Auckland Observer Report: Wellingtonians the problem with Wellington
Never liked Wellington; liked Wellingtonians even less. Hobson felt the same way. He toured the country soon after he had signed the Treaty and visited Wellington. It was a New Zealand Company settlement. The NZ Co. officials tried to bribe him to make their settlement the capital of the nascent colony – Hobson rejected the overture and gained a very unfavourable impression of their character. That cabal of colluding, covetous opportunists is the base character of the modern-day Wellingtonian. That is the whakapapa of their mentality. Nothing has changed in that respect since 1840 – nothing.
There is a brooding illness about that place. It doesn’t just look barren and hostile, it feels barren and hostile. Maori say they can sense something off, something wrong, something creepy. Some get bad vibes around Mt Crawford where the old prison used to be, some feel it around the Courtney Place area. Some say the whole city is like that. Something very bad happened there. Something very bad is bound to happen there and does happen there. I don’t blame the land so much as the people – the illness is the people.
I had been to Wellington before a few times – all of them disagreeable (due to the people) to one degree or another – but on one trip, driving in and out and staying a couple of nights, some mundane events happened that crystallised exactly what was wrong with the people of that dreadful, accursed town. I had previously thought their defining unpleasant characteristic was simple arrogance and that it came from being the capital city rather than it being that it was Wellington per se. I’ve changed my mind on that, although it definitely is partly because of their status as Capital, it has more dimensions.
Wellingtonians are lazy.
The only people who did anything extra or went out of their way were foreigners. The woman who took out bags up to our room at the Backpackers was German. A Wellingtonian wouldn’t have done that. The guy at Archives who rushed to get something done before closing was a British Indian. A Wellingtonian wouldn’t have done that. There are a multitude more examples from previous ill-fated visits, but these are all from this one trip.
The moment the penny dropped on laziness was at a café on the way out of town and the pancakes were fine but the maple syrup was just a few drops in an already tiny jug. I didn’t want to fuss, but it was absurd and if I didn’t say anything the GF certainly would. So I went to the counter to ask for some more – not complain either, it wasn’t in the form of a complaint that was not how it was framed it was just I required more. Well, the chef was none to happy, and as he harrumphed out, banging doors and cupboards as he went he muttered audibly enough so I could hear: “I’ve got to go and open a new one now!” Yes, he had been too lazy to fetch a fresh bottle from out back. Wouldn’t he have to open a fresh one anyway though for the next patron? What a cunt – a lazy cunt. Things like that don’t happen in Auckland, in part because the customers wouldn’t allow it, in part because the chefs wouldn’t think of it. Want something a bit different, a simple request? – forget about it, just forget it.
Went to ‘The Flying Burrito Brothers’ Mexican restaurant because I had heard good things and noticed everything seemed to have coriander as an ingredient, so I asked the waitress if they could leave the coriander out. Can we guess? Can we? She came back – no, everything has coriander and none of it can be left out of anything, best order something with the least amount of coriander (which, of course, seemed to have extra coriander for my troubles). So many instances, so many stories.
The surly shop assistants, the indifferent, swaggering security guards, the list is endless. The ingratitude is palpable. And that’s just the frontline. The backline are just as bad. The staff in Wellington – when I was an acting GM in an Auckland head office – were operating like it was ‘Gliding On.’ Timelines meant nothing. Results meant nothing. They weren’t impressed by efficiency – they were horrified by it. All their energy was devoted to resistance instead of productivity.
It was gratifying to hear from a Wellingtonian, (and serial Mayoral candidate) Jack Yan, in a Twitter aside (when he was still on Twitter) that this service deficit was real. He said matter-of-factly that Wellington had very bad service and that Wellingtonians had come to expect it. I think he was absolutely right, but the interesting point for me (that he wouldn’t engage with) is why? Because such things just do not happen in other places in New Zealand or in other parts of the world I have been to. Why is Wellington service terrible? Geography and weather cannot have any bearing on why service is terrible – so what is it? What would the factors for terrible service be? Is it they consider themselves above the act of serving others? What’s with the resentment?
Naturally that terrible service is not restricted to just customer service, it is an attitude that necessarily permeates every institution, every interaction. Reflect now, at this point, on the sad fact that the people giving the worst service are ensconced as the Capital to provide service to the whole country. A praetorian entitlement saturates everyone there and the whole country suffers as a consequence. The least respectful, least responsive, least sympathetic people run the country. And they run it primarily for themselves.
The Wellingtonians have constructed a self-serving hegemonic paradigm that spans policy and ventures into the mythologic. The default thinking of Wellington on the rational division of resources is half for Wellington and half for everyone else. That is the starting point – and more often than not the ending point. Two cases of their propaganda exercise come immediately to mind.
Te Papa – the Museum of New Zealand – is a glorious example of Wellingtonian myth-making and ideological (if I can call it that) supremacy. I doubt anything has changed in the seven years or so I last visited that cultural bunker.
The only mention of Auckland – a quarter going on one third of the country’s population – is in the souvenir shop. In the souvenir shop – where commercial reality cannot be overwhelmed by political edicts of curation – Auckland is allowed to exist. It is eerie how the Wellingtonians have avoided any mention of Auckland from the supposed national museum. Like an erasure. Like a genocide. The exhibition on Pacific Islanders in New Zealand doesn’t mention Auckland. Anyone from overseas who had walked through Te Papa and asked to name New Zealand cities would not know about Auckland. If they did recall a mention of Auckland they might conclude it is the same size as New Plymouth or Napier. Asked where Pacific Islanders mostly live they would say Wellington. Their commitment to a total metropolicide takes on a rigorous pedantry when even the Industrial Exhibitions of the past omits Auckland. What impression is dedicatedly chiselled throughout is that modern Aotearoa is an evolution of the NZ Co. and Wellington is half the nation – a total misleading fiction.
The second, similarly fictional account of the unimpeachable importance of Wellington I discovered in the history of parliament on the parliamentary website. They cannot change the chronology of where parliament was – that Auckland was the seat of Government up until 1865 – but they can, and do, distort the facts so as to render a mythic tale whereby Wellington was destined and was always meant to be the capital. In their telling the capital should have been Wellington from the beginning. No telling of their attempt to bribe Hobson of course – they wouldn’t want anyone knowing that. The holding of parliamentary sessions in Christchurch and elsewhere is written off as some accident, that it was some mistake, that it was a series of errors when it was meant to be Wellington the whole time. It is self-serving nonsense and yet they not only believe it they insist that the rest of the country does too.
The chief characteristics stemming from the laziness and the born-to rule attitude of the inhabitants is complacency. Complacency permeates every fixture. They hold themselves responsible only to themselves and for their own convenience they hold very low standards. Do people ever get fired there? They can lie, they can cheat, they can commit any gross negligence and still remain in their positions, beyond accountability.
The other prevailing characteristic, which must stem from some core element of complacency is conformity. Total conformity. Conformist thinking and action in every respect towards everything. All departments suddenly have personal pronouns. Everyone suddenly has Te Reo salutations in their emails. The closest thing to ‘the Borg’ in real life is Wellington. The existence and level of conformity was thoroughly proven on that trip to Wellington when the GF and I were standing at traffic lights on a week day lunchtime waiting to cross on Lambton Quay, the government end of town, and she says “look, everyone is wearing purple.” There was more than a dozen pedestrians on all corners waiting. I thought: impossible. “No, look.” We scanned around. He was wearing a purple tie, her a purple bag, him a purple scarf, her purple polka dots, a purple belt, a purple shirt, a purple umbrella… and so on. But hang on – “that guy isn’t!” Only one, but he didn’t have purple, so she was wrong. We looked hard. “No, look, he’s got purple socks.” Oh, so he did. Every single person there was wearing at least one item of purple. The dress code. The advertisement to demonstrate you were part of the Borg. The club card. Complete conformity. They didn’t need a memo, they were just conforming, as they do – the whole street. Anyone (like ourselves) who were meeting someone from the Borg would be instantly identifiable to them as not one of them – and I guess treated as an outsider. Subtle, but effective segregation.
With that assessment of what typifies a Wellingtonian let me approach the question of the Government’s announcement they will appoint a ‘Crown Observer’ to the semi-functional Wellington City Council.
Their city council is just a manifestation of themselves. They are a precious and wanky lot. They elect by STV – of course they would, it’s the wankiest system available and they would feel obliged to choose it. They elect dweebs. Dweebs. Hand-wringing, lisping, falling down stairs drunk, bad haircut mayors and councillors. Dweebs. Surprisingly the first non-dweeb this century is Tory Whanau. She hasn’t gelled with the councillors perhaps because she isn’t a dweeb. She has other problems, hilariously, but being a dweeb is not one of them.
If we come back to complacency and to conformity and to collusion also we can chart the course to Crown observation and potential commissionership.
Why would a city destroy its iconic infrastructure? Why would a city dismantle its point of difference, its uniqueness, its differentiation? Would Melbourne rip out their trams? Would San Fransisco rip out their cable cars? Would Venice fill in their canals? It is unthinkable to do such a thing. Yet that is what Wellington did – they pulled down the trolley bus wires – no more trolley buses. They destroyed the only thing, the one and only thing, that made Wellington different. An electric bus system – object and envy of any city – and they just tore it all down.
And then…
In that city with the worst wind, the worst weather, the steepest streets, the narrowest streets, that city council allocated a quarter of a billion dollars in their Long Term Plan for cycleways. Trolley buses were a futile waste, but hundreds of millions of dollars on cycle lanes were a futurist utopia. This was the thinking of the Wellington City Council.
And then…
The city that had skimped for years on maintenance of their water and sewer network, having them explode at ever increasing intervals all over the city, that never had any meters so no-one ever cared about usage, that had conspired with central government to get “3 Waters” established so everyone else would be subsidising their network, instead of firing the network manager promotes her to be CEO of Wellington Water. This was the thinking of Wellington.
And now…
A Crown Observer is to be put in to make sure the Long Term Plan gets through after the Council reneged on selling their airport shares. What a joke. Almost as though they don’t care about consequences. Trust their mates across the street in the central government departments will have a few meetings with them to get the rest of the country to bail them out – that has always been the extent of their strategic planning.
We are all waiting for the inevitable earthquake that reduces the city to rubble. Then we will all be expected to resurrect Hellington? Hell no!
Yep, welly deserves to have the parliament there. Keep all the nasty incompetent shits in one place.
The rest of kiwiland can ignore them and get on with doing stuff as it should be done.
Great summary Tim.
Well, having spent a lot of time in Hellington after travelling there for union meetings of various kinds I disagree to some extent with Mr Selwyn. There are pockets of interesting people and places if you explore. Would not want to live there though, waiting for the “big one” that is for sure. Just imagine if the Victoria Tunnel collapsed and one or two other main arteries, the place would be well stuffed.
The geography and weather contributes substantially to the place and population being a bit odd. As does the class composition–lots of National this and National that positions in CBD, working class basically penned up in the Hutt, Porirua or Petone. People spend a lot of time racing between buildings and being hunkered down by the crap weather, so social interaction is weird. Their have been periods of renewal downtown but now everything looks rusted or in need of a good water blast.
Go there if you have to, but generally not for fun.
Weather – lived in Wellington for a while in my youth – stayed at boarding hostel in Thorndon. Going home after work I had the feeling that the wind hated me as I plodded forward. Apart from that Tim S you have spewed it all, said the bad things of Wellington which no doubt have influenced the political and administrative climate that has led to cluster fuck (great word).
Now committed citizens have to be gem hunters, and look for the good things and the alive democratic people in Wellington to coalesce and build second-hand shanties round The Government Building, the biggest, old wooden building …check google below…So there are buildings with grand profiles plus ideas to be picked up from storage, historic and museum-like, examined for purpose and rightness. Then the good ones suitable for 21st century get cherished and readied and the good citizens take them forward with all Wellingtonians in mind. And start insisting that their guilds get contracts to do things from government so they can step into overpaid administrators shoes and outface the predator businesses sucking up the taxes with numerous entities, largely owned by one corpse. (Think road cones – who makes and supplies them?)
A great and flashy start, don’t let it die away, even if it does end with an earthquake bang;
but ‘Not with a bang but a whimper’. Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Men
The heart of Wellington?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Government_Buildings,_Wellington
New Zealand’s Old Government Buildings sit on the Government Buildings Historic Reserve, on Lambton Quay in central Wellington.
The buildings were completed in 1876 on land reclaimed from Wellington Harbour to house the young New Zealand Government and its public service.
The building now houses the Victoria University of Wellington’s Law School. It is classified as a Category 1 historic building by Heritage New Zealand.
Until 1998, the building was the second-largest wooden building in the world (after Tōdai-ji in Nara, Japan). (This is not verified.)
and further
The first Wellington Government House was Colonel William Wakefield’s villa, near the main steps of Parliament Buildings. Although this residence was taken for use as a hospital for a time in 1848 after a severe earthquake, there is a record of the first
Government House Ball being held in it, on 10 February 1849.
Other Government Houses | The Governor-General of New Zealand
The Governor-General of New Zealand
https://gg.govt.nz › government-house › other-governm.
(Note the ‘taken for hospital after earthquake’ – at that time we here thought as country, not as pseudo royalty/plutocrats.)
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_House,_Wellington#First_Government_Houses
Yes Grey the wind, the weather. After 20 years I cracked, proper summers with heat and less wind were required.
After leaving what do I miss, not much. The walking on hills in the Town Belt perhaps, still can’t get used to walking on the flat. The south coast in a storm maybe. Murtabak at Rasa on Cuba St.
Crazy how this government is spinning a culture war between Auckland style of governance and Wellington style. Getting us to fight each other and distract us meanwhile the government burns the country to the ground and they’re laughing at us bickering like Mr Selwyn here carrying water for the government whilst they give kickback deals to their wealthy BIG BUSINESS Donors.
Exactly! How easy it is to distract the NZ lemmings away from what they are really doing- systematically destroying what is left of the concept of society, using the English establishments’ tried and true tactic of Divide and Rule (in a modern sense) to cement a corporatocracy. Unified opposition to this Government is required, not this crap!
Like all of Tim Selwyn’s work this article was eminently readable and by its sheer journalistic flair would bring credit to any newspaper, magazine or website. Tongue-in-cheek for sure, but the point must be that we are not talking about Wellington as a geographical location, we are not talking about the home of James Baxter, Patricia Grace and Sam Hunt, we are not talking about Te Whanganui a Tara, we are not even talking about Poneke. We are talking about Wellington as the seat of government and the embodiment of colonialism. An afflicted city, but not beyond hope of redemption.
Whenever I stayed at a backpacker’s in Auckland, or anywhere else in NZ for that matter, nobody ever took my bgs upsatairs, and I didn’t expect them to. Wellingtonians are more self sufficient and don’t expect to be waited on hand and foot. Who the hell does Tim think he is? Lord bloody Muck.
Is this satire? Please tell me it’s satire – otherwise it’s sheer Bullshit. The place is far more human and much more livable than fucking Auckland.
Amen to that GS !
Awks full of whingers too over there own self made problems. 1979 – ” wah, wah I’m stuck in a traffic jam.” 2024 – ” wah, wah wah, wah, wah I’m stuck in a traffic jam.”
And lordy if an Awks has a problem, ( even indigestion) just like a few million others across the whole country , the WHOLE country has to have the news dominated by their hypochondriac egoism.
Guerilla surgeon, Sad to say Wellington has changed though. Most Lambton Quay walkers nowadays look like scruffy Queensland budget tour party members. If Whanau’s Golden Mile obsession eventuates it’ll be death to that once-respectable albeit conservative busy business and shopping precinct.
What on earth has the way people dress got to do with the livability or not of a city? If there are now more scruffy people in Wellington, it’s quite possibly the result of the 6000 jobs lost due to government policy. Hard to keep up appearances when you’ve got buggers all money coming in.
It is absolutely necessary now to give credence to the bright and honest sparks that exist around us. Wellington can’t be all bad and taking a journalistic downturn on it as a whole is not suitable for now, very 20th century and self-indulgent. This bit of verse shows how we can, and must, stop things from getting worse!
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939
W H Auden
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Wonderful work Tim! Great rant and fully deserved.
Many of us are just waiting for the Hikurangi subduction zone to do its thing and generate a tsunami that will sweep them all into Cook Strait, there to become fish food.
Wellington is fine if you know no better. No one but a Wellingtonian would think Waikanae was a holiday destination. Scorching Bay is a freezing hole and Island Bay is full South. Karori is misty and Khandallah soggy. Wellington weather is sh-te, the housing stock c grade. The inner city is dangerous. Courtney Place was always a cess pit but the crime went up a level under Ardern. The only good thing about Wellington is the departure lounge.
Wellington should work on that travelogue and could have a new burst of fascinated visitors – disaster tourism. See the world before it disappears sort of stuff. How the mighty have fallen. Thinks – Ozymandias.
The poem concerns the discovery of a semi-destroyed and decaying statue of Ramesses II, also known as Ozymandias, and shows how power deteriorates and will not last forever.
Ozymandias – Percy Shelley – AQA English Literature GCSE
The Coleshill School https://coleshill.warwickshire.sch.uk › 2022/04
Peter Sellars gave voice to a guide to the joys of ‘Balham Gateway to the South’ which could be cunningly echoed by Wellingtonians lauding their fair city. What do you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-JDgDhkajY
But also Wellington could make a short film to rival ‘Balham Gateway to the South’ and make a an attractive guide to the city and its denizens to rival that of Peter Sellars’ and others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ewUOSlRDkk
Feb 11, 2014
Balham, Gateway to the South is a spoof travel documentary sketch about the south London suburb of Balham. It was written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden for a 1950s BBC radio series called Third Division and featured actor Robert Beatty narrating highly exaggerated, dramatic claims regarding the putative attractions of ‘Bal-ham’. It was later more famously performed by Peter Sellers, in a parody of the famous American newsreel-travelogue host James A. Fitzpatrick, and subsequently released on the 1958 record The Best of Sellers, produced by George Martin.
The sketch was considerably expanded in 1979 to form the script of this 21-minute film directed by the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz. It stars Danny Schiller and Judy Gridley as bewildered American tourists, with Robbie Coltrane in several cameo roles including those originally voiced by Sellers. It is narrated by veteran actor David de Keyser. This 17-minute version was found on the internet and appears to have had its start chopped off….
“The Wellingtonians have constructed a self-serving hegemonic paradigm that spans policy and ventures into the mythologic. ”
It’s a lot of words to describe the awful feeling of desolation that comes from insufficient maple syrup. You’d be better off at McDonalds.
Would love to see the Tweet where I condemn the entire city for its service, but as OnlyKlans (or whatever Twttr is called now) only lets me search back to 2019, it’s my word against Tim’s. I’d call out specific businesses, and praise others, but I doubt I’d slam the whole place. It’d be like saying all Auckland drivers are shit.
Good to know serial is a synonym for twice. Mind you, I like how Aucklanders big things up. Did he say he had eight houses or only seven? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kind of lost track myself.
My passport says I was born in Wellington. But except for a year when entangled in a custody battle I’ve never lived there. Never ever thought of making it home. It reminded me of a provincial town
(except a bit bigger) with provincial folk (but admittedly with lots of career civil servants and policy grifters). It was always dark, raining and cold. And the rented house, old as, but perched high up with a view, was drafty and freezing cold. Summer didn’t seem any better. Some folk get used to it, afterall home is were the heart is. But for me Wellington was drab. The CBD anyway. For sure a certain run down charm but drab. But then I grew up in the winterless north, magnificent beaches, great fishing, but hardly a cultural mecca, not unless you’re tangata whenua.
Wind on 20 odd years and I found myself having to often travel there for meetings, mixing with the suits and policy grifters. Nothing much had changed. It was still windy, cold and drab. And it struck me that those clipping the ticket from all that decision making were a certain type. But of course, like everywhere, there are all types. But whether all types voted in Tory Whanau as mayor is debatable. Also debatable is whether the councillors are representative of all types.
I still travel there on occasions, last year for WOW and few years back for a touring musician. Wellington CBS seems just as drab, downright shabby in some parts. But I suspect thats due in part to building owners not wanting to foot the cost of earthquake strengthening, in part, lack of new investment other than the iconic builds a few years back. Cant speak for the suburbs. Perhaps the old Roseneath house with the ratting windows overlooking Wellington harbour has been pulled down and replaced with some top end architectural design. Perhaps not. Maybe the shabbiness of the place is its charm, for some at least.
The subject of Wellington seems to bring out the brain worms in some people and the most silly stupid things get blurted out ,,,,,
ie 1) nathan was informing (bullshitting) people and writing as fact that people in Wellington were having to line up to get WATER ,,,,
ie 2) keepcalmwankon 2) Was informing (bullshittting )that the Muslim ‘call to prayers’ was to become mandatory and compulsory by virtue of it being broadcast across wellington ,,,,, and it was all the Greens fault according to keepdumbcrapon ,,,, The truth- ‘Wellington City Council documents show the Kilbirnie Mosque has requested to broadcast calls to prayer on the anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks, once during the Festival of Eid al-Adha, and once during the Festival of Eid al-Fitr.
“At each broadcast, the call would last about a minute and a half to two minutes,” the council document confirms.” …. and ‘ the broadcast is not intended as a call throughout the neighbourhood or suburb. Instead, it would take place at a mosque forecourt and be amplified using a sound system “for the benefit of those assembled there”.,,,, .
,,,,. I have a friend who lives within 100-200 meters of the Kilbernie mosque ,,,, and will report in due course as to whether he could even hear, let alone be annoyed or alarmed,,, about keepcalm’s hyped up compulsory Islam fearmongering ,,,
Examples 1 & 2 were dumb & lazy ,,, stupid and easy to refute with minimal effort like a 1 minute internet search.
Tim is example 3) ,,,,with his “Never liked Wellington; liked Wellingtonians even less. ” ,,,, and ‘ the base character of the modern-day Wellingtonian.’ flows from and is the same as (a) “cabal of colluding, covetous opportunists ,, ” ,,,,,,
Tim is being stupid and it’s only the amount of words and the effort of writing them which saves him from the description of being lazy as well….
Tims argument is that a stereotype ,,, in this case his stereotype of Wellingon people ,,,, is accurate and true….. Don’t bother talking or communicating with a person from Wellington,,,, Tim’s told us what they will be like….
Other examples of this type of ‘thinking’,,, applied to different groups of people are ,,,, 30/11/23″ Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman:/collective punishment/,,,,, “There are no innocents in Gaza.”
Or we could visit Kiwi Blog and check out their stereotypes/racism about Maori and other PI people ,,, although Idiots like ‘Im right’ & gaby & keepcalm give us a lick of their predominant dog-shit mind-set here at TDB ,,,,
I would have thought Tim was above such things ,,,,, but it just goes to show, yet again, that it is very very very rare that I find a author or journalist that I’m 100% in agreement with ..
P.s I was born in Dunedin ,,, and p.s2 ,,, I was arguing in the flesh and blood with a person claiming Wellington was the ‘city in the world’ a couple of weeks ago…..
So it’s not the Best ,,, it’s not the Worst ,,,, and it’s people are made up of all types and stripes.
Stating the obvious ……
16/10/2023 Boaz Bismuth Member of the Israeli Knesset
(Likud),,,genocidal intent /civilian harm/ collective punishment
“We must not show mercy to cruel people, there is no place for any humanitarian gestures” –
we must erase the memory of Amalek (biblical tribe hostile to the Israelites) “.
Tims arguement
ie) 3