But there have been vast numbers of people doing good work under difficult circumstances.
Teachers have had extreme challenges.
For the new teachers, it has been difficult to understand what the government and parents want from them. The messages about curriculum are confusing. Priorities have not been provided.
Ideas of the principles of Te Tiriti are apparently important, but how to acknowledge them and where they fit in a curriculum are difficult to get to the bottom of and hard to explain to parents.
Senior teachers who would usually be expected to provide support and advice for the younger ones find themselves in an environment which is unfamiliar and with a lack of the direction available when they trained.
Those who work in the health sector have had other issues.
Covid brought the usual health services to its knees. The threat of Covid stopped services being provided while we waited for an onslaught of patients which never came.
Covid also reduced the number of new nurses, doctors and other staff who could come into New Zealand to help.
Many of those in the health sector were taken away from their usual duties to provide testing, vaccinations and to tend to extra requirements around Covid.
People who had entered the caring professions to provide services and support to patients found themselves in an uncaring environment which excluded the dying from the comfort of their nearest and dearest.
Each day they may themselves catch Covid, or be chastised for being vaccination-hesitant. Anxiety of both patients and staff has been ever present. Staff have been in the firing line being blamed for reduced services.
And yet they have been overwhelmingly turning up, doing their jobs and filling in for each other. Good on you.
Council staff are another group who are more likely to be blamed than praised.
Often the decisions made by politicians then must be carried out as best they can by staff. Instructions come from Wellington, ever more prescriptive, and then locally staff have to try to make sense of the instructions and advise councillors.
A particular issue of recent times has been the Three Waters tide coming and going.
We can be particularly grateful in Dunedin that our council staff have been continuing to renew our pipes and generally keep our waters flowing where they should. We need only look to Wellington to see what can happen when this important work is not done.
Whatever happens with Three Waters we can appreciate how the Dunedin City Council staff have worked to keep us prepared for the future and responsive to the ratepayers.
The University of Otago seems to be finishing the year with some better ideas of how to listen to their staff and their community.
But whatever has happened throughout the year staff have continued their teaching and research jobs. This cannot have been easy with the uncertainty shown to them by those who govern this important institution.
Both academic and non-academic staff are to be congratulated for soldiering on during this tough time.
Likewise the Otago Polytechnic, or whatever it currently is described as, has had a turbulent year.
It must have been overwhelmingly frustrating to see such a loved and successful institution being eaten up by Wellington. Yet again, staff managed to put the interests of their students foremost while also advocating for the ability to keep providing a great service.
And we are overdue a salute to farmers.
Wellington has continually changed the rules, including insisting on practices which were confusing and sometimes not possible to comply with.
On top of that the politicians seemed to think that it was a good strategy to let people believe that the farmers were causing horrendous damage to the environment. Once this misinformation was being circulated it was impossible for farmers to receive any credit for the good and improving practices they were engaging in. It is hard to imagine who some politicians thought were going to grow their tofu in the future.
We are so lucky that farmers have risen above this and have continued to feed us.
We have also been lucky in New Zealand to have a population in general who have risen to the challenges of this year. Many businesses have either not made it or are hanging in there by a thread. Retail has been suffering. Many of those who cannot work from home have been continuing to do their best to keep our world turning. Often the ones on whom we rely most we pay the least.
It has been a tough year. Thank you to all who have contributed to supporting New Zealand and our people.
- Hilary Calvert is a former Otago regional councillor, MP and DCC councillor.
