I hadn't despised the Kiwibank ads for the reasons Craig mentions - though I can see his point. It's just the visceral gutter xenophobia that runs through them all, even that mildly heinous car ones.

Pump on the "local" angle if you must, but why not do it positively like the "Buy NZ Made" campaign.

Craig makes a good point about ANZAC Day. I hadn't seen tat angle when watching these ads. I saw it more as an allusion to an insurgency against foreign invaders a la Iraq, combined with the very real sense that many people of our sovereignty being compromised by the ever higher levels of foreign ownership in the economy.

Maybe I think too much.

The campaign didn't make me switch my "millions" to Kiwibank this past week. The ANZ move in sending 500 jobs to Bangalore did that. I'd been an ANZ customer for 23 years, so it wasn't a trivial move on my part.

"Xenopobia" has nothing whatever to do with it, either. That's a NZ Herald epithet that to me is just cheap name-calling. It avoids facing the real issue: Sovereignty in our own country. Can we make local economic decisions for local benefits?

Increasingly, the answer is no. The big decisions that rule our lives are increasingly being made by people who are utterly unaccountable to us and who don't even live here. That cuts the guts out of democracy here in very real terms.

Being concerned about that prudent and realistic.....not "xenophobic".

Kiwibank's ad agency must have done some polling on this and worked out that there IS a sense of concern out there about the way the country is going and how we are perceived to be losing our ability to direct our own future in our own country, while the foreign-owned print media cheerlead for the "invaders".

But they should have taken a break from the campaign over the Anzac Day period. That, too, would have been prudent.

I saw it more as an allusion to an insurgency against foreign invaders a la Iraq, combined with the very real sense that many people of our sovereignty being compromised by the ever higher levels of foreign ownership in the economy.

Even if you were right, I still think it was a fucking stupid and vulgarly hyperbolic allusion to make. And perhaps we could have a little clarity about what "sovereignty" means -- perhaps I'm showing my age, but I don't remember anyone much giving a shit when half of Queen Street and Lambton Quay was owned by British controlled insurance companies.

Sorry, but I just don't see why I need to keep explaining that there's no sane equivalence between opening a bank account and people like Nancy Wake or Sophie Scholl. Just not seeing it, and no amount of polling is going to convince me otherwise.

I look to what happened to rail or Air NZ after their ownership went overseas. They were milked for cash and then discarded. As they play an important role in the NZ economy, they had to both be rescued by the taxpayer....who has, in effect, underwritten the profits of the investors. Worse, we had to buy - again - what we had already paid to build. Someone else gets the money rach time these things are sold, but the customers end up paying for each and every purchase....but never get ownership and control.

I'm not focused on the bank account itself. It's more about the whole of business stake in the country I live in. My movements are limited by my nationality. I can't got get a job in Bangalore. So it is prudent for me to support and reward companies and individuals who demonstrate they also see New Zealand as their base and the place where they count their profits and pay their taxes and provide jobs and skills and industry.

I grew up in Canada and there was a story every week about how some S company or other would ignore Canadian law and follow US law in order for the Head Office to avoid being prosecuted back home for actions taken in Canada and that were perfectly legal in Canada....like exporting locomotives to Cuba.

It ends up being an issue for democracy and bears directly on accountabilty. If the people making the decisions don't live here and aren't accountable in any way here....then there is clear risk.

None of which has anything to do with Kiwibank's campaign specifically, though their campaign is tapping these sorts of concerns.

The Kiwibank ads have style. The money is also staying here.

I suggest Craig Ranapia hates the ads because Jim Anderton pushed to start up Kiwibank with Labour's support. It has proved to be a winner with ENZeds.

ENZeds need to be able to reach out to something and say "I own that". Surely if money stays in New Zealand it is not adding to our balance of payments deficit. I doubt that National will be able to keep their paws off selling it, given the chance, though.

It is bad enough already with no accountability from firms with call centres overseas so that you can't complain in person, and then all the profits sent overseas, instead of being ploughed back into infrastructure.

I suggest Craig Ranapia hates the ads because Jim Anderton pushed to start up Kiwibank with Labour's support. It has proved to be a winner with ENZeds.

No, Judy Spencer, I politely suggest you don't go creating subtexts and pay attention to the text. I hate the ads because they're hysterically over the top, and any analogy between opening a bank account and (say) the locals who risked their lives hiding Kiwi soldiers left behind after the fall of Crete is crass and ignorant.

If "I own that", then I'd like to exchange it for something that doesn't reek of bullshit. I'd also like to think SOEs set standards, rather than lower them.