Editorial: Plenty of pain and celebration in past year

A highlight for some will have been the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, watched by over two million New Zealanders. Photo / AP

Farewell to a year of triumph and tragedy. So many words have been written about earthquakes and the Rugby World Cup that nothing more needs to be said. Those events have engraved 2011 on New Zealand's memory, but lesser events also come to mind when a year passes. Sometimes the silliest things stand out. Remember planking? Or the period theory for lower women's pay?

Recollections at New Year's Eve are as many and varied as people at a party.

For some the highlight of 2011 will have been a royal wedding that came soon after Prince William visited Christchurch for an earthquake commemoration. His engaging nature won over New Zealand and Australia but his wedding highlighted the personality of his brother and made a new star not only of his bride but of her sister. It was a good year for the royals.

Others will look on the year mainly as another hard one for business. The shadow of the global financial crisis still lingers three years on. Investors have little confidence in artificially stimulated economies and governments fear to withdraw their stimulus. Companies are keeping themselves carefully cashed up, not expanding or improving if that would mean taking on more debt.

The New Zealand Government budgeted for a stimulus from the rebuilding of Christchurch starting in the latter half of 2012. Another significant earthquake just before Christmas has probably put off the day that insurance will allow the rebuilding to get under way.

Meanwhile, the world nervously watches the euro zone struggling to maintain an unsustainable currency arrangement. Something has to happen - either complete monetary union or the currency's collapse - and until it happens, global confidence is unlikely to return.

Politically, the year was predictable in New Zealand. An election was always going to produce no change. A popular Prime Minister would be given a second term, though it was less predictable that his partners would survive. Don Brash took over Act, banished Rodney Hide, put John Banks in Epsom and Act lost four seats. The Maori Party faced a challenge from Hone Harawira and faced it down but lost two seats.

In the politics of the world, leadership proved elusive. Congress took President Obama to the brink of default on United States debt and the country's credit rating was downgraded. France and Germany could not sell their joint Euro solutions to the bond markets, or to the British Government.

New York police arrested a French presidential contender on a complaint of sexual harassment and dropped charges once the damage was done. But President Obama got the scalp of Osama bin Laden. A succession of US Republican presidential contenders flared briefly in popularity and fizzled.

The year took its toll of notable New Zealanders, among them former Governor-General and Archbishop Sir Paul Reeves, Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr and a cultural and sporting leader Christopher Doig.

It was a year of weather extremes. February was hotter than normal throughout New Zealand, thanks to the strongest La Nina pattern in 30 years. May was the warmest on record. But by August the country was shivering in a polar blast. One day Aucklanders swore they saw snow. That was just three weeks before the start of the World Cup.

In the event the weather was kind to the cup. At the end of a year rattled by earthquakes near and far we can at least raise a cheer for that sunny spring of success.