If there was such a thing as a New Year wish for the government, mine would be could it please before dismantling something have its replacement in place, and all planned out.
Because the present situation is undermining public confidence, playing a big part in our economy tanking and contributing to the ever-increasing mass exodus across the Ditch.
Take Te Pūkenga, New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.
It's been over a year since its intended dismantling was announced and now we have just been told another year is needed.
It is the future tertiary endeavours of our young that are at stake, the foundation of our nation's future that cannot be dithered over.
We still await the final solution to the cancelled Interislander ferry problem.
We know that we had to pay a massive amount to break the contract, we know the present boats are less reliable than a Facebook quote and that the interconnectivity of our island nation's economy depends on this critical link.
Will we have a decision in 2025? I have a sinking feeling that we won't.
Then there is the unresolved debacle that is Three Waters.
The outcome of small sub-optimal groupings of councils trying to shield their ratepayers from the full brunt of financial hardship was entirely predictable, and still we await the final details of where the government determines these reforms go, two years after it stated its intention to dismantle the original proposal.
There is a nasty trend developing here and none more so than the topic I am focusing on today, our lower South Island regional hospital.
I think the thing that has annoyed us the most out of all the whispered proposals and backtracking has been the suggestion of just giving the old building a bit of a revamp.
When your mindset is to aspire to the lowest denominator, you are more than likely going to achieve something even less desirable.
All of this could have been avoided if there hadn't been a systematic dismantling of confidence and economic activity as brutally displayed in the recent announcement of the government's operating deficit.
You could have been forgiven for missing our Finance Minister's announcement that our nation's tax take for the past 12 months was down over $13billion. Unfortunately, that's not a misprint.
When you combine that figure with the over $1b in extra benefit payments, which was also an entirely predictable outcome when you sack an enormous number of staff, you have a figure that could have built five new state-of-the-art, as promised, hospitals.
No need to play the Lower South off against Nelson or Hamilton in a divisive diversion to deflect the blame.
We could have even got ahead of the game and built one near Queenstown.
Imagine what that would have done to the confidence and belief our young people might have in the future vibrancy of the country they may, or may not, put their future endeavours into.
We wouldn't have needed to ``future-fudge'' the operating figures by taking a dirty great big financial hole, that ACC is contributing to, out of the equation or pretending that we are not a third-world lame duck, even though our economy has recently slumped to 33 out of 37 in The Economist's list of OECD rankings in 2024.
Shouldn't we have proudly believed in Kiwi solutions that meant we could produce what the South desperately needed, not austerity and blind dismantling?
There is more at stake than our young people's future or our nation's prosperity.
I had the dubious pleasure last year of an ambulance ride with a dicky ticker and saw first-hand the valiant efforts of staff, who were simply magnificent.
But they were working in an asbestos bunker, designed for facsimile machines and dial telephones. They had to shuffle into pole position the patients waiting in the corridors, and then reshuffle with every additional arrival.
It was dysfunctional and a macabre and dangerous game we all played, but this is what the doctors and medical staff must endure every night.
That facility is 30 years past its use-by date. That's why the professionals that understand what is needed worked so diligently on our behalf to produce the original designs.
If we allow political will to outmanoeuvre professional know-how, we will consign our region to a sub-standard facility where lives will be unnecessarily lost.
All we actually have to do is encourage Wellington to stop dismantling things for three months and the additional tax take will pay for the entire project, wouldn't that be a happy new year?
Bryan Cadogan is the mayor of Clutha District.
