But the main reason for hope is that the Treaty settlement process is finally bearing fruit. Settlements have given Maori tribes an economic base on which to build and restored lost mana. The process has also given non-Maori a better understanding of injustices done to Maori in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This may well be true. Trotter claims that recent efforts to cement Maori into New Zealand’s capitalist elite are bearing fruit at last, despite the failed rear-guard action of Don Brash during the 2005 election.

But for me, listening to National Radio all morning while luxuriating in the day off, it seemed that the coverage had a more solemn, patriotic feel about it. Not jingoistic like the fourth of July celebrations I experienced in the States, where any questioning of the rituals was taboo. Instead, there was a civil debate about the appropriateness of our national anthem, our flag and our other national symbols without any of the polarising name calling I would have expected in the past.

Then there was the (and still is) the continuous flow of costumed party-goers making their way to the Cake Tin for the Sevens. The spirit around Wellington is positively buoyant.

Yesterday, I watched as the workers constructing the new Supreme Court hoisted a massive flag from the crane, and I assumed that it symbolised that the steelworkers had secured the last of the girders. (I’m showing my age, I fear.) No, it was all about Waitangi Day. Our national day.

There can be no doubt that the Treaty is the founding document of our nation and that the day of its signing  should hold a special place on our calendars.

… with the first year of the five-year commitment period under the Kyoto protocol almost over, square one is looking increasingly untenable. It has also become a rather expensive piece of real estate. New Zealand is the only country in the world to have fully elaborated both a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme and implemented neither. That takes some doing.

He goes on to criticise Labour for failing to get a cross party consensus, and National for backing away from a cross party consensus when Labour moved towards their emissions trading policy. He also chides the Greens for discounting National in the lead up to the election.  The Greens offered before the election to sit down with National and work on fixing up the ETS, since a number of the objections in National’s minority report the Greens agreed with and were already trying to negotiate to fix. Alas, John Key refused to discuss the issue. I am pretty confident that the offer still stands, John.

Most striking in the article  is Upton’s criticism of ACT and the select committee.

What fresh insights can a select committee of New Zealand politicians add to a subject that has been exhaustively canvassed elsewhere? Anyone who has studied the issue in good faith knows that there are no certainties and that it is a risk management issue. Picking holes in computer models or climate data is a path to nowhere and would make New Zealand a laughing stock.

I couldn’t have said it better. Oh wait. I already have said it. Many times. So has Jeanette. Good on you Upton. Pull us all up on it and tell us all to pull finger. Sage advice. The risks of inaction are too great. Too great for the environment, for society and for the economy. Too great to risk becoming the laughing stock at Poznan, or Copenhagen for that matter.