I can't imagine anything less helpful as a leader, than to have a shadow leader continually discrediting my ideas and progress in the media.

Uplifting societies, economies, enterprises, communities, whanau and even individuals, is a complex and nuanced art form. The policies and strategies that achieve progress are never perfectly conceived nor executed.

However, to subject our collective effort to polarised, adversarial leadership is something we have the common sense to do our best to avoid in pretty much all circumstances except for in our politics. Why is that and surely it is time for it to end?

Aotearoa is currently benefiting from one of our very best examples of contemporary political leadership. This reality is internationally recognised and acknowledged.

And yet, we have a shadow leader taking their moments on the international stage to do nothing but deride our governments ideas and outcomes. Creating sound bites for the media that often appear shrouded in inaccuracies and borderline misrepresentation of the truth. How, at any stretch of the imagination, can we accept this to be the appropriate behaviour of a leadership contender?

This accepted norm of presenting policies on partisan lines, without the space for common ground or collaborative support, requires serious reconsideration. The practice of reducing ideas to two mutually exclusive domains of thought can only lead to the deep societal division we see on display in the US of A. Their bi-partisan approach is clearly producing two disparate clusters around centres of varying degrees of extremism.

I know that there remains a huge population of great people occupying common ground and going about their everyday business. However, when it comes time to vote, they are required to choose between just two ideals intent on discrediting each other. That this could produce anything but division seems so obvious from afar.

As a nation, our adoption of MMP remains a moment of political enlightenment. This was never more evident then in the outcome of the 2017 general election when the party with the greatest number of votes failed to become the government.

This outcome did not become a set back to our collective progress and improvement. In fact, it created the circumstances that led to a response to the Covid-19 pandemic that was recognised globally as being exemplary. Has it led beyond that to political perfection? Of course not. But to consider that what we now require as a country is the outright rejection of the present government’s ideas, policies and initiatives is disingenuous.

I believe most of us would agree and accept that our future is all about greater diversity in all walks of life. The expansive disruption of the predominately western norms is healthy and necessary. This is not to discredit what western democracies and institutions can contribute.

What it requires is for the privileged to more readily share the benefits of that privilege and accept that their world view is no more right or wrong than any other peoples. And that a more inclusive model of political leadership is not only healthier but potentially transformational.

The simplistic portrayal of political movements as either being capitalistic or communal, democratic or authoritarian, entirely ignores the ways of the natural world around us. Our planet provides us with the most elegant illustration of the benefits and potentials for extreme diversity.

The collaboration and interconnectedness of life that we are surrounded by is on constant display for us to draw understanding and inspiration from.

If we are to achieve a broad and deep reset to the values and principles that have guided us to the over exploitation of our natural resources, the creation of distorted economic wellbeing and the cultural impoverishment of many, than we must celebrate those leaders that represent and fight for diversity.