What a funny old week. Big weird stuff happened.

Bill English said no tax cuts. Remember National is the small governent, benefit bashing, tax cutting party. Well they cut taxes when they first came in but since then all they've done is add more taxes. Increase benefits more than inflation, the first government to do that in 30 years. And rule over a Wellington bureaucracy that's as big as any we've ever had. And despite that remain as popular as ever amongst their low tax, low benefit, small government loving core supporters. Weird.

We had the Panama papers. Disproving the old theory that where there's smoke there's flame. All it proved to me is that some people like to park their profit somewhere neutral. If their profit was made illegally that's the problem of where they made it not where they park it. The cart is before the horse. Weird.

And then a nation who prides itself in it's acknowledgement of women's rights went mental for a show where a gang of girls do anything for a one night stand with a random guy and then go even more mental when he says this isn't the way to find true love. Super weird.

And all the time everyone was going on about the weather. And how it was either great or weird. And you know that may be the biggest story of the week and the year.

Yesterday I got sunburnt. In May. It was so mild I lay down for a kip on the outdoor couch wit no shirt on. In May! In Christchurch on Wednesday the temperature was 26 degrees, in May!. Meanwhile the westerlies were howling, meaning that the West Coast was soaking.

The winds were also crazy bad in Wellington. How many people had their travel plans waylaid. I had one mate who took 2 cracks at trying to get to Nelson. And then of course there was the flooding in Porirua the week before. The reason for the flooding was the awesome summer. The hills are as dry as concrete and when the rain hit it slid right off and down to the bottom.

It's very easy to like this Indian summer. We're all wearing T shirts. But if you're a farmer. If you're in the East of our country this is a nightmare. The land is bone dry. The grass is failing. The southerlies are coming and there's a real fear that they'll be evil too. The cold will come and the green stuff that fuels our economy will be tortured even more.

It all comes down to water. While Porirua is sick of it most of the country is dying for it. Water management in New Zealand is becoming a real issue. The climate is changing. Don't worry bout whose fault it is. It's just a reality. And the provision of water is crucial. There are areas of our country being irrigated where it's a hopeless battle. But there are other regions that need to be preserved at all cost. I know there are some landowners who claim water but because of their location hard decisions have to made and all we can say is caveat emptor.

Water is the key to life. We can't just give away 40 billion litres of it in Ashburton for people to drink out of a bottle when our economy needs it more. We need to have a good long think about it.

We're used to think that we've got a lot of the stuff. Times are changing.