Last message (in print) for a while

This page is being lost in the new Star Times format and with it goes my opportunity to address you, dear readers, on the eclectic range of subjects that I have enjoyed sharing with you over the last couple of years.

I have made a few predictions in that time and a number have come to pass. Notably:-

• Bush’s unwise invasion of Iraq has brought tears and has punctured USA’s reputation as a formidable fighting force that could change regimes worldwide whenever it felt like it, but now their army of pizza workers has been exposed by rag tag zealots.
• As predicted Helen Clark’s steely resolve just prevailed over Don Brash’s election challenge, however we might still get the tax cuts.
• The rise of the wrong people in the electricity industry did result in power outages with Transpower pipping Vector at the post for the bad service award. I didn’t give the date but did get right the predicted power failure.
• The USA free trade agreement with Australia is proving to be as sad for the Aussies as predicted. Hopefully Winstone will drop just enough clangers to ensure we don’t get one with the Yanks either.
• The China free trade agreement still appears to be progressing and this will turn out well for NZ if it is completed soon, before others force the Chinese to hold back concessions to NZ.

I have a few more predictions and some hopes for the future as well. The predictions are:-

• The convergence of telecommunications, TV, media and entertainment coupled with the growth of broadband in speed and reach will throw up some winners and losers. We really need to think smartly as a nation and in each region to make sure we end up on the right side of the digital divide.
• Auckland will struggle to be one city as various interests promote their own survival in the name of consolidation. Is the call for a Lord Mayor a return to mediaeval titles? Who will be the court jester? Unfortunately there are more qualified applicants for jester! Perhaps if the regional city is too hard, then perhaps a trial step would be to have just one health board for Auckland. The lab worker protests certainly think there is only one DHB now, being only interested in protesting at ADHB even though their problem is with a regional contract.
• Helen Clark will get some sort of international role, if only to show up how far Blair has fallen from his Iraqi errors.

The hopes are:-

• xtra.co.nz will actually get control of Spam so we can be relieved of unwanted Goldmark Industry and Viagra offers
• The NPC rugby gets better and professional players actually learn to pass and catch the ball in the way that amateurs mastered years ago.
• Regional NZ leadership lifts its performance so rural dwellers aren’t left behind in the internet and infrastructure rush. This might require a drongo clean-out at local body election time next year.
• The crash of 2007 turns out to be a soft landing when all that foreign debt gets renewed next year and with it those fixed mortgage rates get changed.
• The Government drives its SOEs to perform as well as Temasek does for the Singaporean Government
• Some of the smarter younger MPs in all parties start to emerge from behind the busy second string duds that have been there for so long,
• And finally we learn to get on better with each other, lose weight, get fit and stop hurting kids. (Will they ever find the Kahui killers?)

Finally thanks for all those people who have shared their views concerns and support.

Wayne Brown