KEY POINTS:
It's Monday in Room 13 at Wadestown School and lessons for the day on the whiteboard include spelling "bubble, stubble, pebble, nibble", and wax crayon drawings.
And the global economy. While Michael Cullen is explaining the intricacies of economics to journalists on one side of Wellington, Phil Goff
and Trevor Mallard are making animal noises and killing off Bambi in their efforts to explain imports and exports to the class of 8-year-olds.
The ministers were launching the Thinking Globally resource kit for schools, designed to teach pupils about the importance of the economy as part of the Government's Export Year.
The imports side started promisingly - the children knew where things including a cellphone, a banana and Enid Blyton's Five on Treasure Island had come from. Then the ministers began grilling them on New Zealand's main exports.
They get the dairy products and beef, thanks to a bit of mooing from Mr Goff. They get the sheep, thanks to a bit of baaing from Mr Mallard.
Then the ministers ask about other meat. Pork is offered and rejected. Lamb is offered, but Mr Mallard points out that lamb is pretty much "young sheep".
"What about Bambi?" Mr Mallard asks.
"Deer?" a boy pipes up.
"Yeah, deer," says a delighted Mr Goff. "They really like our venison."
"Especially if it's young," Mr Mallard ends.
The kids don't bat an eyelid at having the storybook icon chopped up and and sent off to plates in foreign lands.
The ministers go on, Mr Mallard telling the children possum fur and merino gloves are sent to "two countries with lots and lots of money".
There's America, "and an Asian country, but one which is very rich".
"Europe?" one child guesses, before they are told that Japan is our third biggest trading partner.
The first part of the message sinks in. When it comes to a clothing brand, Mr Mallard reveals "we send this to some really rich countries, because they like well-made things".
"Japan!" comes the universal response, now they know the world is divided into normal countries and "really, really rich countries" and we like the rich countries.
Finally, Mr Mallard pulled out his lunch. It's a politically correct lunch, made of new exports (manuka honey) and good old traditional exports such as butter and kiwifruit. He tests the class on the lesson behind his lunch, the cellphone and Bambi.
"So we send a lot of stuff overseas and get money from it and we have a lot of stuff that comes to New Zealand and we pay for it. Should we be doing more of getting money or of spending it?"
Mr Mallard points out if you spend money without getting money, then you end up with no money.
The kids are told we should export only things we are good at making, because people will pay more for them, and we should import things we aren't good at making. One girl thinks we should export chocolate. A boy asks if we export cars.
They are told we are not good at making cars, but no mention is made of the rich country that is good at making them.
