The Mayor of Wellington is back from China. It's too early to see if her mission was successful - trade deals, like all good things take time - but she has talked about a different sort of deal - one that could bring China a great deal of money rather than NZ. She hopes to bring two pandas to the zoo for a year. The poor creatures rent out at $1 million dollars per annum and after that there is the expense of getting them here and housing them and by the sounds of it plane loads of bamboo for food.
Then, if the poor things feel like it after the journey and the change in environment and a new climate (no expense) we might be up for another $800,000 for the progeny.
Of course we could hope to pay for it with entry fees - it would only take about 300 visitors a day and say $100.00 for a family of four and eureka, bob's your uncle costs covered.
However maybe more Wellingtonians would prefer spending that amount on the Newtown Fair and/or the Cuba Street carnival. I don't know but nor does the mayor I suspect - unless she has done a poll. And that is the crux of the matter.
In this day and age you can take a poll online and advertise it on local radio and the press. It doesn't take much when over $2,000,000 is at stake to find out how people would prefer you to spend that money.
Me? I keep thinking of the poor pandas... but then they might have the best year of their lives here in Wellington...
Post me and tell me what you think.
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