This has been the year of the upset!
Where do I begin? Donald Trump, Brexit, Ireland beat the All Blacks, Italy beat South Africa, England beats everybody, the Cronulla Sharks win the NRL, Leicester City the EPL, the Chicago Cubs the World Baseball series, the Cleveland Cavaliers the NBA and John Key possibly runs the National Party out without facing a ball in 2017.
Mind you, the more things change, the more they stay the same. When I look back on my 2015 Awards there are many recurring nominees. So here we go, for same categories, 12 months on:
The Big Farming Story of the Year Award: 2015's contenders were El Niño, the resultant drought on the east coast of the South Island, the sale of a 50 % stake in Silver Fern Farms to Shanghai Maling, a stellar year for beef, the fall of the lamb schedule, the rise of goat and sheep milking, the resurgence of horticulture and the renaissance of kiwifruit. But the ongoing downturn in dairy dwarfed them all.
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Advertise with NZME.One year on and the story of the year has to be the turnaround in the fortunes of the dairy industry. Only one man picked it. More about him later.
The Farming Executive of the Year Award: Last year this went to Silver Fern Farms chairman Rob Hewett for "pulling off the biggest potential game changer in the meat industry since the good ship Dunedin set sail for Mother England, loaded with the first shipment of frozen meat, in 1882".
As fate would have it, Hewett might have won this award on false pretences seeing the deal was subsequently challenged, before being finally ratified with the cheque being banked only last week.
So the head honchos at Silver Fern Farms and the likes of Zespri are deserved nominees in 2016 but I'm going to give the award to a man I've been highly critical of in the past.
He's still paid too much, still appears to be a somewhat dour Dutchman, but fair dues. He's presided over our biggest company, produced record profits, has overseen a return to the black for those milking black and whites whilst all along milking a great pay packet for himself.
Dour Dutchman - maybe? Canny Dutchman - definitely! Well done Theo.
Politician of the Year Award: It was the usual suspects a year ago. Mentioned in dispatches and in the reckoning were John Key, Winston Peters, Andrew Little, Damien O'Connor, Kelvin Davis, Paula Bennett, Judith Collins, James Shaw and David Seymour
But my politician of 2015 went to the understated understudy Bill English who presided over the first surplus since the Global Financial Crisis. I suggested back then that some people are just born to be number twos whereas some, such as the member for Northland, are born to stand outside the tent and spray number ones!
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Advertise with NZME.Twelve months later and the understated understudy has ended the year at number one. But this year he bows to his predecessor. History will judge John Key kindly.
Sportsperson of the Year Award: Last year I pondered the claims of Lydia Ko, Lisa Carrington, Hamish Bond, Eric Murray, Joseph Parker and Richie McCaw before settling on World Cup talisman Dan Carter. Richie and Dan are off the radar but the remaining aforementioned still loom large on our sporting horizon.
But this year I'm going to take a farming bent and name South Taranaki cow cocky Kevin "Smiley" Barrett. A more than useful rugby player back in the day, his greatest contribution to sport has been his breeding prowess. If he was a bull, LIC would bottle him. Three of his progeny made the end of year All Blacks tour with the fruit of his loins resulting in the best player on the planet.
The Country Award for Agricultural Person of the Year: Last year's nominees included Trade Minister Tim Groser, Silver Fern Farms' Rob Hewett and Dean Hamilton, Fonterra chairman John Wilson for simply surviving a banana skin year but the winner was SAFE's Hans Kriek who galvanised farmers like no other.
However, there can be only one winner in 2016. When all around him were harbingers of doom, one man stood defiantly alone against the conventional economic wisdom of the day. He said the dairy payout would recover and he said it would recover to $6, at a time when farmers were being paid $3-90.
He's ASB's affable rural economist Nathan Penny. He started the year as "Pollyanna" Penny and he finished it as "The Oracle". He is The Country's Ag Person of the Year.
