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So it seems we have ended up with three stories.\xa0

But all three stories have the same outworkings - we look like a basket case of a country, but we got there three different ways.\xa0

First is the plane.\xa0

That\u2019s on the Government, and indeed various Governments, who failed to take defence expenditure seriously and it's caught them out.\xa0

Like NATO, member countries promise to spend 2% of their GDP on it, but don\u2019t. Until Putin rolls into Ukraine and then they panic.\xa0

We talk it up here as vital, but make the same mistake until it gets too embarrassing to ignore.\xa0

Second is the ferries.\xa0

That seems to be on KiwiRail. KiwiRail don\u2019t seem to be up to much.\xa0

Yes, they have been mucked around over the years by various Governments. But as I said yesterday, read the paperwork between them and Grant Robertson over what they were looking to do and what it was costing and how clearly they had no control over what was going on and the bill blowing out.\xa0

Governments can't run literally everything on a daily basis and it is KiwiRail who have let the Government down, and badly.\xa0

The third story is the power tower.\xa0

\u201cInconceivable\u201d was the word.\xa0

Given it took us about three and a half minutes to work it out and given it only took them less than a weekend to join a few dots, they really shouldn\u2019t have been so defensive on Friday.\xa0

Idiots were in charge of spanners. Why they have launched a further inquiry baffles me.\xa0

Once you have worked out thick people don\u2019t follow instructions, what else is there to investigate?\xa0

So, all in all, a shocking week for a country that is having a tough time of it anyway.\xa0

All of it was avoidable, but we arrived here through different channels - indifference politics and lack of vision for a plane, laziness and contempt over other people's money and lack of discipline for a ferry, and then people you wouldn\u2019t hire to walk your dog over a tower.\xa0

All of it was avoidable. All of it is more expensive now because of actions not taken at other times.\xa0

So the trick is, have we learned anything and, if we have, do we put it into action?\xa0

Do we get better?\xa0

Do we work harder? Do we try harder?\xa0

Do we want to improve?\xa0

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