Dear Mr Key

I know I’ve been making fun of you lately, and I’m sorry about that. But you have been make it easy for me.

Anyway, I wanted to write to you because there’s something I want to say. You see, it’s about your government’s economic policies and your speech this week to Parliament.

I thought as I listened to your speech that something didn’t add up. It was as if you had identified this almost unattainable goal but didn’t seem to have any clear way of reaching it. I began to wonder if your plan to get us back to economic prosperity was to simply do nothing.

And then the penny dropped. Oh my God, I thought – you’ve been reading The Secret.

Mr Key, I think I get it now. It’s not about tax cuts, or fiddling with GST, health or education. Those things are just so goddamn tricky and complicated. It’s about something much bigger.

It’s about using the power of the cosmos and our inner spirituality to lift us from our economic rut and propel us into a successful future. It’s about thinking positively and using words and phrases that make us feel good about ourselves. Isn’t that all we need? We don’t need any of that policy hocus pocus. We just need to feel empowered about ourselves. Every thought has a frequency. Every thought sends out a magnetic energy. What we focus on with our thoughts and feelings is what we attract into our experience.

It’s such a brilliant plan I just didn’t see it coming. Mr Key, I misunderestimated you.

But, Prime Minister, you’re clearly new to this. I like the way you talked about achieving a step change, providing stable and inclusive government for all New Zealanders, encouraging innovation, skills and employment, and creating incentives for people to work hard, improve their skills and get ahead. As a first attempt it was pretty good. But I’m sure you can do better. And that’s why I’ve written this letter.

Because I want to help you. Let me give you some advice.

Next time you want to talk about incentivising beneficiaries to get off welfare, why don’t you instead talk about the power each and every one of them has to create their own reality? Tell them to close their eyes and visualise having everything they want, and that they are the makers of their own abundant universes.

And to those who feel weighed down by the burden of poverty, uplift them by reminding them that their job is not to worry about the “how”, because the “how” will show up out of the commitment and belief in the “what”.

Mr Key, you’re already halfway there. You have shown under your administration that you understand the power of the mind. Under your capable government we have seen the imaginations of the poor and needy unleashed. So many of them can now only imagine what it must be like to afford the rent, to feed and clothe their children, and to hold down a well-paying job.

I know some people will slander your name. They will say you are a mediocrity, at best a caretaker leader who lacks the vision or courage to make the tough calls this country needs. But don’t let their negativity affect your spirit. Know yourself. When the voice and vision on the inside become more profound and clear than the opinions on the outside, you have truly mastered your life.

Someone once said that our mind is a tool that we can use to make things happen. How true!

Mr Key, when I go back and listen to what you said, I think to myself: “What a tool!”