When we come to the end of the week, I often look back on all the events and developments that we’ve talked about on air and in society, and sometimes I wonder what really happened, if anything, at all?

So we now have gun laws to get the really bad guns off our streets – though the funny thing is that the really bad guns have never been on the streets.  The illegal guns in the illegal hands have always been hidden and somehow I can’t see how a few new laws is going to stop what happened on the 15^th of March happening again.

This will be a cull of guns from those people who already wanted to cull their guns, and it’s going to cost an awful lot of money.  But it sends a good signal and the number of bad guns won’t increase but they’re not going to disappear either. 

By the way – the police would like you to know that if you're a bad  guy with a bad gun could you tai ho a while before you hand yourself in because they're not ready to deal with you.  Awesome.

It’s like climate change measures.  Greenpeace released the latest New Zealand emission figures this week which showed that despite all our good intentions and conversations and debates the emissions still go up – in the last measured year over two per cent.  

Since 1990 they’re up 23 per cent.  You could say things like the Emission Tradings Scheme and education programmes and incentive schemes for solar power and EVs have failed.  All that money, all that effort.  But then again, maybe without them things could be worse.

And then there’s Brexit. The horror this week extended to Halloween.  On the 23^rd of June 2016, 51.9 per cent of Britons voted to leave the EU.  Nearly three years later after billions of pounds, trillions of words, debates and articles, and zillions of hours of negotiation, absolutely nothing at all has changed.  Other than the reputation of the Brits which is shattered and nobody is buying the shares in their companies even though they’re at rock bottom prices.

So much fire and brimstone and shock and awe in the world and yet no progress.  I think it could be sheeted home to the internet which has enabled so much information and misinformation to be spread to so many.  That has enabled all the sides a chance to put their case.  

It’s harder than ever to pull the wool over our eyes and we have become paralysed.  Thankfully in a relatively stable and safe place.

So it was great last night to go to the opening of the Mandela exhibition at Eden Park.  Mandela made something happen and Mandela made something change. 

For me the highlight was seeing Bob Burgess speak. In the early 70s Bob was a hairy hippy All Black First 5 who played 30 games for the Abs and 7 tests.  My Dad and I loved him.  He loved his work and Dad, who worked at IBM, said Bob reminded him of all the new-fangled guys called computer programmers he was working with. When he started flying down the field with his hair trailing behind him he looked great

And Bob Burgess was a man of values.  In 1970 Bob refused nomination for the All Black trials for the tour of South Africa as a protest against that country's apartheid regime, and in 1981 he actively campaigned against the 1981 South African tour of New Zealand.

Bob took a personal hit for something he believed in.  Now aged 70, he looks as fit as a buckrat.  The hair is silver and now it’s short.  He’s still sporting facial hair.  And when he spoke you heard the determination and belief.  He blew the room away. It was refreshing to hear in these wishy washy days.