I’m always sad to see the evidence that someone’s day has been ruined. I’ve seen puddles of car window glass like this a few times. Even if the media and social media reports of rampant property crime are as exaggerated as I think they are, I do have an unscientific feeling that there really is more of this kind of thing than there used to be.

Our newly elected National Party government campaigned hard on restoring law and order in a New Zealand that had been given over to criminals during a soft Labour era. Let’s see what happens: over a month has gone by and the new guys haven’t even been able to agree enough to form a governing coalition.

Getting ready for an early swim the other morning, but the kayakers were even earlier. We’ve had a couple of great swimming weeks… calm weather and clear water.

On the other side of town, a big sewer line failed, pumping zillions of litres of poo into the bay for almost a month before they got a temporary fix in place. Supposedly the contamination had dispersed to “acceptable levels” by the time the water got to where I swim.

We’ve just had national elections, and it was mostly a tussle over cost of living issues. But in my view all the political parties ran away from infrastructure issues like sewers and roads which are urgently needing attention. And because they think it’s just too expensive to fix those things with tax revenue, I fear that the right-leaning National party who won will shrug its “business-friendly” and “low-tax” shoulders and start selling assets to the Chinese and the UAE.

But while all that plays out, it’s still very nice to go to the beach and watch the kayaks glide by as the sun comes up.

We donated a little bit so we could attend the recent kickoff fundraiser for our local MP Shanan Halbert. We’ve appreciated his relentless community engagement, we agree with his Labour Party ideals, and we admire the path he takes being proudly Māori and proudly gay.

The event was billed as black tie but only a few people actually wore tuxes / gowns (including our neighbor Gordon who looked fabulous). The most (‘best’ being debatable) dressed for the occasion was the drag queen emcee, a particularly pleasing choice given all the anti-drag nonsense in the US at the moment. They did a great job, plenty of good fun and kept things moving along.

We stayed through drinks, speeches, auction, and dinner, seated with a member of the local district council and some other randoms like ourselves. Shanan came by every table and spent a few minutes chatting with us. I think the most surprising thing was him saying that his entire campaign fundraising target was $45,000. It seems like there might be contests for high school Secretary that cost more in the US. When the band kicked off with a too-perky “Big wheel keep on turnin’” we made for the exit.

It will be a close election this time, a contest mostly about whose priorities get addressed first… can well-off whit’ish people have all the things they want the government to provide without more government spending and the tax increases to back it up? And will they still want all those delicious government goodies and tax breaks if it means clawing even more out of the mouths of less well-off less-whit’ish people? Or will they be ready to accept whatever strings are attached to cash infusions from the global equity markets or sovereign investment from China and the Middle East?

From where we sit, a more egalitarian country that focuses on lifting the bottom 20% is preferable to one that focuses on further enriching the top 20%. Go Shanan!!

EDIT: the final amount raised was just over $100,000.

Our sainted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently made the mistake of saying — with a live microphone in front of her — what she really felt about David Seymour, the publicity-savvy leader of the opposition ACT Party.

What gets said on the floor of Parliament gets recorded into something called the Hansard, and so it is now a matter of historical record that Mr Seymour is an “arrogant prick.” No argument from me.

But he’s also very smart and enormously energetic at his job. He’s learned how to turn his nerdy debate-club superiority and prickly oligarch-apologist libertarian ideology into a potent political brand.

And so we have one of the best political feel-good stories in a while. They both signed a copy of the Hansard page in question and it’s being auctioned off to support prostate cancer charity. The bidding is already up to $60,000 with nearly a week to go.

“Supporting pricks everywhere.” Next year’s best campaign slogan.

Well done, Mr Seymour. It can’t have been the first time you’ve been called bad names by your exasperated opponents, and I’m fairly sure it won’t be the last. But you’ve deftly parried and scored, while doing something altogether decent with the fundraising power you hold.

On the right, Trevor Mallard, Speaker of Parliament. In the center, seated and appearing to listen raptly, Lee and I. I will say parenthetically that the name Trevor Mallard sounds even more comical with a New Zealand accent, at least to my ear… the syllables are accented more evenly than in American dialect and the last part is pronounced just like the word lard. But whatever his name, he is the Speaker of Parliament and that ain’t nothing.

Our freshman MP, Shanan Halbert, has impressed us with his energy. If you hold an event bigger than a child’s birthday party, Shanan will be there and he will take a selfie and he will post it on Facebook.

On that same Facebook page he posted a note saying he’d be having dinner at a nearby restaurant (that we’d already been to and liked) and would anybody want to come? Done. It turned out he’d booked the entire restaurant, meaning there were about 50 or 60 dedicated Labour Party types and a few curious spectators like ourselves.

Trevor Mallard was there in the capacity of after dinner speaker and to present a few people with their Labour Party life membership pins. He told a few stories, which might have been more amusing to him, or at the time, then they were to us, or now. His phone went off while he was speaking, and he gets high marks for having a quack quack ringtone.

Shanan makes the third Member of Parliament I’ve had a conversation with. I’ve been in close proximity with the Prime Minister twice and had my picture taken with the Leader of the Opposition. And none of those interactions cost me a penny. Shanan has office hours every Friday within walking distance of home, and so did my previous MP David Seymour. Of course, that level of interaction with regular people would be impossible for American politicians… It would mean that Congress would have many thousands of members. But it’s amazing and wonderful to feel like politics is so accessible. I wonder how many US problems would recede if there were a similar level of connectedness.

Although it won’t be official for a few weeks, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party has won enough votes to govern NZ alone for the next three years. The opposition National party didn’t have a credible alternative policy, and its leadership was beset by internal and personal problems. Jacinda’s coalition partner NZ First (finally) self-destructed. The Greens, the Māori party and Libertarian ACT all did ok, but not enough to have a guaranteed role in shaping policy.

The most interesting parts of the election are the least certain till all the votes are counted: referendums on legalizing recreational marijuana and euthanasia. In my circles, sentiment seems to be leaning in favor of both, but let’s see.

Even with a pandemic delay, the campaign was blissfully short and substantive. NZ faces a lot of problems, as does the whole world. It’s not clear how this or any government will solve them… but by a lot of measures this government has in fact outperformed the entire world recently.

So congrats Jacinda and Let’s Keep Moving!!