Happy New Year.

It's nice to be back after a long summer break during a summer that was both brilliant and awful.

When it was beautiful it was very beautiful and when it was horrible it was appalling.

The East Coast mutilated not just by the elements but by the slash washed down from the hills. This is not the first time this has happened by any stretch and it has to stop.  The industry is well aware of the risk.  Like any industry you need to be able to clean up after you.

And now the new year welcomes a new Prime Minister.

Firstly, the resignation of Jacinda Ardern saw the most incredible outbreak of Jacinda Derangement Syndrome I've ever seen. Fans and acolytes from the left were left wailing and despairing. Truly bereft. Grown men crying. Meanwhile champagne corks were popping in the Koru Lounge, rural pubs filled up and the right wingers felt that all their troubles were over.

All of which was a wild over exaggeration of Jacinda Ardern and her acheivements and abilities.

For the past 5 years I've been saying that Ms Ardern was not as wonderful as her fans believed but nor as dangerous as her enemies said.

But she was becoming a liability to her party. 5 years of mud throwing was sticking. The middle ground of voters were starting to believe the claims that she was a dictator and a control freak. That she was a narcissist ruling an idealogically driven cabal of communists committed to ruining everything about the country right up to changing the name unilaterally.

So with a quick sidestep Cindy was replaced by Chippy.

And that's an important point. An older generation used Cindy to infantilise her which was part of their misogyny. Hipkins used to hate Chippy but is now at home with it so that's an offensive weapon neutralised.

Hipkins is a good call. He's a scrapper. He's got a thicker skin. He's not addicted to always being right. He's prepared to accept and admit he's made a mistake. He's a worker and he seems normal. Like the New Zealanders who vote. Like the New Zealanders who are doing it hard, and they're the people he mentions every time he's near a microphone.

I see today on Twirtter that Matthew Hooten said: ‘In 3 days the Labour party rebranded themselves from Grey Lynn to Glendene and Wadestown to Naenae.’ And that's a good line.

Meanwhile, take note that Chris Hipkins was on ZB this morning unlike the previous Prime Minister. He's prepared to stand his ground.

Whether this is enough for Labour to regain the Treasury benches is a matter we'll have to wait and see. But I think they have more chance under Hipkins than Ardern.

Hopefully it will be a wakeup call for National, who seemed to be sleep walking to the election.

Christopher Luxon makes much of his party having real world experience but he seems to forget how new his troops are, and that Hipkins and Robertson do have real world experience that his Ministers don't. They've been running the shop for the past 5 years and should not be underestimated.

It's making for a great election. I'm looking forward to the Hipkins-Luxon debates and the Robertson-Willis debates. And then we'll see who really has the chops to lead a country.