Duncan Garner: The Good, the really bad and the downright disastrous of 2024

So, 2024, it’s almost a wrap – and, from me to it, good riddance.

This was the year we were meant to bounce back, but all we did was go backwards. Jobs have been lost (thousands of them) and retail is flat. People and businesses appear to have put their money away and general confidence is hard to find.

The only things that grew were the departure queue to Australia and the unemployment queue here at home. This year saw Brisbane and Sydney become the most visited destinations for us Kiwis for the first time. Many purchased only one-way tickets, a real vote of no confidence in the opportunities - or lack of - here at home.

So, let me make some judgments: My winners, losers and those who deserve a mention for good, bad or indifference.

Parliamentary winners: Winston Peters & David Seymour

These two men couldn’t stand each other 18 months ago. They get on now because, well, they have to. It suits their political ambitions to be reliable coalition partners, and they are at the centre of most government announcements. Both are relevant and appear at times, or rather most of the time, to be running the show.

Forget Seymour saying Peters is the least trustworthy politician ever and would be impossible to work with. Those days are gone; Seymour has moved on. He now commands daily headlines not just for his Treaty Principles Bill and charter schools’ work, but because he says something and stands for something.

He’s not wishy-washy like the man who runs the government, and his polling off the back of the treaty principles debate has jumped significantly. Far too often, small parties get dominated and consumed by the larger one in a coalition deal, but that’s certainly not the case here. Seymour is adamant he will not be swallowed up by a vanilla, timid and stand-for-nothing National Party.

His plan is to be re-elected in 2026 with even higher results, and so far his polling is looking strong. His numbers are up and he’ll become Deputy PM when Peters hands over the reins in May. But Peters, too, has been no slouch and has the skip in his step of a born-again Christian (which, I can assure you, he is not).