Today my wife and daughter are in Christchurch for Nationals and my son is at another dance competition in Tauranga with friends – thanks Sharon. We found out this week that in a couple of months his crew is off to the states to represent Aotearoa I’m guessing Phoenix in August will be quite warm. After all the cancellations of the last two years it feels like things, at least dance comps have largely returned to normal.
The Black Caps playing at Lords, rugby with crowds, lots of other sports activities. I suspect the upcoming Commonwealth games will look relatively normal after the most recent summer and winter Olympic Games looked a bit dystopian.
It was easy, perhaps even for the best at the time, to forget what normal life was like during COVID. The kids didn’t complain but they missed so much.
Although it is awful how many people are dying from Covid I am also grateful that their hard work is being rewarded by being able to perform at these competitions. It doesn’t sound good when I write it down but I guess the two, wanting anything done to minimize loss of life but also being grateful for normality, are not mutually exclusive.
It is also easy to forget what life was like before we had our current PM. We see so much in the media criticizing the current government, some of it fair, but much of it seemingly ignoring how good they are compared to governments before them here, or around the world today.
The post below came up in my Facebook memories from five years ago today, it might jog a few memories of what it was like at the time. It also might jog memories of a couple of you who when I posted it suggested that maybe I should have a go at writing.
I remember the great and smiley leader explaining at the last election that there were in fact three of him. Not the father the son and the Holy Spirit, but the Prime Minister’s office, the Prime Minister, and John Key himself. They weren’t the same thing, which you could tell because they were never in the same place at the same time.
The Prime Minister’s office was a somewhat intangible, spirit like, sort. He did the really bad stuff, all those things in the Dirty Politics book. The things that seemed worse than Watergate, but couldn’t be connected back because, well, it was an office.
The Prime Minister, he did bad things too, but not actually illegal like that office, and any way he knew most people didn’t care what offices were up to. Some people made a lot of money, a lot of people were worse off, but he kept smiling – a lot of people don’t actually vote.
Then there was John Key; while the spirit and the the father were busy doing things best not talked about in polite company he was the cheeky little chappy putting Moonbeam out, unaware of what the Emperor and Vader were up to. Sometimes he was a bit too cheeky, pulling ponytails, joking about reaching for the soap, and shaking his little tush on the catwalk, but the people loved it and didn’t worry about those other guys.
And so it was that the little pig that built his house from straw rode off into the sunset, still wearing his sheep’s clothing, and thinking that fleg would have been nice but I could just kiss the person that brought knighthoods back.
Can you imagine Jacinda resorting to the “it was not me, it was my office, I know nothing” line? Not in a million years. Do people not remember what it was like before we had her, what that last guy was like and god forbid think what the next one from that party might be like?
A reminder that we sometimes forget how much better things are, any lack in transparency at present is mild in comparison to the dirty politics that was going on under Key, certainly continued under Collins, and its unknown how grubby Luxon is prepared to be but I imagine that will become much clearer next year.
Fi and I were living in London at the time of the Queen’s 50th jubilee 20 years ago, the poms certainly do the pomp and ceremony well I remember. I can’t help wondering if this 70th anniversary on the throne might be the last of the big royal ceremonies, the end of a very long era, before they become less about modern life and more an anachronistic event only really of interest to die hard Royal supporters and tourists.
Certainly out here in the colonies I doubt future events, perhaps other than the next coronation, and assuming the Queen is not around in five years, will get this level of interest.
How different the future will be. I remember being in Standard Three and we were all given the morning off school the day after Charles’ and Diana’s wedding as it was expected we’d all be up late watching the ceremony.
It is often suggested that after the Queen dies we would move away from the Monarchy, become an independent republic. So how will we select a head of state after that?
Because every other option for picking a head of state seems worse to me. If we end up voting for one half the country will feel it is not their President Key or Clark.
Who would make a good head of state, acceptable to the majority, if the Royal family’s relevance to Aotearoa is to end? A celebrity, a rugby player, an ex politician? Peter Jackson, Hilary Barry, the Briscoes lady?
I know a lot of you are worried about how close the next election will be, it is maddening to think you have the best PM in a lifetime and your fellow citizens are willingly going to trade that in for a CEO type with no personality, no policies, with seemingly no vision for NZ beyond the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
I’ve been saying for years that I think the next PM of this country will be Nicola Willis. I could be wrong, I often am in these things, but part of me is just too optimistic about this country and our people to believe they would elect a walking talking corporate buzzword bingo card. I have been wrong and disappointed before.
The thing is you know where you are with Nicola. It is austerity – no sugar coating it, there will be the “Mother of all Budgets” II before she is done, but at least she isn’t fake. You get the impression that Luxon would say anything he thinks people want to hear in order to get elected. Not Nicola she is straight up - there will be pain, you don’t have to like it but it will be good for you.
Am I biased about all this? Yes I am, not because I’m a Labour supporter - I’m not, I’m a long time Green Party member and supporter.
Not because Labour has transformed NZ into a more equal, better society, for all - they haven’t although they have turned the ship back in the right direction and are making progress.
But because we have a PM who I believe is genuinely motivated by caring for the people, all the people, of this land.
I don’t understand what motivates Christopher Luxon - personal ego? I don’t want to even think about what motivates Nicola Willis.
Let us enjoy this time right now - with life returning to normal, a harmless and much loved head of state, a PM that we should be bloody proud of. In hindsight it’ll be considered a golden time despite the present naysayers. Oh heck - once again I feel that Fred Dagg song coming on.
No, not the one about gum boots - although they are good too.
Hmm President Ardern and Prime Minister Swarbrick – that could work.
Another great read:)
I reckon … that could work.