Technophobe gives IT talk

Mr Key has a Twitter account but has admitted he got his staff to tweet for him. Photo / NZ Herald

He can't tweet, but it hasn't stopped John Key giving a speech at an information technology summit.

The Prime Minister was a speaker at the ITU Connect Asia Pacific Summit in Thailand, held under the United Nations umbrella.

Mr Key has a Twitter account but has admitted he got his staff to tweet for him - even when it was a simple one-word "bugger" after the America's Cup campaign.

He also took the dangerous step of moving off script to give a New Zealand 101 lesson, describing the country and its population before touching on the broadband project to rural areas and schools, and measures on cybersecurity.

Mr Key has had the red carpet treatment in Thailand, complete with a 23-car motorcade.

He told a business audience about a more humble "motorcade" he arranged when visiting as Opposition leader. The family were late for the airport, so Mr Key hailed a tuktuk driver who ran every red light to get to the hotel in time, and was paid double.

It's been a while since Mr Key treated reporters to one of his made-up words, but he nearly returned to an old favourite yesterday: scuttlebug. Discussing Labour's attacks on the Air New Zealand sale, he dismissed the criticism as "scuttlebug". It took him two more attempts to correctly say "scuttlebutt".