Election year dramas mixed with the threatening new wars in the northern hemisphere and global climate disasters bode ill for 2026. It feels like the year is shaping up as yet another tough one for those who seek peace, love our natural world and need a fair economy for themselves and their whānau.
I think the word of the year for 2026 will be "anxiety".
Our anxieties about the big picture of war, climate change and the global economy are all played out daily in anxieties about putting food on the table, cleaning up after terrifying weather damage and whether the rent gets paid on time. They are the same problems played out large and small.
Even the Pantone colour of the year for 2026, "Cloud Dancer", was described this last week as "baking in the anxiety".
A greeny, bluey, grey white, Cloud Dancer is the colour of not quite anything. The colour of the year might have been full of promise and hope, but no.
Cloud Dancer is mostly just the colour of nothing, no joy and certainly no anticipation of a brighter future.
Regardless, today and most of the days this year we can celebrate the whānau wins and the many actions of the many groups that make life better in big and in small ways.
Sometimes its community-driven action, sometimes it is a response to a crisis. Either way, the solution to this year’s problems will be each other, not grand promises from on high.
Waitangi is going to be a full noise demonstration and celebration of kotahitanga this year. Iwi, including the Kingitanga, are leading big delegations north.
Ōtākou are foregoing their trienniel commemorations at Ōtākou Marae, and instead are heading north to Waitangi to participate in a huge iwi movement of collective action and te Tiriti commitment.
We will also see the broad Toitu te Tiriti movement there, with all its constituent communities, tauiwi, hapū and whānau, creatives and activists standing up for mokopuna-primed, te Tiriti-led Aotearoa New Zealand.
It is a long way to travel from Ōtepoti, it is a big deal to attend and it will set the scene for how iwi task government to work with them over this election year. It is a big task.
The prime minister’s failure to reference Māori at all in his state of the nation speech earlier this week did not go unremarked.
This failure is not just a problem for future-focused and respectful iwi-government relationships. It is also particularly oblivious given the natural disaster currently happening in the North from the torrential rain.
Northern communities of Oakura and Whangaruru, sitting between Auckland, where the prime minister delivered his speech, and Waitangi are still under severe conditions, with limited road access, water, and services.
More rain is expected and more coastal communities are at severe risk of damage. It is a disaster for those whānau, a disaster driven by the climate crisis.
Yet somehow, as the North suffered flooding impacts worse that Cyclone Gabrielle, the prime minister managed to deliver his "state of the nation" speech that completely ignored the actual state of our nation.
As he was speaking to the business leaders in Auckland, civil defence was activating to help with devastation from the deluge, and preparing for more.
The prime minister did not mention the floods at all. He did not mention the impacts of climate change on those whānau or acknowledge the efforts of communities trying to help.
He didn’t honour the resilience of families now faced with a massive, expensive clean up. He did not even make a short statement of sympathy for the whānau whose homes and communities have been severely damaged.
It was a Pantone colour of the year moment from our Cloud Dancer prime minister. I expect we will see many more.
Despite the bad manners of government leaders, actual communities are rallying for the whānau in the North. Marae are offering shelter and kai and more support is being delivered to help whānau trapped behind the damaged roads.
Communities at risk of the next floods are being supported by the broader north in anticipation. This is whānau and community resilience and aroha that we have seen here in Ōtepoti when we have needed it.
Any brighter future we want here will be created by the whānau-focused awhi that happens every day, quietly, without fuss or fanfare, as communities overlooked by the national leadership work hard to quell the anxieties of families.
Araiteuru Marae have the weekly not-for-profit Pātaka Ora Community Kitchen, the All Saints fruit and veges remain a stalwart of affordable, healthy kai, as does the Bowling Club, where community members deliver kai to people weekly.
Many other communities and groups in Dunedin provide support to families whose daily anxieties are sometimes overwhelming.
This is what creates colour in our lives. This is what will build that brighter future for us.
■ Metiria Turei Stanton is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party MP and co-leader.
