Kerre Woodham: I'm optimistic about what 2023 holds for New Zealand

Here's a bit of good news. Good news… that seems a bit counterintuitive, but nonetheless we'll take it. We'll take any good news going.

We've heard a lot this year about the anxiety young people are experiencing. Preventing them from attending school regularly in some cases, from going into the workplace, participating in the office life, or taking up employment altogether.

And yet, according to a New Zealand Herald survey, Kiwis in their late teens and early 20s are more optimistic about society than any of the other age cohorts.

43 percent of 18 to 24 year olds, more than double the other age groups, said society had become more united over the past few years.

Sport and increased acceptance of different sexual orientation and identity, music and culture and appreciation of the outdoors in nature, they believe are the four main topics that bring us together.

Probably no surprise considering the polling of 1000 respondents was conducted after that golden period of the Black Ferns Rugby World Cup win.

Everybody, even if they went particularly into rugby, got joy out of that.

If we all appreciate one another's commonalities, respect one another's unique differences and if you look at the Prime Minister and David Seymour, you know the arrogant prick comment could have been unpleasant and could have turned snarky, it didn't.

They've joined together to raise funds for prostate cancer to look after all bricks, so. They pose together with the Hansard comment that they've both signed framed and they're going to auction it off.

It's probably not going to mean the end of prostate cancer fundraising for life, you know, , but it was a nice gesture and a nice way of showing that you can have completely different ideas or ideologies.

You can get really grumpy with one another, but ultimately you believe in the importance of working together, and I think that's an excellent example that our politicians showed us the good on them for ending on a high note.

I'd like to think we had more in common than we have. I'd like to believe that we can grow as a country.

We can do that by working together while at the same time respecting the fact that we're not always going to agree about how we do that.

I certainly don't agree with a lot of the Labour Party policies that they have introduced, I don't think that is going to get them the outcome that they want and that we want as a society, but I absolutely respect their right to govern, to campaign on those policies and if more New Zealanders than not agree with it, then you have to accept that result.

For some you know it's going to be a rocky 18 months and the only way we're going to get through it is by working together. 

So I take great heart a from the example shown by David Seymour and the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and I take great heart that young people seem to think, ‘You know what, there's a chance we can all work together that we have more in common than not.’

43 percent is pretty good, given the last couple of years.

I’d love to hear what young people thing is going to happen in the next couple of years.

Maybe you can be anxious, while at the same time feeling optimistic about the future.

I think that's sort of currently where I'm at.

I'm nervous about the next coming 18 months

But at the same time I am optimistic. I do think, that we have more in common than we have differences and I do believe that we will work together to get the country firing.

People into work, fewer gangs, fewer need for gangs, less need for people to find gangs attractive because they can actually build lives of their own without depending on the structure of a gang to give them purpose.

So yeah, as we come to the end of 2022, it hasn't been the golden year that a lot of us thought might occur after the pandemic years, but it's certainly better than the previous two as far as I'm concerned.

And although I am well aware of the headwinds approaching, we'll just trim our sails and together we will we will get through it, it will be a New Zealand that we're proud of. 

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