These people have a life completely mitigated by people running around in a tizzy trying to save them from themselves. In effect, they are trying to teach a 50-year-old what they should have learned when they were 2.
Local and central government bear the brunt for the outcomes of dumb decisions people have made, but their worst nightmare is having nobody else to blame.
With Air New Zealand pulling out of Whanganui, I decided early I wanted to be part of the plan and not part of the excuse. Sometimes I feel we need to get out in front of the issues which were building all the time, and not let the failure, or collapse or what travesty is current, take us by surprise.
When we build a project, make it for the future and not only to get over the hump we have to deal with today.
The next few months will be consumed with the scraps and scrapes of electioneering for local councils.
Many who have the ability won't stand for one reason or another. Often the overriding theme will be that councils should do better, with no suggestion as to what "better" would look like.
The guts it takes to stand for public office will be written off as people having chips on themselves and not altruism, which is so often the case.
Some voters will get dazzled by the bright lights of new candidates and reject those who have already put in hard yards in public service and are prepared to step up. Most will sit on the sidelines with a bucket of rocks, waiting to ambush the next council.
The thing about being in public office, especially in government or on council, is that you have to make decisions. With the best information available at the time, this is not usually a hard thing to do, but 20-20 hindsight may well prove that the decision to do something else would have been a better option. Looking back, with all we now know, a different path should have been taken.
People who could have been available for those bodies then, and weren't around the table, will swear they would have done it differently if only given the chance.
But it was a chance they never took, can't be to blame, and so now are the experts.
After standing for elections, and losing; applying for jobs and missing out; having public arguments and having to concede defeat on occasions, I'll always respect those who put their head above the parapet.
And I do believe societies and communities get the representatives they deserve. In the spirit of the words of Sir Peter Blake, it is about making the boat go faster - the community's boat.
Good people need to do their bit for their communities, stand for office, enter the debate, work the room, cast a vote, promote or support a valid candidate. The mantra needs to be "lead, follow or get the hell out of the way".
Crying over spilt milk or that your banana keeps getting shorter the more you eat it is not a recipe for a progressive community in a modern age.
