The Prime Minister has lived up to his talk of being a great negotiator, saying “thanks but no thanks” to Team New Zealand.   

Because a great negotiator is always prepared to walk away if the negotiations aren’t going their way, and that’s what the Government has done. Telling Grant Dalton and Team NZ that putting $75 million of taxpayer money into hosting the next America’s Cup would be a nice-to-have, not a must-have.  

I think the Government has done the right thing and the wrong thing.  

It’s done the wrong thing because no one can argue that the economic spinoff from hosting something like the America's Cup is huge.   

Everyone’s talking about Barcelona getting truckloads out of hosting the event. Although, they did have the option of hosting it again but decided not to. So maybe the benefits are being talked up a bit.  

But either way, there are economic benefits that come from hosting something like the America's Cup and, because of that, the Government’s done the wrong thing turning its back on it  

But my overriding feeling is that it’s done the right thing because we just can’t afford it.  

Whether we will ever be able to afford it, who knows? But it highlights how we really need to get our act together when it comes to attracting big events here.  

And we won’t do that, unless we all stop competing with each other.  

When I say “we”, I’m talking about Christchurch and Wellington and Auckland and Dunedin. Everywhere. 

At the moment, all cities and towns compete with each other to get big events. In Christchurch, when the stadium is open, we’ll be trying to get concerts away from Dunedin and get them happening here instead.  

At the moment, we have ChristchurchNZ in Christchurch, DunedinNZ in Dunedin, WellingtonNZ in Wellington, and Auckland Unlimited in Auckland, all doing the same thing —not to mention all the other agencies around the country— all fighting it out to get events to their areas.  

And I think this is crazy. Because what’s happening is we have all these different agencies taking a very parochial view of the world.  

ChristchurchNZ, for example, only goes into bat for Christchurch - or Canterbury. When what all of these agencies should doing is working together on a joint approach.  

Not only because it would mean they weren’t all chasing the same thing, it would also mean more money to spend on getting these events here. And it’s not just money to get events here, it’s money for facilities too. And the parochial ideas blinding our thinking on that.  

Perfect example being the stadium saga in Auckland and the council deciding last week to redevelop Eden Park instead of building something new on the waterfront. They’re still wanting more than $100 million from the Government for Eden Park, when we already have stadiums coming out of our ears in New Zealand.  

There’s Dunedin stadium - with a roof. The new Christchurch stadium - with a roof. The Cake Tin, in Wellington. And Eden Park.  

And the only reason money is being poured into Eden Park is parochialism. Just like Christchurch wanted a 30,000 seat stadium because of parochialism.  

And if the country keeps going like this, we’ll never have the money to get big events here. We’ll have the stadiums - but there’ll be nothing happening inside them.  

Which is why we need to take the job of chasing these big events away from all these regional agencies and have one central agency deciding what events we’re going to go for and where they’re going to be held.  

Because what’s good for Christchurch is good for Auckland. And what’s good for Dunedin is good for Wellington.