KEY POINTS:
An hour after her "state-of-the-nation" speech in Waitakere this morning Helen Clark could be found luxuriating amid the soft white sofas and carpet on board an almost complete mini gin-palace, or more correctly vodka palace, a which is about to join its Russian-owned 600ft mega superyacht.
The $2 million
boat with white furnishings and crystal lamp shades will be a mere tender, taxiing its wealthy owners and visitors to and from the mothership to shore or whereever.
Needless to say there was no gin or vodka at hand at 10.30 in the morning, just the focus on a successful Henderson boat building business, Vaudrey Miller, that has carved out a niche market in building classy tenders with its 60-strong work force including 10 apprentices.
The apprentices were the link to Clark's speech announcing new youth training and education policy.
Clark met Luke Mete-Kingi and Mike Gosnell, Rutherford High and Kelston Boys' High graduates respectively who answered an ad in the newspaper for apprenticeships eight months ago for composite boat building and marine painting.
In the next couple of weeks they will start night classes at Uni-tech.
After the cameras had gone, I was keen to find out what they thought of the major policy announcement Clark made in her speech - making students stay at school or be involved in education or training until the age of 18 [to be introduced by 2011]. The present school leaving age is 16.
It seemed from Clark's press conference after her speech that some view the measure as a negative imposition on young people's freedoms; that it might stifle the natural entrepreneurial instincts of legends like Bob Jones and Ron Brierly, or the kid who wants to quit school to go work in a car yard.
I'm sure the same protests were made when the leaving age was raised from age 12 - 'but we need him to work on the farm not bury his head in books' is what I'm guessing they said in rural New Zealand.
Luke and Mike didn't know anything about the speech Clark had given. But they thought it was a really good idea.
They said they had both stayed at school until the seventh form (aged 17) and worked in other jobs before taking up the apprenticeship.
Most of their mates had done the same, staying until they were 17. The ones that left earlier just drifted.
They are the ones that both Clark and John Key identified in their speeches yesterday and today as needing special attention.
Clark's other announcement - that Youth Apprenticeships will be established right across the schooling system from third form (Year 9) up has a distinct ring of full circle about it. Didn't we have technical colleges and agricultural high schools in the past that gave way to more academic study in the 50s and 60s?
Now the emphasis on vocational and trades training for the less academically focused is to return to schools and at an early enough age to capture those already looking like high-school drop-outs.
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Beats everyone taking to doing film studies or media studies.
Clark's speech was to a Waitakere breakfast audience. 'Mayor Bob' as he is simply known out West was there, also Bryan Mogridge, he who said 'no thanks ' to Winston's donation to the Starship Foundation, party president Mike Williams, and the everywhere-man, Michael Barnett of the Auckland chamber of Commerce.
The surprise was seeing Wellington-based Mike Munro there, Clark's press secretary for 10 years until leaving last year to start his own PR consultancy.
Mike says he was there is his capacity as having done some work for Waitakere City but I noticed him straining his ear to hear Clark at the press conference afterwards.
It's going to be a difficult election year for her, Mogridge noted. Maybe she will need all the help she can get.
