In a small example of why this country is the leaderless quagmire it currently finds itself in, look no further than the Christchurch City Council's handling of the stadium.
Submissions are now closed on the latest blowout and what to do about it. The fact we are having submissions is an issue in and of itself. Submissions are pointless, unless you are a slave to the delusion that democracy is a workable mechanism and actually means something.
For that to be true in a situation like this, you would really need to make the submissions binding. In other words, you would call it a referendum and whoever gets the most votes wins.
In this case, the options are carry on, don't carry on, or carry on but smaller. But we aren't doing that, we are just asking for the mood and the vibe.
And given there are only 25,000 submissions. That is a lot, but in reality only a fraction of the population. You have really just conducted a completely futile exercise in which some people will say one thing, and others will say another.
It's very similar to that shockingly lazy trait you see far too often on the television news where they ask people in the street what they think. That achieves nothing given only three people were asked and they all said different things so the reporter isn't held up as being biased.
Asking people the same question over and over, which is what's happened here, is a lack of leadership.
This is now a project that should have been started shortly after 2011. In other words, a decade ago. It should be a project that is in fact finished and has been open and welcoming guests for some time. This should be a facility that Christchurch and the country has seen as a mecca for the best small city in the world. It should have held tests, titles and events.
Instead, because of the lack of leadership, it's still in front of a committee waiting for someone to grow a spine and actually make a call.
There is zero excuse for where we are on this. All it has proved is that if you have a leadership vacuum it is filled with indecision, procrastination, and nothingness. Doing nothing, and doing nothing for extended periods of time, has always been easy.
Biting the bullet often isn't. But it is the difference between moving forward or not moving at all.
Christchurch is increasingly a study in the latter.