I'll start small, with a request for a simple promise that would go a long way to ensuring the state of my sanity in 2017. A stocking filler, if you will. I'd like you to vow that you'll leave the national anthem alone.
I don't think I could bear to hear a bunch of branding experts and sports stars discuss the merits of various melody lines and chord structures. Nor to be forced to debate with various middle-aged and beyond MPs about what the apparently homogenous group of young-people-these-days want. Let's leave the national identity crises to the annals of 2016.
It's been a tough old year, for none more so than the people of Kaikoura. While I'd like to ask for a new set of tectonic plates, perhaps we could instead settle on a mascot for Geonet. It appears that #eqnz is determined to stick around to scare the living daylights out of us, so it seems to me that we need a little light relief.
Perhaps the Goodnight Kiwi could be roped in to remind us how to drop, cover and hold. Or Thingee could report on the odds of yet another aftershock. Of course, a functioning tsunami warning system and round-the-clock earthquake monitoring would be nice too.
And how about a public holiday to remember the New Zealand Wars? I understand we'd probably have to decommission one of the existing ones, and I can't for the life of me figure out why you haven't already leapt at the opportunity. The chance to get rid of a day festooned with the branding of your opponents has been presented to you on a silver platter.
Labour Day is sitting within tantalising reach, and you've barely lifted a finger. Of course, the most obvious candidate for the chopping block is realistically Queen's Birthday. What's the point of throwing a party when the birthday girl never shows up?
Next on the list is a Government-appointed social media manager for Steven Joyce and any other emerging viral stars. If there's one thing we can all learn from dildogate, it's that we the people may as well be profiting from all of the brilliantly stupid things our politicians end up embroiled in. It could be a great new income stream for the Government.
A YouTube channel featuring flying sex toys, glitter bombs, and maybe a compilation of all the tractors that have driven up the steps outside Parliament over the years. We could even license some of the content to John Oliver. Think of the revenue it would generate!
Speaking of revenue, I'd also quite like a mandatory fine placed on the word "titties". A small automatic payment that could perhaps go towards the funding of essential sanitary items for girls and women who can't afford them. A new kind of tampon tax that actually works for women, rather than against them, you might say.
Go on, Bill. Ho ho ho for the flow flow flow.
I'd like a pay rise for all of my sisters too. We're not asking for anything unreasonable - in fact, 12 per cent will do. It's no more than we're owed, if we're to believe, 123 years after the fact, that we're equal human beings. Just think of it: a country in which your daughter would earn as much as her male colleagues.
People might almost believe us when we tell them that ours was the first country in which women could vote.
What I'd really like most of all, however, is world peace. It's a tough ask, I know. We can likely all agree that the UN Security Council is an utter farce and that our time on it has been pointless at best. In fact, I'd probably settle for avoiding the fiery destruction of the planet.
In that vein, given that a great despotic orange marshmallow will soon rule the self-proclaimed greatest democracy on the planet (or as I find myself thinking of it, the deluded and divided states of America), I'd implore you to at least resist the entirely understandable urge to sock The Donald in the face if you ever find yourself forced to endure his company.
Perhaps you could channel your rage into trying to educate him about climate change instead. Then again, that's likely well beyond the scope of a Christmas miracle.
Now, I'm not sure if letters to the Prime Minister work in quite the same way as letters to Santa, but if you find yourself more inclined to send me a lump of coal, can I please instead request a wind turbine or a solar panel? I'll duly accept punishment for my sins, but I don't think our small Island neighbours should be forced to.
Last of all, Meri Kirihimete, Prime Minister. Enjoy these first few weeks of your 90-day trial. I hope all goes swimmingly with your new employers.
Yours sincerely,
Lizzie
