Re the Ag Research/Lincoln merger proposal, it would seem that Andy might have had an expectation that Government would see the obvious benefits and provide some financial support by way of capital injection or whatever. Not an entirely unreasonable expectation given the very considerable injections that went into the Whanganui, Wairarapa and CIT ‘mergers’. For sure the recession-driven fiscal contraints would have mitigated against any government support. In addition, government had few options with respect to the other ‘mergers.’

It is a bit of a pity, ‘though, that the present system seems to make it very difficult for ‘out of the box’ type initiatives to get past the conceptual stage how promising the case.