Toby Manhire: Look at the state we're in

John Key, leader of the National Party (left), Andrew Little, leader of the Labour Party (right)

Opinion

Almost certainly you failed to catch the full speeches from John Key and Andrew Little on Wednesday. Probably just as well, too: more even than usual, the National and Labour leaders' grandly titled annual "state of the nation" addresses were about as dynamic as dry rot. If you could bottle the oratory of these men, you'd have a sedative so potent anaesthetists would buy it by the caseload. Still, in the interests of democracy, I have painstakingly digested the year's opening salvoes to their essential detail. At least some of the words below are up to 100 per cent accurate.

John Key, Auckland Rotary Club, January 28

Hands in the air, New Zealand, I'm back! The summer break is a time to recharge and reflect, and like many ordinary hard-working Kiwis I've spent the last month holidaying in places like Hawaii, London and an opulent resort in the Swiss Alps, reflecting on what a magnificent little economy we are, how proud I am to call this economy home, and how lucky we all are at the end of the day to be led by such an exceptional and ordinary group of people.

I've just returned from a gathering of the world's most powerful and wealthy people in Davos, actually. It was all bloodstains, ballgowns, trashin' the hotel room, you know the sort of thing, but I could hardly move for all the powerful and wealthy people wanting to tell me how much they admired our plucky little economic paradise.

If you get success overseas then very often the local population can suddenly be very hard on you, however, and unlike the plutocrats who lavished praise respectfully, I arrived home to find a disrespectful lady poet tree-hugger who I respect tremendously mixing up her writing hobby with something important like politics, saying disrespectful things and to be perfectly honest just being a bit mean. I encountered her stumbling around my Parnell patch of tall poppies wielding a machete, wild-eyed like a gold-rush opium addict. "Profit-obsessed," she spluttered. "Very shallow!" "Money hungry!"

Well, she's just one Man Booker prize winner and like lawyers I can provide you with another one that will give you a counterview. Such as that nice Heidi Klum, for instance. She seems very respectful.

Still, sticks and stones, eh? Here's what I texted to Israel Dagg: "Eleanor Catton's writing is apparently very good, sometimes it is funny and sometimes it is sinister / but frankly she's not in the class of the Key Man when it comes to being prime minister." Zing!

But down to work. This National government is taking huge strides on housing. We've slashed the problem by two-thirds, when measured in proportion to the number of housing ministers. And now we're fixing state housing, principally by renaming it social housing. A similar approach is being considered for a restructure of Radio New Zealand, with state media to become entirely social media.

The Salvation Army will run it. With their snazzy uniforms and militant name, they will also be deputed to lead the New Zealand contribution to the war against Islamic State. And the arts and culture budget will be distributed entirely by the community group SkyCity, who are usually pretty respectful.

Andrew Little, ASB, Auckland waterfront, January 28

Jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Labour loves jobs. We love them so much we keep swapping them between ourselves.

Business. Business, business, but especially small business. Love small business. The people who make ice-blocks, the people who make the jobs. National are interested only in the small beer. We like big beer. Big small business beer ice-blocks. Huge on ambition. Little on detail.

Jobs. Eleanor Catton has a job, and she's got some interesting things to say. I support her and I support the arts. But let me be clear that supporting the arts does not mean I don't support small businesses. There's nothing I like better than to curl up at night with a good small business.

And jobs? Love them. Love them so much that we are going to ensure that New Zealand has the Lowest Unemployment In The Developed World. Let me say that really fast, with a hashtag. #lowestunemploymentinthedevelopedworld. Let me say it backwards. World Developed The In Unemployment Lowest. And let me ask New Zealanders to ask me this: how are we going to do it? We are going to do it with jobs. Because we love jobs. And small businesses. And ice-blocks. And beans. Magic beans.

And when our unemployment is again the lowest in the world we will turn our magic beans towards making our wages the highest in the world, and we will exorcise our hotels of evil spirits and we will sort out the Middle East and feed the world's poor and, most ambitiously of all, we will unify the Labour caucus.

We stand for a better way. We will achieve this better way in the future, not in the past, not least because that would be logically impossible. We stand for wealth, for jobs, for a greater New Zealand and for jobs. All of this we can achieve through hard work, judgment, and beans.