Key bullish on Kiwi, bearish on pandas

Written By: - Date published: 1:01 pm, June 28th, 2010 - 27 comments
Categories: john key, Satire - Tags:

Itching to get back into the markets, and having solved all New Zealand’s economic and social woes in 18 short months, John Key has announced he is putting aside his Prime Ministierial duties to become the country’s head trader in exotic animals.

Speaking on Breakfast (seriously), Key said he was working for months on a major pandas for kiwis trade that he believed would have “huge” economic benefits for the country, singlehandedly closing the wage gap with Australia.

He admitted the Chinese were driving a tough bargain and other countries’ zoos pay a million dollars a year for them but Key was confident he could get a two pandas for two kiwis deal sown up with a few more months’ dedicated work.

“The Chinese might insist on something to sweeten the deal. But I happen to know they’re keen on snow leopards and I know a guy in Nepal who’s lookng to unload a pair in a hurry in return for a white rhino. Now I have a mate in the Congo who I reckon will part with his rhino for a flock of kea. All I have to do is get the kea to him and the rhino to Nepal then I’ll have to snow leopards and that’ll seal the deal with the Chinese. I’ll get Hal and Roger Hunt to do the transport and pay them off with a ride on the cycleway.”

“Arbitrage, you know? It’s all about working the angles in this game” said the former PM.

Asked by Paul Henry “Is this another one of your get rich quick schemes? I get how pandas might help the zoo but exactly how do they benefit the economy? If they increase zoo ticket sales doesn’t that just take spending out of some other part of the the economy? Or are you seriously suggesting people will fly all the way to New Zealand to see pandas? And if the economic impacts of pandas are so huge and the Chinese will trade two of them for two kiwis then the economic benefits of kiwis must be huge too, right, so how do we end up better off? And is this nonsense really something a Prime Minister should be concerning themselves with or is this just more rodeo clown antics while your ministers sell everything they can’t cut?”, Key successfully distracted the veteran journalist by drawing a doodle of the two of them holding hands while standing in a meadow under a rainbow.

The doodle is now for sell on Trade Me. All proceeds to the McCully-Groser Whisky Foundation.

27 comments on “Key bullish on Kiwi, bearish on pandas ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    28 June 2010 at 1:21 pm

    Hal and Roger Hunt

    Well, that’s what he said but he’s probably more likely thinking of HAL 9000 😈

  2. vto 2
    28 June 2010 at 1:23 pm

    ha ha how silly. What is not silly however, is changing the law to allow people to keep kiwis and wekas and most all native animals as pests. That way the extinction risk gets significantly lowered..

    Why is this not the case me wonders??

  3. BLiP 3
    28 June 2010 at 1:27 pm

    Why is this filed under “satire”?

    • Bright Red 3.1
      28 June 2010 at 1:42 pm

      I think because in this version Paul Henry bursts Key’s bubble. Whereas in real life he heartily endorsed it – claiming that pandas bring in hundreds of millions.

      Honestly, do these people listen to themselves?

      • BLiP 3.1.1
        28 June 2010 at 7:56 pm

        Heh! Good point. Hadn’t thought the actual truth might be even more unbelievable.

  4. kriswgtn 4
    28 June 2010 at 1:42 pm

    Space cadet

  5. rich 5
    28 June 2010 at 2:36 pm

    I reckon if we had pandas they’d escape from the zoo and go feral. Before you know it there’ll be thousands of the buffers roaming Auckland eating bamboo and small cats. DOC will be forced to airdrop panda sized 1080 chunks on Grey Lynn to keep them down.

    • vto 5.1
      28 June 2010 at 2:39 pm

      lol, very rich rich.

      Send them south and it’ll give us something else to hunt in them thar hills…. best idea in years.

  6. RascallyRabbit 6
    28 June 2010 at 2:52 pm

    Title should’ve really been ‘Key bullish on Kiwi – Bearish on Panda value’ ?! haha

    Paul Henry must be going to China with Key less he feel uncomfortable without his head up Key’s ass for a couple of weeks.

  7. tsmithfield 7
    28 June 2010 at 3:08 pm

    The best way to save endangered species is to breed them for commercial gain. After all, how short are we of cows, sheep, and pigs?

    Kiwi eggs for breakfast anyone? How about a bit of Panda steak?

    • Bright Red 7.1
      28 June 2010 at 3:17 pm

      the result would be they would go extinct in the wild due to poaching. The purpose of zoos is to maintain populations when the wild ones are endangered.

      • tsmithfield 7.1.1
        28 June 2010 at 3:28 pm

        I don’t know.

        Obviously, I was being a bit tongue and cheek with the comment above. However, not entirely.
        For example, gross as it may seem, tigers are bred for body parts in China to satisfy their irrational thirst for traditional medicine.

        http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/world/asia/13tiger.html

        Perhaps, though, this may undercut the poachers who are wiping out wild tigers.

    • kaplan 7.2
      28 June 2010 at 4:34 pm

      The problem there is that when an animal is bred for domestic or agricultural purposes it is no longer the same animal it started as. Modern dairy cows, sheep and especially chickens are nothing like the original animals natural evolution produced as they have been selectively bred to enhance desirable traits and suppress undesirable ones.
      For instance ‘broiler’ chickens are bred to grow to slaughter size so quickly that if they are left to live past 12 weeks or so they end up growing too heavy to be supported by there own frame effectively crippling themselves. A ‘normal’ chicken should live for over six years.

      • Lanthanide 7.2.1
        28 June 2010 at 4:57 pm

        Similarly, turkeys in the US are so mutated from their original form that factory farmed versions cannot reproduce without artificial means, and similar to the chickens mentioned put on weight so fast that they can’t move/walk and die young from heart problems.

        Many breeds of heirloom turkeys were on the verge of extinction just 10 years ago, but thanks to the internet a group of farmers managed to form a network and share turkey specimens from different breeds with each other, enlarging the gene pool and starting a niche market for their ‘traditional’ turkeys. Many people say the heirloom turkeys are more flavoursome (also much smaller) than the factory farmed ones and more like the turkeys they remember from when they were children.

        • tsmithfield 7.2.1.1
          28 June 2010 at 5:07 pm

          Agree with you both entirely. I don’t think farming is an ideal solution.

          However, in the example of the Chinese farming tigers for body parts, the effect may be to take the pressure off the wild tigers so they can survive in the wild and thus preserve the natural genetics.

          The other point with endangered species is that the genetic pool is by definition very small, so there are more likely to be changes due to genetic effects anyway.

          • felix 7.2.1.1.1
            28 June 2010 at 7:13 pm

            Yes, and Kiwis are endangered due to poaching so your point is valid.

            Except they aren’t so it’s not.

  8. infused 8
    28 June 2010 at 4:32 pm

    I want a snow leopard.

  9. eye saw 9
    28 June 2010 at 6:28 pm

    We have sno leopards for sale.

  10. tomfarmer 10
    28 June 2010 at 8:50 pm

    There was this photo one time and I asked.. i said.. panda.. human panda..? those eyes being so dark and that furrow so intense.. and the guy said moore, michael..

    you’ll forgive me i’ve always kinda thought of MM as the panda polly.. point being are you guys sure the PM is yakking about the bamboo scoffers..? he aint surreptitiously alluding to the “I’m an international” and “that’s aka globalist” wouldbe and always wannid-to-be fellow in W’ton..

    not that a lot of value is attached.. going off the latest trade news outta the US.. one-on-one bilats.. boo the gang-o-9..? hey MM sure has gotten a number there..!!

  11. Bored 11
    28 June 2010 at 9:23 pm

    No ones commented on the fabulous photo. The Jonkey Memorial Cycleway will be a place where one can ride alongside endangered Pandas, and buy them bamboo shoot snacks at wayside pit heads, all grown in the revegetated mine tailings in our National TM Ltd Parks.

  12. Rharn 12
    28 June 2010 at 9:46 pm

    There’s a few ‘turkeys’ lurking around that zoo in wellington they call parliment. Maybe they could do a trade for some soldiers from the ‘stone’ army. It would at least raise the behavour standard of of this government and their cohorts.

  13. eye saw 13
    29 June 2010 at 5:26 pm

    In parliament this afternoon.Panda Minder John Key announced the price increase for bamboo tax.
    PM key said that the ETS(extra tonne of shit)that pandas were excreting was directly responsible for rising methane gas levels and in light of the impact on the environment the tax on bamboo will rise 5% on 1 july 2010.
    To offset costs extra bamboo will be planted under the deforestation scheme being developed in Dr Smiths office.
    Planting bamboo would allow the PM to import more pandas from China.
    Key initially thought importing pandas from britain would be cheaper but it was pointed out that these were police cars and we already had enough british police without their cars as well.
    In further news a park would be built at the end of the cycleway to house the extra pandas.
    Key said the park at the end of the cycleway would be finished to coincide with the opening of the cycleway.He couldn,t put a date on this but he was relaxed about it being finished in time for the opening which would occur on completion.
    A smiling Mr Key then left after waving to some people on a distant hill who didn’t appear to know who was waving but when told later by breathless reporters were all agush and said it showed that the Panda Minder had ordinary kiwis in mind.

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