Kerre McIvor: No hope from the PM

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a post-Cabinet press conference. Photo / Mark Mitchell

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 audience loved the most. Today it's the top five from Kerre McIvor.

No hope from the PM - October 24

On Thursday afternoon, my boss and I had a chat about whether or not to take the Prime Minister's speech live on Friday morning.

We could, if we brought in an extra person, skip the self-congratulations; the appreciation for underpaid essential workers and kia kahas to Aucklanders, and just put to air the real news – the announcements of anything tangible and meaningful for so many people who are doing it tough.

In the end, we decided to go live – there were hundreds of thousands of people waiting to see if the Government had some kind of road map out of this inertia, waiting to see if it was worth them hanging in there for another six months. No, you don't. You aren't here. And you haven't been here this entire lockdown.

Read the full article: No hope from the PM

The Auckland lockdown began in August and dragged on for months. Photo / Alex Burton

Time to burst the Covid bubble - March 14

ACT Party leader David Seymour called it this week. For the love of any deity you believe in, would the Government please start treating us like adults!

Talking to the Mike Hosking Breakfast show this week about the lack of a travel bubble, he implored the Government to respect us as grown-ups. People deserve to be brought into the Government's confidence, he said. If the Government has a plan, they should tell us what the plan is. And if it doesn't have a plan, then in a democratic society, we have a right to know that, too.

Amen, brother. One of the most infuriating aspects of the daily sermon from the pulpit during the first nationwide lockdown was the feeling of being talked down to – the simplistic messaging and the exaggerated facial expressions: oooooh, I have bad news. Frown, sad face. Yay, I have happy news! Beautiful smile and glad hands.

Read the full article: Time to burst the Covid bubble

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at a press briefing. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Police Minister must represent all - July 25

It must be a terrifying time for the families of police officers. It's always been a dangerous job but the violence and unpredictability of offenders has really ramped up over the past few years. And I'm not being emotive or depending on unreliable memory when I say that – figures show the rate of gun crime increased during 2018 and 2019. We can only imagine what the stats are going to look like for this year.

But when asked whether police have access to firearms in the face of increasing violence against them, Poto Williams was adamant. Police should not be routinely armed and there would not a return of the ARTs (Armed Response Teams, which were trialled amid some controversy in 2019).

Why? Because, she said, she had listened to overwhelming feedback from the Māori, Pacific Island and South Auckland communities who didn't want it. They were telling her "loud and clear" that the general arming of police and the ARTs were a real concern to them and had been distressed to learn armed police were routinely patrolling their streets.

Read the full article: Police Minister must represent all

Police Minister Poto Williams. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The state of NZ's housing crisis - January 31

Housing unaffordability, which may not appear to be Covid-related, actually is.

The low interest rates designed to stimulate the economy to prevent it crashing post-lockdown has resulted in a bonanza for homeowners. Their equity has soared. According to interest.co.nz's Housing Affordability report that came out this week, homeowners made an average of $500 a day between May and December of last year, even if their home was a dunga in a crappy suburb.

The red-hot housing market is benefitting both those with substantial equity in their homes and those with mortgages, given the falling interest rates. But for poor old first-home buyers, it's made getting onto the property ladder even tougher.

Read the full article: The state of NZ's housing crisis

Home ownership in New Zealand has declined to 65 per cent, the lowest level since 1951. Photo / 123RF

Don't like their rules? Don't choose that school - August 8

You have to be a special sort of person to be a teacher. We all remember the good ones – their names, their many small kindnesses, their belief that we counted for something, that we mattered and that we would make something of ourselves beyond the school gate.

We also remember the bad ones – and they can be just as influential in our lives. I didn't have any bad teachers per se. I was lucky enough not to have a bully have authority over me who used their considerable power to undermine me for the simple reason that they could. I do still blame my fifth form maths teacher for derailing my enjoyment of maths but she wasn't a bad person – more a brilliant mathematician who understood numbers but not 15-year-old girls.

I enjoyed school, but then I enjoy rules. Some of them were stupid: like only wearing your blazer outside the school grounds, not your cardigan; like never eating on the street; like only ever wearing plain, brown, leather lace-up shoes – but that was okay. Those were the rules and they were clearly explained to me, and my parents, when we signed up to the school.

Read the full article: Don't like their rules? Don't choose that school

A Macleans College student was expelled for swearing at a teacher, and the Chief Ombudsman ruled the behaviour was not "gross misconduct". Photo / Jason Oxenham