VALENCIA: Hi there, remember me? It's your old pal, Trev Mallard. I've been hanging around with the Team New Zealand crew here in Europe and it's really shored up some ideas I've been floating, so I thought I'd share them with you.

First of all, it's amazing what a little Labour Party spin can do, isn't it? I'm not just talking about the $35 million the Government pumped into the Team New Zealand boat, or the dosh TVNZ spend on promoting the sailing, which justifies the govt money we throw at it.
I'm not even talking about the new glasses I have and the photo shoot of me in a polo shirt so you, Johnny Public, no longer think I'm that geek that shat on the Rugby World Cup Party. I am now Trev, sailor extraordinaire, just like most us kiwis who've never even set foot on a yacht.
 
That’s right I’m not here in Valencia to talk about me; there will be plenty of time to do that when I publish my memoirs after serving 10 years as New Zealand’s most loved Prime Minister.

The major point I'd like to share is my concept of cash neutrality. I'm thinking of trademarking it. It goes like this: Government injects $35 million into something that employs 830 people who pay taxes for four years, this tax goes back to the Government - $35 million, in fact. I won't go into details because, well, to be honest, they're quite thin, but I can throw into the mix some vague references to GST, glean over spurned associated industries and soon enough you have a "cash neutral" investment.

One of the six One Network News reporters we brought over here for the trip of a lifetime certainly didn't offer more than a series of blinks when I mentioned it.
 
It just so happens that being here in Spain, I'm currently in the birthplace of one of the greatest nationalist socialist thinkers ever, well second greatest. I read a good book from some German painter that lines up with my thinking also. It goes like this: The Government gets back all the former state owned assets that my former Labour Party colleagues sold for 30 pieces of silver in the 1980s - though we'll buy them for 50 pieces due to inflation and the cut that Fay and Richwhite will undoubtedly want to keep. Then we will pump say $100 billion into the economy. Everyone will be taxed really highly, GST might go up to say 60%, and fairly soon our investment in New Zealand will be "cash neutral". We'll get back through taxes all the money we put in. It's brilliant. We can keep on investing like that.
 
The whole theory goes hand in hand with building cheaper housing for all. We might incorporate work somehow into that housing, so that what will happen is you won't have to pay rent, because you can work it off - it's cash neutral. Your food can be worked off, too. Everything can. As long as you're fit for work you'll be of use to a cash neautral society.
 
I'm going to Helen with this cash neutral idea, I'm sure she'll love it.
 
I'm going for another spin on that boat. I'll see you soon - until I do just remember that work shall set you free.
 
Trev.