green/Labour MP that had the Idea?

Kinda sums it all up really. Have a great holiday...oops work, Colin (why not take your partner Colin?, labour MP's don't seem to bother about the expense, give the wife a nice break with you? :) ...i'm sure we will amuse ourselves in your absence, taking pot shots at the left whingers is not much sport any more, they are such easy targets...with labour under 30% of the voting public, we really should take pity on them, but it's too much fun! :) :)

Good luck with the junket, Colin. Is he taking an Air Force plane, or going commercial? Not a loaded question, as I believe the PM should have one of those nice little Citation or Lear jets to get around in. Not that they would get away with it here, where a party fundraising breakfast where a Minister charges stakeholders to hear about his plans in his portfolio that directly impact their sector is considered a rort and a scam? Oops, that is a rort and a scam. Never-the-less, Key should have a plane for domestic use, don't you think?

Well, the National party continues at full speed in its new identity as the Internationalist Party. Will Minister for International Sellouts ( incl Doc mines ) Tim Groser, be there? ' Free Trade' just means no protection for our industries. Why we've aleady lost so many of them. But for our Agri exports we'd already be in the 3rd world. But apart from the more predictable sellouts to International Finance, Merchant Banks,( Kiwi Bank about to be sold to USA giant GE Finance ) and the IMF ( Bill English apparently works for them- hence the ridiculous high borrowing - 250-400 million a week )....this Gov has supported UN Agendas to a surprising degree. Eg Anti-smacking, racial separatism ( a la Maori Separatist Party ) and ETS. And PC stuff in general. Though ETSchemes are largely a creature of the Banks, who will make fortunes trading the Carbon Credits, and they'll probably use this to establish a new world default currency....either Euro or a new one. While ruining economies with compliance issues, under a nasty bureaucracy - which will be global.

A huge number of scientists now say the Carbon/CO2/Climate change theories are a hoax, and various sources establish the world has been cooling since 1998. Notice the snowy winters ? Though there can always be some type of climate shift - polarity shifts or even reversals, electromagnetic shifts based on planetary alignment and sunspots( which mainly cause the wild weather ) . So why don't we flag the Kyoto/ETS industry and give Copenhagen a miss ? Or go there and take a stand about being clean, green, scenic and often organic without these financial death trap schemes that so many are dumb or PC enough to swallow [ when i first heard about ETS schemes and cows destroying the planet by belching - I laughed....did anyone else ? ] ?

This Asian summit is just a formalisation of a decision by the string pullers. Colonial power America- and its Dollar -are currently being destroyed to set up a new Multi-Polar economic order. Final blueprint was drawn up by Jeffrey Garten - a disciple of Heinrich Kissinger ( Ashkenazim ). Each region gets a dominant economy - we'll get China - to dominate us financially and probably monitor our computer systems. After they up-value the Yuan and buy out America. Kevin Rudd is getting ready with a Nuclear Sub navy. Time for a re-think ?

Hi Jennifer, yes I think the PM should have his own plane. Every other leader of a tin-pot nation from Azerbajhan to Australia does! It is suggested from time to time but always gets shot down. The idea, I mean, not the plane! But no, since you ask, he's going commercial, no air force plane.

Eddie, as you know, Fairfax always pays its own way!

JOhn KEy with his own plane? Given our focus on 'adventure tourism' it could be a glider or a parapont.

I will look forward to reading some insightful journalism as you traipse around Asia with the PM. Either that, or I will read Key's press releases. Either way, they will be the same.

Rodney Hide was going but the other world leaders wanted to be paid to hear him speak, airport security always assume he's wearing some kind of disguise before they realise he really looks like that, and overseas museums keep sending palaeontologists to capture him.

Yes, he should have his own plane but with the abysmal Air Force record on keeping them flying it wouldn't look good if he was stuck in Fiji or somewhere similar for 2 weeks while they tried to fix it.

I presume the ECAN politicians trying to make a political issue over Hide's breakfast are the same ones who've been squabbling about their own leadership coups and copping flak from everyone else who has to deal with them?

Eddie # 1

Re Rodney Hide, I don't have an issue with him charging but to charge to speak about his job as a Minister is stupid. Why should taxpayers who already pay for his salary be required to pay another $45 which will go into ACT accounts, to hear about his job?

Partners should be encouraged to go on overseas trips, especially if Ministers or PM is away for a lengthy period. They rarely see family when they're home so I fully support partners going. If you ever worked in Parliament Eddie, I'm sure you'd appreciate this.

The South East Asia region is important for NZ economically so naturally the PM has to be there. And I agree with CE, the PM should have his own plane.