Last week, at Wellington’s Koru Lounge, I discovered Air New Zealand’s latest contribution to aviation safety. My request was simple: a whisky, neat. 

“We have to add at least one ice cube,” the bartender said, perfectly serious. “Otherwise, it is a shot. It is the new internal rule.” 

Oh my goodness: a shot! That terrifying 30ml of spirits apparently causing havoc in airline lounges worldwide. 

That single ice cube – not two, which might imply you actually wanted ice, but exactly one – is bureaucratic genius. It melts in seconds. It achieves nothing except a faintly watered whisky and the knowledge that somewhere a risk manager is sleeping peacefully. 

I can imagine the meeting where this was decided. The solemn discussions about responsibility. And the consensus that one ice cube would make all the difference between civilised drinking and chaos. 

Yet walk across Wellington airport to the Qantas lounge, and you will find passengers pouring their own spirits. 

It is a different world over there. No supervision. No mandatory ice. And still, Qantas’ passengers somehow manage not to riot on their flights to Sydney. 

When the flag carrier of Australia, that continent-sized nanny state, treats its passengers with more respect than we do, we know we have crossed a line. 

This fits perfectly with New Zealand’s other gifts to global safety. We gave the world bungy jumping, with safety briefings. We pioneered jet boats, where everyone gets a life jacket. We even invented zorbing – wrapped in plastic, naturally. 

And now we have fixed the whisky problem, one cube at a time. 

In a way, it was classic New Zealand: doing something that looks like doing something while achieving nothing. 

Now, I would readily concede that this incident does not quite amount to a humanitarian crisis. And Air New Zealand can, of course, serve whisky any way it pleases. But I am equally free to find this kind of policy infantilising. 

We have become a nation of adults being treated like children who cannot be trusted with our own affairs. 

Somewhere in Air New Zealand’s head office, someone must be genuinely proud of this policy. They have protected us from ourselves. 

The whisky was still drinkable once the ice melted, which it did just as I returned to my seat. 

Mission accomplished, for the airline’s health and safety manager. 

As for myself, I was so annoyed, I felt like another whisky. 

I just did not want it with ice.