Andrew Dickens: Highlights of the Future of New Zealand debate

I'm Andrew Dickens and I'm the fill in guy, and I'm filling in for Ryan Bridge all week and three days next week, and three days the week after, and the reason for that is Ryan is preparing to do telly stuff with Herald Now. 

Last night he was doing the first of the big ones and it was a 90-minute thing called 'The Future of New Zealand'.  

It had politicians, but the big thing about this, the difference was all the other people, all the business leaders, all the entrepreneurs, all the tech bros were all having their say about the future of New Zealand.  

There was even a dancing robot!  

And to see Ryan Bridge dancing with a dancing robot on telly was actually quite some sight.  

So here are some highlights if you haven't seen it.  

Of course, after Jack Tame sucked us into the "are billionaires immoral" debate, Tamatha Paul, the Green, had some ideas. She reckons, obviously, that billionaires are immoral. 

Meanwhile Sir John Key was there as well, and he thought it was nuts. 

Okay, so I talked about the dancing robot, right? Well, there was a futurist there by the name of Frances Valentine who said that Kiwis are going to have to get used to robots living amongst us, we're going to have to get used to Ryan Bridge dancing with the robot. 

Meanwhile we had some more of that crazy, word heavy, crazy nutsness from Matua Shane. The Shakespeare of New Zealand. 

And the pollies laid out their vision for New Zealand. 

Okay. Well, the reaction online was super positive.  

There was an old socialist down in the South Island who used to be a talkback star with the first name Alan and he wrote: "What a future! Wow! At a time when New Zealand is spiritually bankrupt, along comes a program like this, the Future of New Zealand, a bland title for the most uplifting thing I have ever experienced, featuring a bunch of people I had mostly never heard of before."  

Vicky wrote: "This is the stuff we need to hear, inspiring stuff, not personality that we normally have with our leaders' debate."  

So congratulations, Ryan.