It was Karl Marx who said: "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

The old socialist got it backwards in the case of this Labour Government and New Zealand Cricket's damsel-in-distress insistence on touring Zimbabwe unless someone rescues them from the evil clutches of the ICC. You see, the decision to tour Zimbabwe in 2005 was a farce and any decision to tour in 2009 will be tragedy indeed.

Yet, so far, cricket tour of Zimbabwe version 2009 is following depressingly similar lines to cricket tour of Zimbabwe 2005. Everyone is looking at everybody else and expecting them to do something about it - just like a group of people at a party noticing a big lump of excrement on the carpet and then striking "well, it wasn't me" poses.

But, to recap. In 2005, New Zealand toured Zimbabwe on a cricket tour of monumental insignificance, forgotten as soon as it was over; some would say forgotten while it was still in progress, so weak is Zimbabwe cricket.

Even in those days, the odious and corrupt Robert Mugabe regime was penalising its own citizens in a way that would obviously escalate as the old tyrant clung to power.

And what did New Zealand - the nation so chest-puffingly proud of what it achieved with racism and apartheid South Africa in the 1980s - do about it? Well, New Zealand Cricket had a media strategy. Shift the blame, it went, to the ICC and the New Zealand Government.

The ICC's insistence that its future tours programme remain inviolate is backed by a hefty fine for any cricket body that pulls out of a sanctioned tour - about $3m worth, no less. Moral issue? What moral issue? The ICC pulled the line that it was a cricket body, not given to interfering in national politics and was not a moral nor political judge (a good joke given the highly political, internal, race-driven dimensions of the ICC these days).

The then CEO of NZC, Martin Snedden, maintained a lofty position. NZC couldn't afford such a blow to the pocket and, in any case, it was not up to the NZC to make political judgments.

In other words, shooting back to our partygoers, both the ICC and NZC were saying: "That ain't my mess."

And what did our elected representatives do?

Well, they mightily upheld the right of the individual to travel. Uh huh. Uh huh. Thank you, God, for delivering unto us such noble leaders. Faced with a moral dilemma - sending a cricket team to an obviously wounded nation, run by a man whose human rights record is right up there with Genghis Khan and who is also the patron of Zimbabwe Cricket - our Government reaffirmed our rights to get on a plane. They could not prevent New Zealanders from using their passports, they said. Hoorah! Such courage.