Simon Bridges has been savaged on social media for his assertion of the ‘Kiwi way of life’…
…this nod to selfishness has been roasted by those who believe the Kiwi way of life is some type of egalitarian utopia of hope and promise.
Bullshit.
Bridges is far closer to the grim rotten tooth of these shaky Isles than we wish to believe.
The ‘Kiwi way of life’ is a low imagination horizon anti intellectualism based on exploitation of confiscated indigenous resources where ignorance & malice is celebrated by the rural volk while middle class attention is engulfed between school rankings & property speculation.
A country with 295 000 kids in poverty, 40 000 homeless, 668 suicides per year making it one of the highest rates in the world and an appalling domestic violence rate; a country with generations locked out of home ownership and job security on deunionised wage levels that lock us into insecurity, desperation and subservience; a country undermined by exploited migrant labour and speculation where primary industries get to pollute and rape the environment without remorse or punishment ; a country that refused to feed the kids because it was ‘the parents fault’ and who re-lected Key despite dirty politics, abuse of political power and mass surveillance lies; a country that could only apologise for the atrocity at Parihaka 140 years after it happened; a country with social services who chase and hound beneficiaries to death and persecute them; a country whose bloated private prison complex locks up as many people as America and we release men back into the community more damaged than when they went in; a country whose politics are owned by vested big business interests and petty corruptions; this is a country where The Project and Seven Sharp are considered current affairs with all the intellectual curiosity of the ZM and Edge Breakfast shows.
Whatever noble lineage that existed within our egalitarian roots has long been killed off by the 30 year neoliberal experiment and you can see that by the passionate intensity those who have profited by exploiting capital gains tax scream their hatred at the mere mention they might have to pay money on a gain they haven’t even realised yet.
We are a juvenile country with all the cultural maturity of a can of day old coke.
The pretensions of our ‘kiwi way of life’ will shatter under the weight of climate change, it will only be in the shards of our delusion we recognise what we have always truly known on these cragged lonely shores, that we only have each other to rely upon and the sooner we begin to respect and collaborate with one another, the sooner we survive.
There isn’t going to be a kiwi way of life that doesn’t understand that once the impacts of extreme climate change becomes an annual event.
Your fucking Capital Gains Tax is the least of our worries.
PS – I also do childrens parties and bar mitzvahs.
The kiwi way of life we all knew and loved died on 1 April, 1991.
The ‘Kiwi way of life’ is a low imagination horizon anti intellectualism based on exploitation”
Yes Martyn and millsy, well said.
I came back from 10yrs away working in Canada from 1988 to 1998, and suffered a large shock as most of my mates were either without jobs anymore or had a broken marriage.
It seemed that while away ‘rogernomics’ had gutted the country and closed most of the local regional HB/Gisborne businesses down.
Then when ‘John Fucking Key’ the slimeball came along he just totally dredged the place, to close down and steal anything he could finally sell.
I don’t have much respect anymore for politicians now, because they say what you want to hear.
When in Government they just don’t do much at all.
It is very disheartening really mate.
I just hope Jacinda doesn’t let us all down as they all have before.
Yes absolutely.
The “kiwi way of life” is being knifed in the back by Judith Collins you idiot Bridges!
As for the rest of us the “kiwi way of life” is just getting by!
No it was on life support in 84 and finish off in 91.
Yes.
No Milsy it died with the death of Norman Kirk in 1974 and it’s funeral was the fall of the third Labour government in 1975 to Muldoon’s dictatorship.
The kiwi way of life went when people started having to live in cars. But then I wouldn’t expect Bridges to understand that, privileged bloke that he is.
It’s actually quite a clever – perhaps inadvertently – statement to make.
It conjures up idyllic ‘Cider with Rosie’ bucolic sorts of visions- or kids packed in the car off for a picnic in the Blue Duck Valley – mums in kitchens greeting kids after school with freshly baked ginger bread –
grandma’s knitting mittens with homespun wool.
The fact that this is not the reality for many is totally irrelevant – the relevance is that there is a Kiwi way of life – somewhere out there – and those bastards in govt are out to destroy it.
If Simon believes this himself, then he’s worse than Key, but I rather think that Simon’s saying what he thinks will appeal, and that no-one could ever be as unpalatable as Key was. Maybe Bennett. Maybe that dog man.Maybe a couple of others.
Good clip — Here’s one that’s just as relevant, ‘Social End Product’ by the Bluestars, Auckland band of the 1960s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfvAVlFoRmg
A most succinct and erudite summation of N.Z today and how we lost ourselves.
Lost in a sea of ‘me now’ and with little to no moral compass left to guide many, the hideous behaviour of corporates in N.Z are an ominous sign of a bleak future where the haves and have nots goes extreme and dog eat dog is the norm.
It’s sad because just 40 years or so ago we were such a fantastic little country…not perfect by any stretch , but we knew who we were and we’re proud of it .
Now .Vacuity rules
Hey lets not forget 1984 to 1990???
Despite what happened during that period, people could rely on a decent welfare safety net. That was all chopped away inn 1991.
The kiwi way of life: struggling to make ends meet on low wages while being extorted by monopolies and oligopolies for all your essentials in life, as your country is being sold to foreign interests.
I thought I was going to be offended by this, but it rather hit home instead, like a sledgehammer. Wham! A fist to the solar plexus and a chop to the throat. Cant argue with this at all Martyn Bradbury .
Holy shit thats a very true realisation of NZ life.
Back to the CGT it should have been introduced 20 years ago.
Brilliant writing Martyn. Don’t stop.!
If you are a good Kiwi, you finish your childhood, dispense with warmth and wonder and share the lessons your immediate forebears have, the world is about you and you only.
So you get on the property ladder one way or the other knowing how difficult the previous generations have made it for you and yours.
You join the previous generation by buying your second home, then a third ad nauseam to add to your investment portfolio.
You go about your business lawfully staying out of others way, rarely venturing an opinion, tending to you and what benefits you the most. Everything but everything you do is geared to advantage you. You expect others to cut you some slack because of who you think you are but give none to others.
By now you get pissy about handouts given to losers never taking all those risks you do to improve your lifestyle but you never stop to think why they don’t or can’t.
You never see your actions as harming the whole because you don’t think about anyone else but you and a few immediate family members like your kids. But what you never ever do is go out of your job description or way to help anyone or anything else. You close your door absolving yourself of what is going on inches from your empire.
You convince yourself that your property portfolio is doing the community good but you know that’s a lie. And you can barely hide your contempt for your tenants anyway.
And yet if all goes well you will go through life never looking out for your fellow man not once, rather you will exploit him and yet every now and then the world you made ironically leaps up and bites you whether you realise it or not especially as you age into the sad failed human you made yourself into.
You are the consummate subcriber to the “Kiwi way of life”, or at least the one Simon and his fellow Nats thinks are worthy of that title.
I know so many people just like you said, Xray. Brillantly written.
Nailed it Xray.
Excellent and Evocative, simple as that Martyn.
It is up to all of us to get involved, join a union, a local action, challenge shitheads, to do something other than be a passive consumer
The climate change thing is a hoax, ideological hoohaa from the globalist left. Just bloody lucky that big oil has funded an information campaign to set the record straight.
Hahahaha!
“The ‘Kiwi way of life’ is a low imagination horizon anti intellectualism based on exploitation of confiscated indigenous resources where ignorance & malice is celebrated by the rural volk while middle class attention is engulfed between school rankings & property speculation.”
Quite so, I have rubbished the ‘Kiwi Way of Life’ for some time, it is utter BS, endless BS, sold to aspirational, also desperate people out there, many new immigrants, who are made to believe that they do have an honest ‘chance’ to become quarter acre section, or at least apartment unit property owners (one day) and/or run their own little and ‘successful’ business operation, thus earning and saving enough also, to retire in decent living standards.
The wealth redistribution and income disparity that has opened up a gaping hole between our modern day class society, being the poorer and the fewer and fewer well off, it makes it impossible to achieve such aspirational goals.
I see it particularly here in Auckland, so many new immigrants working in low paid jobs, slaving 12 hours a day, to earn enough to have some form of accommodation, to feed themselves and to pay for transport and perhaps a few dollars to send home.
While we overpopulate the land, opportunities actually get less for most, and the pie of resources available will have to be ‘shared’ with more, thus leaving less per person anyway.
The ‘growth’ we get is mostly achieved through growing the population, and while we allow this to happen, we become a country more like the rest of the world, with increased poverty, with increased stress, division, pollution and destruction of the native and even cultivated environment.
It is like there is no tomorrow, that is how we are going, and yet the lying ones in government and business sell us some Nirwana like glorious future we are meant to be having, joining the rest of the world in exploiting and rubbishing our part of the planet.
“Kiwi Dream” for whom, I ask, for the property owning upper middle class in Auckland and a few other places, in gated communities, in leafy suburbs, perhaps, the rest are increasingly just making ends meet, some living more like paupers, and wasting much money on running imported cars and over priced land, housing and transport, sucking up what we work for, never leaving anything much to ‘save’ for a worthy retirement.
We live on debt, on borrowed money, and people are told to get reversed mortgages, to prematurely let their house go into debt, so the bank can materialise a gain, so people can pay for a retirement village home.
Kiwi Dream is BS, same as the American Dream, which 99.99 of US Americans will NEVER achieve.
“A country with 295 000 kids in poverty, 40 000 homeless, 668 suicides per year making it one of the highest rates in the world and an appalling domestic violence rate; a country with generations locked out of home ownership and job security on deunionised wage levels that lock us into insecurity, desperation and subservience; a country undermined by exploited migrant labour and speculation where primary industries get to pollute and rape the environment without remorse or punishment ; a country that refused to feed the kids because it was ‘the parents fault’ and who re-lected Key despite dirty politics, abuse of political power and mass surveillance lies;”
Yes well said martyn; – we probably also had a rigged election that backfired on National aslo in the mix.
That’s maybe why National are still nursing their disbelief that they lost like as though they had engineered the election but the result was not what it should have been.
Perfect summary.
My despair is so great these days, I actually welcome the impending ecological catastrophe to end this utter madness.
Possibly because we are geographically isolated, 1200 miles from Australia and in despite of the internet and foreign travel we are:
PAROCHIAL
small-minded
Dictionary result for small-minded
having or showing rigid opinions or a narrow outlook; petty.
“my family are small-minded provincials”
synonyms: narrow-minded, petty-minded, petty, mean, mean-spirited, mean-minded, uncharitable, ungenerous, grudging, close-minded, short-sighted, myopic, blinkered, inward-looking, narrow, conventional, unimaginative, parochial, provincial, insular, small-town, localist; intolerant, illiberal, reactionary, conservative, hidebound, dyed-in-the-wool, diehard, limited, restricted, set in one’s ways, inflexible, dogmatic, rigid, entrenched, prejudiced, bigoted, biased, partisan;
parish-pump, blimpish;
“a bunch of small-minded bigots”
antonyms: broad-minded, tolerant, open-minded
I believe all people are tribal and NZers are very much so. We certainly believe in the kiwi way of life and that you can be unkiwi. Australians are even worse to the point of racism.
Evidently “scrimping and saving” for a “bach/crib” by the middle classes, is Bridges’ asperation. Never mind homelessness. Or families in gararages and cars. Or even the kids of middle class families unable to afford to buy their first homes, Bridges’ is pimping for property speculators and home-owners to buy more properties. The man is so out of touch he must’ve beamed down from Pluto. The proposed CGT will reveal the naked selfishness of the propertied middle class and the National Party that acts for them.
This will be the litmus that shows the true values of New Zealand as a society.
Where are the baches. All you can find are overpriced beach mansions.
They are the baches/cribs KJT!
Sorry, KJT, I should have written “bachs/cribs”, (in irony marks) because many are no longer the traditional small, rustic shacks. More like seaside mansions. Thats what Bridges is pimping for.
I think the property speculators are worreied not about the capital gains tax signals that is the shift away from property speculation to more protective forms of savings
If we accept that houseing is ponzi scam that requires the next generation to take on greater debt then a shift in where those younger investors put there dollars becomes ever more worrying for the retireing boomer population there paper profits may never be realized but the debt remains .i think thats happening already plus China is forceing.there citizens to bring there money back the exit door has closed, rhe apeculator wont able to increase rents as kiwibuild and other programs under mine there market position .in short there fucked serves them right for there short sighted greed
And so you want to make it even worse by shutting on China all the time. Ok to moan about our poor social services but let’s kick our trading partner in the guts with insunntion and assumption. Run articles about how the Chinese govt is paying to get mps elected and encourage others to do the same.
you have to understand to realize those massive capital gains new buyers must take on more debt and that debt can not be supported at the current income levels .new buyers are not able to pay the prices the boomer will need to pay there debts off let alone retire plus we have other options now like kiwi saver to invest for retirement. sorry boomers but iam not really interested in buying your assets or bailing you out your in the shit lolololololoolololololololololo
Win, trade is one thing. Blind obedience as a far-off satrap to an economic super-power is another.
We’re in China to sell milk powder. Our souls weren’t included in the packaging (despite best efforts by that con-man pretending to be a prime minister from 2008 to 2016).
Ka pai rawa atu Martyn for a multi pronged attack, delivering a brace of crash tackles on many of our revered God’s Own myths. I do value our Kiwi moderation, but NZers too often slides towards mindless passivity: We are “The passionless people”. Your refreshing critique was full of righteous outrage:so give that man a DB!
I have 3 ripostes for you to ponder. The ethics of a private prison are debatable with its system of financial rewards and fines. I do however cautiously celebrate any approach that significantly reduces men going back to prison. Having visited the prison, I suspect the substantial investment in real world training workshop facilities run by Placemakers offering pathways to work probably is a a key factor. https://underconstruction.placemakers.co.nz/placemakers-helping-prisoners-build-a-new-future/
It was dis-Loyal to chose REM Its the End of the World as your waiata. Clearly you should have chosen, Blam Blam Blam There is no Depression in NZ music video. Witness the delighted bloke mowing his lawn, content with the Capital Gains growing under his feet. https://youtu.be/2HVogejKx_c
Finally I’m devastated that you don’t do children’s parties:
our children need to stop their frivolity and wake up to the harsh world they are entering. And let’s bring back caning and compulsory military service too.
Yes, Bomber. EXACTLY that. Well done.
Ka pai Martyn for a multi pronged attack, delivering a brace of crash tackles on many of our revered God’s Own myths. I do value our Kiwi moderation, but NZers too often slides towards mindless passivity: We are “The passionless people”. Your refreshing critique was full of righteous outrage: so give that man a DB!
I have 3 ripostes for you to ponder. The ethics of a private prison are debatable with its system of financial rewards and fines. I do however cautiously celebrate any approach that significantly reduces men going back to prison. Having visited the prison, I suspect the substantial investment in real world training workshop facilities run by Placemakers offering pathways to work probably is a key factor. https://underconstruction.placemakers.co.nz/placemakers-helping-prisoners-build-a-new-future/
It was dis-Loyal to chose REM Its the End of the World as your waiata. Clearly you should have chosen, Blam Blam Blam There is no Depression in NZ music video. Witness the delighted bloke mowing his lawn, content with the Capital Gains growing under his feet. https://youtu.be/2HVogejKx_c
Finally I’m devastated that you don’t do children’s parties: our children need to stop their frivolity and wake up to the harsh world they are entering. And let’s bring back caning and compulsory military service too.
The kiwi way of life died when roger douglas, richard prebble and mike moore captured the nz lp parliamentary party.
ruth richardson and jenny shipley ensured its extinction, proudly.
Geez, you say it true , like a sentence of death.
The kiwi way of life these days seems to involve boy racers, old dudes on loud motorcycles, and motorhomes
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