An absolute circus is one way to describe David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.

Or you could say that the thousands at Parliament today to protest against it is what democracy is all about.

Either way, if you want to point a finger at anyone for creating this shambles, don’t point it at David Seymour. Point it at Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Who kept telling us last year how much of an expert he was at negotiations. Mergers and acquisitions was what it was all about. And, as we know with negotiations, it often means all parties doing a bit of give and take to get something across the line.

But for someone who likes to go-on about his real-world business experience, it amazes me that he’s created this shambles by acting in a way that no chief executive would. More on that shortly.

But I reckon people are thinking less about Christopher Luxon’s negotiation skills and more about his leadership skills right now. And I bet he is ruing the day that he agreed to include this sham in his coalition agreement with David Seymour.

I also bet he is losing a lot of people’s respect. He’ll know that. If he doesn’t, then someone needs to tell him. His MPs won’t say so, but I bet he’s losing a lot of their respect, as well.

It’s obvious. You talk to pretty much any National MP about the Treaty Principles Bill and they’ll shuffle uncomfortably in their seat. They’ll look away. They’ll say “oh yes, but not past the first reading” blah blah blah.

They’ll try not to let it show in their face. But look into their eyes, and you can see the dread.

That’s because they are embarrassed to be associated with this thing. And they have every right to be embarrassed when you consider that it was only agreed to, to get a deal across the line. Agreed to in a way which means it’s not actually going to go anywhere.

All it’s going to do is give David Seymour a platform for the next election.

Now before you start saying “hold on a minute, hold on a minute - it was only the other week mate that you were saying that we —as a country— seem to be incapable of discussing this sort of thing without it turning into a bunfight."

Yes I did say that. I wasn’t saying I supported the Bill, I was saying that, despite how advanced we think we might be as a society, when push comes to shove, we are incapable of having this “national discussion” that the pointy heads like to bang on about without it turning to custard.

And we’re seeing that play out today. Which Christopher Luxon knew would happen. He would have known full well that there’d be people who would go nuts over it.

But he went with it and, as a result, his leadership is looking weaker by the day.

Because if he had approached his negotiations with David Seymour in a way you would expect a seasoned chief executive to, then he would have done what any chief executive worth their salt does and determine whether a deal is going to do good things or bad things for the interests of the company.

The best chief executives —and I’m talking the absolute best of the best— what they do, is they base all of their decisions on what’s best for the business or organisation that they lead. And, if they're really good, that can sometimes mean making decisions that might even see them lose their job.

I’ll let you decide whether the company, in this case, is the National Party or the country. But this deal with Seymour isn’t good for his party and it isn’t good for the country.

And, if Christopher Luxon is the leader he claims to be, then he needs to show some genuine leadership —some genuine backbone— and use his business skills to get us out of this mess.

If he doesn’t, he will be toast. He will be toast as far as his MPs are concerned and he’ll be toast as far as the majority of voters are concerned.

Because, if he did do what I’m saying he needs to do, then I would respect him infinitely more than I will if he does nothing. If he keeps on with this charade, if he keeps on banging on about how unhelpful the Bill is, how divisive it is.

Keeps on trotting out that nonsense, and then sticks with the plan.

I don’t care about his leadership experience until I see some genuine leadership in the here-and-now. To get us out of this treaty principles mess.

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If you’ve got solar panels on the roof, you’ll be loving the blue skies.

And a solar energy advocate is saying today that those of us who don’t should be getting financial support from the Government.

Mike Casey says New Zealand is one of the few western countries that doesn’t provide subsidies for solar energy. He says, in Australia, people can get subsidies to convert to solar and - guess what - more of them have. Way more.

I think this is brilliant thinking - but not necessarily a brilliant idea. Because, if we could do all that magic wand stuff - which we can’t - but if we could, I’d say yep - Government subsidies for anyone and everyone.

But there’s no magic wand and so we can’t. So I reckon there should be Government support to get solar into all new builds.

I was talking to someone who, as they put it, went down the solar panel rabbit hole - in that they looked into it. But they just came to the same conclusion that I think most of us have - and still do - and that’s that the numbers just don’t stack up.

You can spend the money getting the panels on the roof, but it’ll take you years before the savings in electricity costs justify the spend.

But getting more and more people onto solar energy is a much more realistic way for the Government - and I’m not just talking about the current Government, but all Governments - it’s a much more realistic way of trying to get those power costs down.

Because what other options are there? The Government of the day can thump the table and tell the power companies to stop ripping us off.

But that’s rarely worked with the supermarkets. So as if thumping the table is going to work with the power companies.

The other option up the Government’s sleeve is restructuring the electricity market. But when do you think we’re going to see that happen?

I was reading a history of New Zealand’s electricity reforms back in the 80s and 90s and it took about four years for those reforms to happen. So any changes the Government wants to make to the current electricity market is going to take a fair amount of time, isn’t it?

So, if it wants to, the Government can do that. But I think it needs to be looking for some quick-wins at the same time. And subsidised solar conversion would be a quick win. Because, like anything in life, if you focus on the things you can actually influence - then that’s when you start to make progress.

And providing taxpayer support to get solar power happening more widely, then that would be something the Government could make happen as soon as it wanted to.

There are about two million occupied homes in New Zealand and around 60,000 of them have solar panels.

It took New Zealand more than seven years to get 30,000 houses with solar. The other 30,000 took three years. And so now we’ve got 60,000. Which is about 3 percent of houses connected to the national grid.

Compare that to Australia, which heavily subsidised solar, simplified the installation process, and invested in workforce training for installers and the general figure is about 35 percent (compared to our 3 percent).

In many neighbourhoods in Australia, though, 50 percent of houses have solar panels. In some, as many as 80 percent. Thanks to government subsidies.

Which our Government could bring in today, if it wanted to.

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You'll have your own way of describing this crazy situation where we’ve got KiwiRail telling the Christchurch City Council that it has to close a 1.5 kilometre stretch of cycleway for two years, because the cycleway needs some safety improvements.

KiwiRail reckons the Heathcote Express cycleway, which is near a railway crossing, is so dangerous that a death or serious injury could happen there once every 1,000 years. Yep, once every 1,000 years.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that any death or injury —no matter how infrequent— is acceptable in any way. And KiwiRail says the section of railway that the cycleway crosses is the busiest section of the South Island rail network, with about 35 trains using it each day.

The cycleway opened less than a year ago and the locals seem to love it.

In fact, some local school kids turned up at the city council this week to tell councillors how important it is and how worried they are about this section of the cycleway being closed for two years while the safety upgrades are made to the railway crossing.

Here’s an idea of why they’re so worried about not being able to use the cycleway for two years and being forced onto a road busy with trucks going to and from the port at Lyttelton.

“We would need to bike on the highway. Port Hills Road is 60km. Lots of trucks, underpasses, and it’s scary and dodgy. It’s very dangerous crossing the Lyttleton offramp.”

And you’ve got to say, the possibility of something bad happening once every 1,000 years surely has to put it at the lower end of things. And certainly not a priority.

And this is the key thing here. I certainly don’t think it’s worth forcing cyclists off a safe cycleway for two years and onto a stretch of road that these school kids and other people who use the cycleway everyday say is a way more dangerous way for them to get to school and work.

Now I’m not saying get rid of health and safety, because that old Kiwi “she’ll be right approach” is not something I’m in favour of.

But surely this type of crazy directive from KiwiRail shows how all the brilliant changes that have been made to keep people safer can be tarnished by another consequence of the health and safety laws.

Whether it’s an unintended consequence, who knows, but the layperson’s term for this consequence is “backside covering”.

That's all KiwiRail is doing here, because it knows that, whenever this once in 1,000 years death or injury might happen, it will be in the firing line. That’s the only conclusion you can come to.

But that’s what health and safety has become. Backside covering.

The other thing about this too is the safety upgrade being forced by KiwiRail is going to cost ratepayers $6.5 million.

I remember the last time I was in a managerial job, and I had to make my team go to a health and safety briefing. And the so-called expert started banging on about a “cable strategy”.

And I couldn’t help myself - because the old BS detector was going off left, right and centre. So I put my hand up and asked what this “cable strategy” was that they were going on about.

Turns out it was a documented plan on how to handle things like computer cables and other cords, so that they didn’t create a risk of people falling over.

That was the point when I realised that health and safety was becoming an industry.

And that’s how I’m feeling about KiwiRail’s plan to force the Christchurch City Council this 1.5 kilometre section of the Heathcote Express cycleway for two years.

It's also another example of how health and safety is out of control in this country.

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Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National’s Vanessa Weenink and Labour’s Reuben Davidson to dig into some of the biggest political stories of the week.

Christchurch City Council is pushing back against the closure of a cycleway at Heathcote, KiwiRail ordering upgrades due to a one in one-thousand-year risk. Is this really acceptable?

Is New Zealand capable of having an open and calm conversation about the Treaty Principles Bill?

Why does it seem as though only the “well off” students are making it into medical school?

And this week’s US Election saw Donald Trump election President – how will these next four years play out?

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I think I’m going to trust my gut instinct more often.

Because yesterday, I didn’t like the idea of it, but my gut was telling me that Donald Trump was going to win the presidential election.

And because I’m going to listen to my gut instinct more often, today I’m going to tell you that —even if we don't like it— we need to calm the farm a bit with all the hyperbole being thrown around.

Because even though things are a little bit different this time around, did the world fall apart last time Trump was president? It didn’t.

He’s another one of those people who you know is just making stuff up —and you know they’re a nasty piece of work— but somehow people fall for them. And enough people have fallen for Donald Trump. Again.

But even though I felt he was going to take it out, I was still blown away with how the numbers looked from the start.

Because you know what it’s like with elections and how the early stages of counting can skew things quite a bit – which is what I was thinking when I kept refreshing the screen on the phone following the results yesterday afternoon.

But those Electoral College numbers just kept piling up for Trump. But, unlike last time he won, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

There are some aspects that did surprise me. Example: the move in support from black voters —especially African American men— from Democrat to Republican.

But even then, that shouldn’t really be a surprise when you consider how Trump campaigned. Where he just kept asking voters the rhetorical question: are you better off now than you were four years ago?

And that’s a question that’s relevant to anyone from any cultural background. And it seems, for enough of them, the answer to that question was “no”. No, we’re not better off.

And that, it seems, is what it came down to for the Americans who not only voted Trump back in as president but who also put the Republicans in charge of the Senate.

Which is bringing some dire warnings today. Which I think would be very easy for me —or for anyone— to jump on board with. Because I think for a lot of people their default position is anti-Trump. Even though I think he’s a horrible person, I’m not going to switch to default.

When I watched him making his big victory speech, I did wonder how many of his cronies who were on that stage with him will still be with him in four years time. There will be some casualties, we know that.

And he made it very clear that America is going to be his first priority. In fact, he said that.

But, on the basis that the world didn’t fall to bits last time he was president, I’m not buying into the hysteria. I could be proven wrong, but that’s my gut instinct.

Unlike political commentator Matthew Hooton who is putting a very dire warning in the NZ Herald today, under the headline: “America entering most dangerous period since 1861”.

He’s saying today: “The world enters its most dangerous period since World War II, with Trump threatening to abandon Ukraine, withdraw the US’s security in Europe which will encourage Russia’s Vladimir Putin to expand his ambitions westward, launch a global trade war and collapse the World Trade Organisation.”

Matthew Hooton goes on to say: “Trump has also promised to jail his political opponents. He made similar threats in 2016 that he did not act upon, but back then his circle included at least some people who could be relied upon to keep his most extreme tendencies in check.

“There are no such people around him this time. Nor is he constrained by the need to worry about re-election.

“Barred from standing for re-election in 2028, the danger is he will seek to hold on to power by other means.”

And Matthew Hooton concludes by saying: “The US enters its most dangerous period since 1861, the start of the Civil War.”

I’m not buying into that. What about you?

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The legendary Miriam Margolyes is back in Christchurch, joining John MacDonald in studio for a chat.

She’s one of a few famous names taking part in the Isaac Theatre Royal Variety Gala show next week, popping into the city early to don a habit and play a nun in ‘Holy Days’.

Margolyes discussed all that was on her mind, her career, the importance of reading books, and how much it means to be back in the garden city.

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Historic. Knife edge. Too close to call. That’s what they’re all saying about today’s presidential election in the States.

What you never see though, splashed across the screens on CNN and Sky News and BBC, is “gut instinct”.

My gut tells me that it’s going to be Donald Trump. And, this is the great thing about gut instinct, it doesn't really matter whether you’re wrong or right - it’s just how you feel about something.

And I’ve got this feeling that Trump is going to take it out.

And the reason I feel that way can be summed-up in one word: change.

When it comes to elections, people love change. The media loves change. But voters, especially, love change.

And you’ve got to give Trump credit for doing something Kamala Harris hasn’t done - and that is to do a much better job of selling the idea of change. Trump still represents change. Just like he did back in 2016. He still does now.

I think no one would disagree that Joe Biden stepping aside and letting Kamala Harris run for president was a no-brainer, it just took Joe a while to come ‘round to the idea.

But that is where the change started and stopped for the Democrats. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

From a distance —and this is the danger when you judge politicians from a distance— but, from where I sit, Harris wins hands down.

But I don’t think she deserves to be the next president. And I am confident that enough Americans will feel the same way and that’s why I think enough of them will give their vote to Donald Trump and he will be the next president.

When she did that first TV debate after she took over as the Democrats candidate from Joe Biden, I watched that and thought she had it in the bag.

When Trump came up with all that nonsense about immigrants eating people’s dogs and cats, I thought she handled all that beautifully. And I thought he had blown it – not just with the dogs and cats stuff but all the rambling.

And the rambling hasn’t stopped, of course. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is nonsense half the time - if not most of the time. But, if there’s one thing going for Trump —certainly in the eyes of American voters— it’s that he oozes change.

You know he’s going to shake things up. You know he’s going to say what he really thinks. You know that he’s all talk about loving Puerto Ricans and all that nonsense about protecting women and making America great again.

It’s all nonsense. It’s all awful. But compare that to Kamala Harris —and put it through the filter of voters loving change— and he wins hands down.

Ever since that TV debate —where she was the obvious stand-out— I’ve found her talk of change hollow, to say the least.

As someone said to me last night when she was on the TV news saying it’s time for change and time to do things differently and it’s time to end the division - someone else who was watching said to me ‘hasn’t she been part of this so-called problem over the past 10 years?’

And, for me, it’s got to the point where I think the majority of American voters will be thinking the same thing.

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