The Rt. Honorable Jim Bolger, the 35th Prime Minister of New Zealand, was our guest speaker today. His talk covered a broad spectrum of current events including replacing GDP, the implications of Climate Change and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and origins of public sentiment towards President Trump to Brexit. Jim stated that an inclusive society is a key factor (and potential remedy) to many of these issues. 

Having an inclusive society is something we in New Zealand need to continue to work to achieve. While the mosque shootings in Christchurch one month ago was a horrible tragedy, it brought out the "best in New Zealand" with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressing the national sentiment of "our hearts are broken, but we are not broken down". Tighter gun control legislation has come out as a result, demonstrating that through leadership and debate it is possible to take actions to prevent future calamities. Education, awareness and the courage to have an open debate about key legislation that affects the health and safety of our communities, are fundamental and other countries such as the USA, could learn to do more of.

Jim's talk was very inspiring and left many of us to reflect upon afterwards. As there is not enough space to capture all his words of wisdom - I will just highlight one particular topic-  how should society measure progress and success while also considering climate change and wellbeing?  Instead of using GDP which measures various aspects of productivity and economic output per capita, Jim spoke about the Living Standards Framework (LSF) which the Ministry of Treasury introduced in December 2018. The LSF measures the likely effects of policy choices on New Zealanders' living standards over time by aligning the public finance system with an intergenerational wellbeing approach. The index includes 12 elements to measure wellbeing (Subjective wellbeing, Civic engagement and governance, Cultural identity, Health, Housing, Income and consumption, Knowledge and skills, Safety, and Social connections).

Jim left us with a couple of other statistics: the first is that New Zealand ranks 8 out of 156 countries in the UN Happiness Index and ranks 51 out of 187 countries in the IMF GDP index. So New Zealand is a much happier place than many other countries in the world and through these statistics we can see that money doesn't always equate happiness.

Speaking of happiness, we were joined today by visiting fellows from Santo Rotary Vanuatu (Heinrick Seosse, Rexton Langon, Gwen Daniel, and Grace Dickinson) who are in the photo below next to Rt. Hon Jim Bolger, Alan Deal and me.

Next week is Easter Holidays so there is no meeting. We will restart on the 30th April with our guest speaker Alwyn Poole, Villa Education Trust and School Principal at Mt Hobson Middle School. 

Please remember to register online for our weekly meetings by clicking on the "accept" link in the email from Dan Turkel subject "Event Invitation for Downtown Rotary Meeting- xx 2019" before the cutoff on Monday 11:00am. From May 7th, we will implement a new system of fines for those who don't register by the cut-off time. All proceed will go towards the Sunshine Fund.

Have a wonderful break with your family & friends and see you on the 30th April!

Lucy