At this time of year, I am reluctant to think too far ahead. Life revolves around sleep, reading and rummaging through the fridge to see which of the Christmas leftovers are not likely to result in food poisoning.
Much of my brief waking hours involves wondering when a green vegetable last passed my lips and whether trifle covers all five food groups. (I am stuck for an answer to the former, but the answer to the latter is an emphatic yes.) Perhaps such torpor should be nurtured and carried gently into the new year where lord knows we will need something to distract us.
For, and I am sorry to remind you, it is election year. (As if that were not punishment enough, we will also have to endure the Rugby World Cup and a royal wedding. The only thing to be grateful for is that no-one has suggested a visit from Oprah.) In election year all semblance of common sense is lost by our politicians, and many of those who sail with them.
Given the practice they have had this year, I shudder at what might be to come.
As we hurtle relentlessly towards 2011, I am idly mulling over questions I hope might be answered next year.
In that small part of my brain where serious thought occasionally lurks, I wonder whether Peter Dunne will pursue his concerns over the preamble to the Hobbit legislation (the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill) passed with indecent haste back in October.
Were National's allies in this misled? Was the House of Representatives misled as it scrambled to pass this, part of which University of Otago employment law specialist Prof Paul Roth has described as gibberish which would not give the clarity or certainty supposedly sought by the Government.
As he pointed out, in the lead-up to the Bill the public was told Warner Brothers was concerned with industrial stability, but the amendment did not address this issue.
As the new law does not prohibit people working in the film industry from being employees or members of unions who could take industrial action, theoretically there could still be situations where disgruntled independent contractors who terminated their contracts could be disruptive.
Prof Roth suggested if such workers were essential to the project and there was little time to train somebody else, they could have some bargaining power if they then wanted to negotiate a collective employment agreement as employees.
The concern over the 2005 Supreme Court case involving James Bryson and Three Foot Six Ltd has always seemed curious to me.
Presumably, people have happily been making films here since that time and managed to establish whether workers were contractors or employers without myriad disputes.
So, since any suggestion of a union ban was well and truly off by the time the legislation came before the House and now we are told was not apparently a concern for Warner Brothers, the difference between an employee and a contractor was easy enough for anyone with a modicum of intelligence to work out, what was the problem the legislation was going to solve?
Was the release of the embarrassing email exchanges over this deliberately delayed to ensure it was so close to Christmas the coverage would be minimal and key players would be unavailable for comment?Will this whole silly saga make us more vigilant about the foolishness of making any law under urgency?
And while I am on the subject of foolishness, could I make a New Year request for television presenters to get back behind the desk? What does it add to anyone's enjoyment, watching presenters jabbing at touch screens to change the picture, just because they can? Are they frustrated teachers who really long to be standing before a class?
Sit up straight, you naughty viewers!
And similarly, could television stations dispense with the notion windswept television reporters plonked outside courtrooms or hospitals or police stations or wherever actually adds anything to the story they are telling and recognise that most often it's a distraction.
On another tack, in the midst of our enthusiasm for all things rugby this year, should we be worried about the environmental damage caused by all those who fly here to witness this excitement?
Should we seriously wonder about encouraging tourists to fly here at any time and instead concentrate on developing or reviving those businesses which actually make things we need, or are likely to need, in an oil-poor future?
I might have more luck in getting answers to who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop or the ram in the rama lama ding dong, but, in my trifle-buoyed state, I am ever hopeful.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer
