What Next? Well, we don't really know

Look, this is very important. This is a "live conversation" with New Zealand about what the future looks like. So I refuse to get derailed by discussing what Derek Handley is wearing on the set of TVNZ's What Next?, okay?

Because, you see, it's the final night, and they're bringing back together the themes of technology, environment, resourcing and the economy and giving us the definitive steer on what we need to do. It's a bit frightening, says co-host John Campbell, and they really want to know what we think.

Putting aside the philosophical issues it raises, what I want to know are the practical ones. Is it comfortable? It looks like it's 100 per cent cotton, so I assume he's not wearing a singlet under there. Does it fasten up the front with a big strip of velcro? If so, the future-minded flasher could be interested. And is some monk standing outside the monastery, looking at an empty washing line and shaking his head at the light-fingered nature of the kids of today?

Sorry. Enough about Derek. John and Nigel Latta are talking about Plan A and Plan B and looking at orange pie charts. Still can't make head nor tail but Nigel says "it's pretty bloody clear we want some new ideas". Cut to Derek and his four futurist comrades - who for newcomers to the conversation, have sat at a bar leaner all week and spoken in a bizarre mixture of management speak and platitudes - to mouth some more meaningless chatter.

READ MORE:
* What Next: Campbell and Latta show us a depressing future
* What Next? Bugs are NZ's farming future Nigel Latta and John Campbell declare

Whoah. Hang on. Stop the bus. Derek isn't wearing his robe. He's in a check shirt with an oversize collar and, sensibly, a nice white singlet. Maybe he's only got four sets of the monk's gear and he's not had time to go to the dry cleaners, given he's been on live telly every night this week. Would you dry clean them, or just chuck them in on a cold wash?

Oops, derailed again. There's a bloke talking about being resilient and ... I'm bored. Oh and John is talking to some regular people about what they think. "Are you optimistic about the future?" he asks. The regular joes sound a bit worried. The futurists gave him quite long answers which I can't paraphrase because I got distracted again. What if in the future, we all wore robes like Derek? It seems to happen on most of those dystopian TV shows where everyone has to think the same thing and one rebel bravely fights the whole system. Well, he is a futurist after all...

Another question. Derek always appears to be fiddling with his phone. Where do you keep a phone when wearing monk's robes? Do you tuck it in your undies, or do you wear one of those belt clip things that really important people wore in 1998 and the unfashionable wear in 2017?

There's a long chat about pride and identity. That's my frustration with this show. I realise that there are a multitude of pathways we could go down, but after five nights, I think that five people who have self-identified as experts on the future could come up with something more tangible and say, look, we've talked for five nights about it, and here's what we reckon should happen (I'll  give them a free pass for Tuesday and Wednesday, as I'll admit watching neither night).

There's one final chance at the end of the show, the end of five hours of conversation. Each of the five futurists gets a chance to declare three things that we ought to do. Wendy McGuinness makes a promising start: she talks about giving the vote to 16 year olds, extending electoral terms to four years, expanding our national parks. There we go: something solid, whether you agree with it or not.

But no. It falls away dramatically from there. Shay Wright utters a proverb that translates to 'stand at the stern of your waka and feel the spray of the future biting at your face'. "That's the sort of bravery we need," he announces. Derek says something absolutely ridiculous about the entire nation agreeing a shared manifesto and presenting it to government as a list of demands. Frances Valintine says they've spent "hours locked in rooms having great bold conversations", and they are "committed to keeping our voices going forward".

I can think of little worse than carry on listening to them say things are bold, and inspiring, and full of hope and not once actually allow themselves to be pinned down to an actual opinion on anything. Clearly, I'm wrong though. John is beaming. "Gosh," he says, "it's been wonderful spending the past week with you." I can't agree.