Shane Jones unleashes his eloquence on the unemployed youth of Northland

Shane Jones, please have a seat.

Kia ora, I thank you. It is a most welcome offer, for I have only just returned from my turangawaewae where I have not once sat still, because I am a leader among men, unflagging and indefatigable. Also, I have not once sit still because my layabout nephews spend all day with their nonos on my couch.

That’s a bit of cheek.

It’s a couchful of cheek, no butts about it, and I can’t sit still and let it go. That’s why I’m taking a stand.

You do have a way with words. Nonsense, I’m no more eloquent an orator than the next vulgar plebeian. But your compliment is gratifying. After all, does not the mighty totara appreciate the warm rays of the sun as much as the weak and feeble stripling?

In this analogy are you the mighty totara or the weak and feeble stripling? Modesty forbids.

Anyway if we can get to ‘‘working for the dole’’…

If we can get to working for the dole I can grow a billion trees and all without a Filipino. Take a deep breath. Ahhh! The scent of a thousand million pines, implanted in our fertile soils by a sun-kissed army of the former unemployed. Do you know what that smells of? It smells of success. It smells of destiny.

It also kinda smells like one of those old-school Muldoon-era work schemes.

Well, a genius takes inspiration where he finds it.

Did Thomas Edison say that?

No, I did.

It’s just that all that, plus calling it ‘‘working for the dole’’, it’s like what you were really trying to do is set New Zealand First up as a distinctly different brand from its coalition partner. Striking out on your own.

Like stout Cortes, silent upon a hill in Darien?

Er…

Or like a dog urinating voluminously on a tree, the better to mark its territory?

That’s it! You’re marking out the policy territory that will specifically appeal to your core New Zealand First constituents.

Not at all. You attribute me with far too much cunning and intelligence.

Because, you know, Labour doesn’t like the sound of ‘‘working for the dole’’.

And that’s why I’ve changed the name.

And what’s it called now?

Well I did like the sound of ‘‘Compulsory Military Training’’.

It’s not exactly compulsory though. Or military. Or training.

So then I changed it to ‘‘Think Big’’. Hmmm.

But now it’s called ‘‘Working For Your Country’’

That sounds fair.

But I am under some pressure to change it to ‘‘Working for your country – brought to you by Shane Jones – ambitious for your future’’

Under pressure from whom?

Me, mostly.

And apart from the young unemployed is there anyone else whose future you’re ambitious for?

Can the mighty kauri help but reach for the skies?

Of course. Shane Jones, thank you.

A pleasure. And mind if I take this chair? Just ‘til the nephews get off the couch.