Closer to home it’s been great seeing the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui slowly emerge into its new shape. What a project.
I wonder what Whanganui’s mayor of the time who drove the building of the gallery from 1912 onward, Charles Mackay, the young architect Donald Hosie and his mentor Edmund Anscombe would think of their creation over 104 years later. It’s fantastic. An extension to the Davis Library is well on the way also.
Next year will likely see the start of the huge justice complex where the community college used to be. I drove past there recently. It’s a huge area. It will include our new police station.
I guess I will visit the old station one more time in the coming year or so to witness its closure. A place I spent quite some time in as a younger man. A police station has been on the Bell Street site since 1876 in various forms.
I see racing has recommenced on the velodrome. Wonderful to see. I was, for a time, very involved in cycling in Whanganui and with helping to run the carnivals at the velodrome after it was built in the mid-1990s. It would have been nice to see it covered but I’ll settle for what we have, a new updated model.
Track cycling is an exciting spectator sport, very exciting actually. It will be great to see the crowds return this summer. My old friend Marty Hewson, president of the Whanganui Cycling Club, is working with his dedicated committee and the old guard of club life members to bring some great entertainment to us all.
So watch this space, with warm summer and autumn evenings coming what a nice way to spend a family evening in the open air watching some very talented athletes entertain us.
It’s brilliant to see the new “interim” chemotherapy unit open at Whanganui Hospital, saving many Whanganui people tiring trips to and from Palmerston North for their treatment with a three-year plan to establish a permanent facility. Well done Te Whatu Ora’s regional team under Russell Simpson.
Probably the most significant but least visible project to come out of 2023 was Te Pūwaha, the $50 million revitalisation of our port.
It is a collaborative effort, led by iwi and upheld by project partners; Whanganui District Council, Whanganui Port, Horizons Regional Council, Q-West Boat Builders, Te Mata Pūau and the Whanganui District Employment Training Trust (Port Employment Precinct). A huge transformation is taking place out there right now.
On a national front we have a new government. An interesting coalition of three parties for the first time under MMP, a coalition on the right of politics. The Government has come in with promises of many changes and the unravelling of much that the Labour-led government put in place.
Some of it is disturbing, some of it is farcical and some is simply cynically expedient.
Many of the changes outlined will happen but I strongly suspect a lot will not after the big partner in the coalition settles in and sees how these ideas are being received in our communities.
Whilst I enjoy politics I am a swing voter, that awful group of voters who actually change governments. The ones the politicians need to constantly woo. We are to be ignored at their peril.
And 2023 did not go well for Labour. It began with Jacinda Ardern having nothing left to give and moving offshore leaving Chris Hipkins holding the baby and it ended with Hipkins and Labour getting a right old towelling at the polls.
History spoke again. No replacement Prime Minister has won a subsequent election in New Zealand since 1943 when Peter Fraser, who took over after Michael Savage died in office, kept his job in the election that year.
Hipkins would have been acutely aware of that fact.
Looking forward, I would expect our politics to dominate the news for a while, especially around Treaty issues, smoking and the Fair Pay legislation.
This year is an Olympic year. Will we see some Whanganui people in the team?
I hope whatever 2024 brings it is happiness and success to you all and peace to our world.
