As we say goodbye to 2021 and welcome in 2022, it's a good time to catch up on the very best of the Herald columnists we enjoyed reading over the last 12 months. From politics to sport, from business to entertainment and lifestyle, these are the voices and views our
Audrey Young: Was this Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's worst day this term?
Opinion by
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a caucus standup at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
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And they are about failures to deliver the absolute basics, heat and light in winter, and border systems to keep out Covid.
According to Audrey Young it was only through a large dose of luck and a little cleverness that Jacinda Ardern dodged political disaster earlier this year.
The day Judith Collins put her reputation on the line - August 30
Opposition leader Judith Collins took a big risk earlier this year in forcing the reopening of Parliament in the midst of the lockdown for Delta.
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She kept banging on about wanting to resurrect last year's effective Epidemic Response Committee which was chaired by the then Leader of the Opposition.
But this is not last year. National is no longer the biggest party in Parliament as it was then. The limits to freedoms are no longer novel and scary. We know they are temporary. And coronavirus is now more dangerous.
Her judgment is on trial - as will be her performance.
The verdict on Nick Smith - June 9
When Nick Smith made his first speech in Parliament as a 25-year-old in 1990, he showed much of the passion that has bedevilled his political career, for better or for worse.
That career came to an end this year - a year earlier than planned.
Smith's has been a career dogged by controversy, not least because when he gets stuck into something, he sometimes becomes not just passionate but impatient, rude and obsessive.
Standards have changed. If Smith were at the start of his career and not the end of it, he would either be offered professional help or be managed out of the job.
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Smith's passion was his greatest liability as well as his strength.
Govt ditching second-language bill fails a generation of kids - June 3
Parliament's education select committee has done a disservice to generations of kids all over New Zealand by ditching Nikki Kaye's bill that would have guaranteed language learning in primary and intermediate schools.
Its decision to kill the bill is a classic case of what Voltaire called the perfect being the enemy of the good.
The bill may not have been perfect but instead of improving its flaws, and finding a compromise, the majority on the committee decided to ditch it altogether.
There was an obvious way to reach a compromise over the second-language bill.
Ardern's knee-jerk reaction to SFO - May 17
Jacinda Ardern's knee-jerk response to the news that a donation to her own Labour Party led to Serious Fraud Office charges against six individuals in May was "let's look at the law".
The Prime Minister was right when she said that New Zealanders want to have confidence in the system.
And the fact that 12 individuals were facing Serious Fraud Office charges in relation to donations to three political parties may have undermined confidence in something. But not necessarily "the system".
"The system" spent several years investigating the donations – and "the system" has laid charges.
