Thought for the day, 8 March 2025

People say, 'You can't beat Wellington on a good day'. They're usually talking about the weather. And they're wrong.

I say this affectionately, as someone who lives some thirty kilometres and five degrees up the road, in Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta Upper Hutt. We actually have good days. I don't know what to tell you. Down in Wellington, you guys are shivering on the waterfront, the wind whipping your hair into your icecreams.

But I still love Wellington, and here's why.

This is a city that attracts people who wish to serve - who think about the people they're serving. When the country's bright young things graduate each year, they go their different ways. Some will seek out the private sector, where the rewards will be better, as well as the prestige. Others will come to the public sector. It's not that public service is a downtrodden or marginal profession - those of us who serve often do better than most. But we've chosen to forgo something else to be here, and we've chosen because of our values.

Values aren't always in your face. Sometimes they look like quiet consideration, a careful sense of fairness, a reasoned argument. A polite resoluteness. People in sensible work shoes putting their foot down and digging in.

And that's why, when thirty-odd Man Up protesters tried to disrupt today's Pride parade in Wellington, they achieved nothing - not intimidation, not retaliation, not a goddam thing. With colour and joy and inclusion, with sheer love for our city, the parade kept moving.

We'll always keep moving.

Destiny Church, meet Wellington. We are digging the f*** in.

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