We must at least pretend to like it: Laird

We must at least pretend to like it: Laird

The Laird McGillicuddy's speech today, to the public of New Zealand:

“Although the Americas Cup yacht racing may look like a piece of irrelevant extravagant elitist yuppie twaddle, New Zealanders should take it seriously, as it does have the potential to be extremely beneficial to us as a nation.

And I don’t mean by maybe winning the race so that once again all those tourist dollars can flood into Auckland, like they did in the 90s. That’s just an elaborate form of gambling, except performed on an international level, and not something to pin our hopes on.

No. More useful to us, by far, in the long term, whether we win or lose, is all the research and development that New Zealand is having to put into high-speed, ocean-going, wind-powered transport.

For, when all the fuel runs out, a few years from now, how are we going to export all our primary produce?

We certainly can’t eat it all ourselves, and the highly perishable nature of lots of it means the journey can’t afford to take as long as it did back in the 1880s.

But with a fleet of high-speed lightweight cargo ships (which we probably need to start building very shortly) based on what we’ve learned whilst valiantly competing for the Cup, our chilled mutton and freshly picked golden kiwifruit can be loaded onto the yacht one day, then whoooooooooosh…. next thing you know, its on the dinner tables of all the coastal nations of the Earth.

That’s why we need to support the Americas Cup, because if we don’t at least pretend to be excited by it, then the team, and the sponsors, and most importantly the researchers, will lose interest.

Then where will we be?”

ENDS

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