May 4, 2009 8:05am by David Farrar

Q&A on Key

John Key was not on Q&A, but Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe was, and had some interesting observations:

PAUL John Key, when he was in China recently, he said, he made it clear he wants to use the power of Prime Minister to forge linkages to form relationships between New Zealand and Chinese businesses, do you welcome that?

ROB I welcome it enormously, relationships are key in China but you’ve still gotta do a good deal I mean but the relationship gets you in the door and I think New Zealand is really well regarded, I think Helen Clark built a really good platform there and I think John Key’s built on that.

PAUL Yes, they’re different people though aren’t they?

ROB Very very different.

PAUL You’ve seen them both operate in China haven’t you?

ROB I’ve got huge respect for Helen Clark as a global statesman as a political manager. John’s a very different style, he’s more intuitive, he tends to be very responsive very interactive, his interpersonal style is more relaxed, I think a change of style is good, you open new opportunities, you identify new sources of creativity and I think we’re seeing that with the Prime Minister and I think that’s very healthy actually.

PAUL What did this achieve for us up there, I know that Mr Key was able to get Henry van der Hayden to the top table so that he sat with Premier Win and John Key and so a hand was shaken, so that was symbolic wasn’t it, but you did well as well I understand in getting a new time slot for take offs from Beijing.

ROB Yeah getting the right time slots is very valuable to us, people don’t want to arrive at the airport at early hours in the morning or late in the evening they want to go when they want to go, so it’s good. What happens in China, whenever you get a visit of a statesperson the Chinese are very keen, they’re very gift oriented, and they like to be able to give you things and so they gave us better slots, and it became a catalyst for moving the Fonterra relationship forward. That’s the nature of that relationship dynamic in China and I thought John positioned that very well as Prime Minister on that trip.

PAUL Is what you’re saying about him, he’s more naturally business?

ROB I think he understands the opportunities.

PAUL He’s a capitalist, he’s one of them.

ROB He does deals, he actually knows how to take advantage of situations and he puts himself out there, he’s a marketer. I saw him talking to a bunch of truism travel agents, we had a luncheon that he spoke at, and selling and marketing New Zealand I mean they all walked out of there buzzing I know, he created more tourists at that lunch than probably any single interaction we’ve had in our time in China, it was great.