Meanwhile, the other Shipley...

A lone husband among 20 wives - that's the prospect facing Burton Shipley this weekend. By Peter Calder

The last time Burton Shipley went to Bastion Point he was hoping for that expansive view of the inner gulf, the one where Rangitoto is so close it seems you could reach out and pick it up.

But that was July, a classic Auckland winter's day with the weather closing in for the weekend, and the Prime Minister's husband was counting himself lucky that he could see through the rain and mist as far as the end of the whare nui on Orakei Marae.

You can't help suspecting that this month it will be different. There's nothing like spring in the City of Sails, and the visit to Takaparawha - as the Ngati Whatua know that land - is sure to sparkle; it is, as Shipley says, the jewel in the crown of the programme prepared for the wives of the leaders attending Apec.

Shipley, along with journalist Clare de Lore, who is the wife of Foreign Affairs Minister Don McKinnon, has headed the team designing entertainment for the dignitaries' spouses during the two-day summit.

It's a traditional duty for the spouse of the host country's leader, but if he regards it as an irksome chore he's keeping it pretty well hidden.

Both Shipley and de Lore know from personal experience what it is to be in a foreign city with a spouse locked up in meetings all day, so they want to ensure that the visiting women - Shipley is the only husband among them - have a good time.

But they have not been above a little enlightened self-interest in designing the programme. In one Sunday afternoon event, quality local fashions will be paraded before the visitors - and there'll be plenty of opportunity for them to buy up and become walking billboards for our top designers.

Many if not most of the of the visiting leaders' wives enjoy a status and visibility that politicians' spouses here neither endure nor covet, de Lore points out. This is not a place where a Prime Minister's wife, or husband, becomes a fashion leader.

But a jacket of New Zealand merino mink worn by an Asian leader's wife - particularly if seen on CNN - could do as much for export orders as a dozen trade missions.

The pair were deluged with suggestions for the entertainment programmes - some fanciful and some clearly impractical because of logistics or security implications.

And they had to turn down proposals for ruggedly Kiwi experiences out of deference to the delicate sensibilities of some of their guests.

"Most of the visitors are - how shall I put this - well presented," says Shipley. "So they aren't particularly going to appreciate bashing through the bush in the Waitakeres."

With that in mind, they have designed a programme which they say will highlight the country's uniqueness - and remind visitors of its primacy in certain areas of endeavour.

The wives of Apec's foreign and trade ministers - a group potentially as large as 40 - will visit Ayrlies, a Whitford private garden generally acknowledged to be among the country's loveliest, look in on Penrose High School and take a short harbour cruise before having lunch in Devonport.

The smaller group of leaders' wives - 20 of them - will first see a mockup of the Kiwi farm experience at Cornwall Park (shearing and sheep dogs included) though Shipley, a former Canterbury sheep farmer himself, says he won't be donning Swanndri and gumboots himself for the occasion.

They'll see a Department of Conservation presentation about saving our endangered species. They'll lunch at Kermadec overlooking the America's Cup village and visit Bastion Point.

Shipley says the marae visit will not be sanitised; he expects the site's fraught history to be talked about quite openly. But both he and de Lore are keen that the visitors, most of whom lead high-stress lives, enjoy some old-fashioned Kiwi hospitality.

"We're really returning the hospitality that we have enjoyed in their countries," explains de Lore. "It's like going to people's places and never inviting them back. Eventually you get a bad name."