As the southerly buffets the glass canyons of Wellywood, plunging temperatures into the single figures, it's hard not to think about the swaying palm trees and the waves lapping a resort in the Pacific.

The politicians are on holiday and there are plenty of them heading for foreign climes. One is our Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman who is winging his way to Bali.

His business trip there is about as difficult to fathom as his colleague Anne Tolley's recent chopper ride to get an idea about the size of Auckland.

He is going to a conference on people smuggling and trafficking which is not a problem for our isolated blip on the radar screen. Still, the weather should be nice just as it will be for the State Homie John Key who spent the weekend in Thailand at a summit addressing the economic woes of the world.

This week he will be in China to follow up on Dead Girl Helen's big bang there this time last year when she signed our free trade agreement. There will be meetings with the President, Peking duck, Chinese banquets and the splendour of Shanghai before he wings his way back to God's Own.

Sitting in the hot seat will be the man who has coveted it for so long but failed miserably when he had the chance in 2002 to come anywhere near it, the Dipton Drawler Bill English.

Acting Prime Minister English will not even get to preside over a Cabinet meeting though. For some inexplicable reason they have decided not to hold one today, despite the fact that the world's going to hell in a hand basket.

Perhaps the State Homie thought the risk of having decisions made in his absence was too great to take!

Barry Soper

Political Editor

Newstalk ZB