Donald Trump won’t be too happy with Helen Clark right now, because she’s saying she doesn't want New Zealand to be an ally of the United States ever again.

I’m with her on that one – while Trump is president, anyway.

I’m also with Defence Minister Judith Collins who isn’t saying anything about Trump doing a review of the AUKUS military alliance with Australia and the UK, to make sure that it’s a fair deal for America.

I think Judith Collins going all quiet about this cloud over AUKUS is the approach we should be taking more broadly, as well. And New Zealand should be more like Switzerland and keep pretty much every country at arm's length.

As Helen Clark is saying, if you’re an ally, you can get dragged into all sorts of things you shouldn’t. Whereas, if you’re a “friend”, you can keep your head down, treat every country pretty much equally, and stay out of international dramas you don’t need to be involved with.

I heard former defence minister Wayne Mapp saying that the fact Trump has said this AUKUS review will be done and dusted in 30 days, shows that it’s unlikely that the U.S. is about to pull out.

Tell that to Dr Emma Shortis —who is a senior researcher in international affairs at the Australia Institute— who is pointing out that the submarine part of the AUKUS deal includes a “get-out clause” for the United States.

She reckons Trump is about to use that clause – not that she’s too upset about it. She’s saying today that AUKUS is "a disaster" for Australia and only ties Aussie ever closer to “an increasingly volatile and aggressive america”.

And, with respect to Wayne Mapp, I’m going to listen to this expert from Australia.

Understandably it’s caused a fuss in Australia, because they’re due to get a few nuclear subs from America as part of all this. Three second-hand submarines for $368 billion.

On this side of the Tasman though, the Government is keeping shtum, with Defence Minister Judith Collins not wanting to get dragged into it. Which makes sense, because —at the moment— we’ve got nothing to do with AUKUS.

The Government’s been making noises recently about doing a bit of tyre-kicking and seeing whether we might get involved at a lower level. “Pillar 2” is what they call it.

But there’s nothing coming from the Government about Donald Trump running his eye over AUKUS to check that America's getting the best deal. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark isn’t holding back though.

She says: "I would not want to see us back in the position where New Zealand is expected to spend a whole lot more money on defence; expected to follow the US into whatever its strategic venture is. I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War and New Zealand going into that for not a good reason at all and walking out the other end with Kiwis dying on the battlefield for no good reason. I don't want to see us ever in that position again."

I’m with her on that one.

Australia’s possibly feeling that way too, given that it signed up to the AUKUS agreement when Joe Biden was president. And, aside from wanting to get the submarines, and aside from the fact that it’s already ploughed $800 million into AUKUS, it might still be having a bit of buyer’s remorse given Trump’s unpredictability.

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Matt Doocey and Duncan Webb joined John MacDonald in studio for Politics Friday. They discussed Helen Clark’s recent comments around New Zealand’s relationship with the United States – do they agree?

On the topic of privacy versus safety, when it comes to mental illness, is keeping people safe a higher priority than keeping someone’s health private?

And Tourism New Zealand’s new 100% Pure marketing campaign has been launched, and Duncan Webb is not a fan.

LISTEN ABOVE

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I’m all for the push to have wool carpet used in government buildings but I think it’s a mistake putting it in state homes.

Kāinga Ora has announced that, from next month, there will be woollen carpets in all new state homes. It’s also going to use wool if the carpet in existing homes needs replacing.

Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says Kāinga Ora has managed to get a deal that will mean the wool carpet won’t cost any more than nylon carpet.

Which is interesting because, in December last year, KO said it had done some cost analysis work which showed that it could save roughly 34% using nylon carpet. So the wool carpet people have obviously sharpened their pencils.

Nevertheless, is it practical? And my answer to that is no it’s not. And will it end up costing us in the long-term? Yes it will, and I’ll tell you why.

But first, here’s why I generally like the government’s move to use wool carpet, but why I don't think it's a good idea in Kāinga Ora properties.

It makes perfect sense for the Government to be doing what it can to support our farmers who grow wool, who’ve been pushing it uphill recently. Wool has almost become a burden for farmers because of the returns they’ve been getting.

So good on the Government for going down the wool route, because it has to buy carpet, so why not buy the carpet that does the farmers a favour, while it's at it? Especially, when you consider the amount of money the Government must spend on carpet.

I don’t have a dollar figure for you, but I was reading a briefing that was written for the incoming government after the last election, which said that the Government has approximately 1 million square metres of office accommodation around the country, costing approximately $330 million a year.

That’s a lot of potential floorspace for carpet and that’s a lot of potential floorspace to get our farmers' wool all over.

But here’s why I don't think it’s a good idea having wool carpet in state homes.

Government buildings —such as government department offices and schools— generally have cleaners going through pretty much every day. And so if the DOC office or the local primary school has wool carpet, they get cleaned pretty regularly, don’t they?

A Kāinga Ora property is different. The only time cleaners get sent into a state house is when someone leaves or is booted out.

And this isn’t me tarring every state housing tenant with the same brush, because most tenants are probably very good. But we’d be naive to think that every tenant vacuums the carpets every day. We’d be naive to think that every state house tenant is a cleaning freak and will do everything they can to keep stains out of the carpet.

I remember when we put wool carpet in —it was when the kids were still quite young— and we did everything we could to stop it getting marks and stains on it, but it still got stains and marks on it.

And I’ve seen nylon carpets in action, and you can’t deny that they are brilliant for keeping clean. I’ve seen red wine spilled on nylon carpet and you can pretty much just wipe it away.

That’s the kind of carpet that Kāinga Ora should be using.

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