As far as the NZ Herald is concerned, it’s never been a better time to live in NZ…
It has been a good century for New Zealand so far, less so for the world. New Zealand has enjoyed a long period of comparative economic and political stability under two three-term governments, first led by Labour, now National. The economy slipped into recession a year before the global crisis but regained growth sooner than most and enters 2016 with continuing immigration gains, strong tourism and, hopefully, more house building in Auckland.
The only cloud in the sky this brilliant summer is the threat of drought it brings to our rural industry still suffering from diminished dairy returns.
…the Herald are channelling what I call the Dr Raymond Miller fallacy. National have not touched middle class tax breaks like the gold card, working for families and student free loans while allowing a speculative property bubble to inflate middle class illusions of wealth. For the likes of Dr Raymond Miller who appears on political panel discussions and tells punters that National are moderate, this is a golden age of wealth that never ends.
There is another side of the story that Miller and the Herald don’t see from their bubbles.
2015 saw…
- Homes become more unaffordable
- Inequality has grown
- The rich have become even wealthier
- Billions have been borrowed for tax cuts to the rich
- Rivers are more polluted
- Our prison population grew to its highest ever
- Our suicide rate climbed to its highest ever
- Unemployment is on the rise
- Food banks are busier
- More people needed help from the City Mission
- Nothing meaningful has happened for Climate Change
- More land is being opened up to oil exploration
- More beneficiaries were cut off because of new draconian thresholds
…but these are things that impact poor people, not Dr Raymond Miller or the NZ Herald editorial team, so for them 2015 was just skippy and 2016 will be skippier. We have a wealthy elite who populate our punditry and commentariat and they tell us we don’t know how lucky we are.
Agree with most of this Martyn, but why take a swing at the Gold Card? I’ve spent 50 years in the workforce, paid taxes all my life, and now you begrudge me a free ride on an otherwise mostly empty bus? I see the GC as a last pathetic remnant of the caring NZ that the bloody neocons have completely destroyed.
Let me put it this way, if you are a millennial, unless you have a parent or family member with a life insurance policy or a home for you to inherit, you have no hope and no future. It is only going to get worse as more jobs cease to exist, and only people with big cash or assets can survive. That’s the eventual outcome of the great ‘free market/neo-liberal’ project, should it be allowed to continue. Try Brazil, Brave New World, and so forth…if you want a dark insight into future NZ.
One would never expect anything other than business-as-usual propaganda from the NZ Herald, and it normally lives up to expectations.
Order for the day, and every day: celebrate dysfunction, overcrowding, overconsumption, exploitation, mediocrity, and above all celebrate lack of critical thinking!
Forget the fantasy world promoted by the Herald; NZ has never been more polluted, more unsustainable (financially and ecologically), more controlled by corporations, more inequitable, more corrupt, and more fascistic than now.
In the race to the bottom, the prime reason NZ is perceived to be ‘doing well’ is because practically everywhere else in the world is doing extremely badly. Hence the stampede -now around 65,000 a year, I believe- to perceived safety.
National have been very clever how they have manipulated the media here in NZ, the George Orwell caption says it all.
The problem we have here in NZ, is the economy and our infrastructure have been systematically dismantled by the neo liberals over the last 30-40 years to the point where we as taxpayers do not actually own anything anymore. We now have to pay a rental or increased charges to the owners of these assets, hence we as a Nation are worse off, however the media keep telling us we are all better off, it has been one big neo liberal con job?
If we as a Nation no longer own the assets and have to rent them, how can we be better off financially as a Nation. It is like owning a house or renting a house?
I would love to live in the Herald’s New Zealand. Unfortunately I live in Muddle Nu Ziland, a very different place.
There is another issue that is bubbling under the surface but that isn’t being noticed by our political parties. Most of our friends and family are in public service or associated jobs and NONE of us have had a pay rise of more than .7 per cent for the last 7 years – which means we’ve all had effective pay cuts. People are starting to get uncomfortable in the true middle class – educated people finding their pay and conditions slipping down every year while the remuneration authority gives politicians 5pc pay rises – and huge pay rises for ceo of these same organisations. It doesn’t take much to stir this disquiet up – even in conservatives. Good on you, Labour with your “Jobs jobs jobs” – what we really need is someone calling “Fair days work for a fairs day pay”. Where is our Bernie Sanders?
A good example of how NZH is populated by the elite is the emphasis given to stories in Remuera as opposed to South Auckland.
Let’s not forget NZ’s shameful and shocking levels of domestic violence.
Using GDP as a measure of success is flawed – it has no bearing on the ‘wellness’ of its communities.
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