Some good and bad news in our ongoing battle to get the government to see some sort of sense  around letting and getting people into this country to spend some money, do some work, sell some tickets, create some jobs

Netball has got some good news, cricket too. We could have had the Rugby Championship, but because of the inability to embrace a bottom line and any sort of entrepreneurial spirit, we lost it to Australia, and not only do we miss out on millions, the All Blacks get to spend Christmas in quarantine

And now the ASB Classic is in danger of not happening, which goes back yet again to a government that simply doesn’t seem to want to think of anything outside its tiny little myopic view of how things should be done.

Which made National’s policy last week on quarantine seem so welcome. Let people help, let business get involved, let them provide facilities and expertise, let them pay for the bill and let’s get some stuff under way

How is it we see the US Open in New York, the French open in Paris, the golf in America, the Super Cars in Australia, the league, the AFL, the NFL, all being played - some of it in front  of no crowds, some small crowds, some with thousands, but they’re all playing, they’re all generating revenue broadcast money general interest for a sport starved world and they’re all virtually doing it with either no worse a scenario than ours right through to a vastly worse scenario.

Why? Because they have the right attitude.

We are making this needlessly hard. The world is open, the world is getting on with life, the world has decided, whether deliberately or by osmosis, that elimination isn’t real.

And this cloistered economy wrecking obsession we have here, although once laudable until the border leaked, is now no way to move forward.

The reality is simple. We don’t have to be a venue. Business, sport or anything else will continue whether we want to participate or not.

The only loser is us.

Yes, we can stay in a hermetically sealed bubble convincing ourselves we are clever, but we are clever and broke and the tough days have barely begun.

For a country that relies on the world, it seems a bizarre take to continue to insist the world isn’t welcome even though the world is actually out and about and operating.

If the tennis doesn’t come, it’s not catastrophic, but it’s the cumulative effect: the tennis and the championship, Labour and the super yachts, and all the other stuff that got locked out and went elsewhere.

That’s where the seed of the disaster begins. We are digging ourselves a massive hole we will regret.