You gotta take it easy, easy
Live your life
Take on any kind of weather you and me together (You and me together)
We'll be fine (We'll be fine)
We hear a lot about how bad things are, all the time. The leader of the opposition, Christopher Luxon, says we are a very negative, wet, whiney, inward-looking country. He says our businesses are getting soft, and apparently we’re Bottom Feeders, and just focus on the bottom.
How tiresome it must be for someone who wants to be the leader for those at the top, to have to focus on those at the bottom.
Mike Hosking proclaims that all is doom and gloom and he’s moving to Australia. According to Mike the government is imploding, it doesn’t understand basic economics, the whole thing is a debacle, it goes on and on and that’s just this week.
Last month Mike was complaining that having Te Reo on signs would be confusing. It seemed to make him very cross, but then most things do. So now that the rollout has started, just how confusing are the signs? Or to put it another way - how right was Mike Hosking?
Hmm, apparently he wasn’t right at all. I don’t feel even a little bit angry or confused looking at the sign on the right. Do you?
Maybe other things aren’t so terrible either? Perhaps the Labour government is not, as ZB listeners seem to think, causing life as we know it to end. To be fair if you listened to Mike Hosking every day, you might end up with quite a pessimistic outlook on humanity too.
But things just aren’t that bad. Sure there are problems, but compared to pretty much anywhere else - we have it sweet.
Not only do the things that Hosking and Luxon say not match how I feel, or how I imagine many others feel, but they just don’t seem to be true either.
I took a quick look at the headlines this morning, and apparently we have the best work/life balance in the world. So that’s quite good, right?
“Aotearoa New Zealand has beat out 59 other countries to be crowned the best in the world for work-life balance, a concept that is seeing greater scrutiny post-pandemic with the introduction of hybrid work models and four-day weeks.
New Zealand scored highly across several metrics, offering a generous statutory annual leave allowance (32 days), a high rate of sick pay (80 percent), and a Government-funded universal health care system.”
Other countries have done well in some factors. The Spanish are tops in day time sleeps. Australia on the other hand does well with the number of sunshine hours.
Probably not a lot we can do about the sunshine, although I would just point out that since Jacinda resigned our weather has been awful. So I guess that could be worth trying to see if it helps. I’m kidding, Chippy is doing just fine. Plus if summer ever does return he’ll be an excellent reminder to slip slop slap.
That’s a great slogan isn’t it? Although it’s meaning seems to have been lost in time. What is it again?
Slip on some jandals so you don’t burn your feet on the melted tarmac and black sand beaches? Slop on some tomato sauce - treat yourself, give that 5% meat snag some flavour beyond “burnt”. And best of all Slap the bejesus out of Simeon Brown.
Despite all the doom and gloom it seems that something else is going very well. Business confidence of all things! Yes, don’t tell Brad Olsen or Christopher Luxon, but apparently it is on the up. Imagine poor Heather du Plessis-Allan having to read out this headline:
She won’t have been a happy camper. The problem for Heather, and her ZB cohorts, is once you unravel the big lie that the economy performs better under National, which it doesn’t, you’re left with the fact that Labour are, and have been, very prudent managers of our economy.
Forget anything else like social spending, from a purely economic perspective if you look at the last couple of Labour Finance Ministers - Robertson and Cullen, vs the last couple of National ones, English and Joyce, it is no contest.
English produced year after year of deficits, despite reducing the funding of social services and having a “rock star” economy - remember that? Just deficit after deficit, almost as if having tax cuts wasn’t the flashest move at a period of great economic uncertainty - the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). You remember the GFC - the one caused by John Key’s mates playing Monopoly and losing everyone else’s money.
As for Steven Joyce, such was the humiliation of his fictitious 11.7 billion dollar fiscal hole that the only way he can earn money now is by rorting universities, and guest columns in the Herald. Apparently NZME still subscribes to the traditional belief that National are good with the economy and is happy to provide a platform for the expert commentary of someone who failed the same economics papers two years in a row.
Hmm uncertain economic times, with a snake oil offering National leader saying the answer to all problems is tax cuts. Excuse me if I say - I think I’ve seen this one before, I know how it ends. I don’t think we need a sequel.
The standard plot is that we spend a couple of election cycles moving the dial a little in favour of workers, and those doing it hard, then we have a couple moving the dial back to the business owners and the wealthy. Over time change is slow and somethings never really make much progress.
But there is a secret - we don’t have to follow that story.
There are hundreds of thousands of good people in this country. Fabulous people who are living their lives, doing their mahi - these are not people afraid of hard work, looking after their whanau. People with a great love for this land and it’s people.
Maybe it’s time all those wonderful people said no. No, Mr Hosking, you don’t speak for me. If you think Australia is so great then off you pop, we actually like it here.
No, Mr Luxon, we’re not a bunch of wet whiners, you might be thinking of Simeon. We’re not, we love this place and we want to fill it with even more caring for others and giving everyone a fair go. Because that is who we are. We’re not whiners who will go ‘OMG a couple of potholes, lets change the government’.
There are things we can all do encouraging people to become better informed, encouraging young people to get out and vote like their future depends on it. But maybe one of the best things we can do is take it easy.
Simply say - actually I think this place is pretty damn great. I like most of the folks who live here, they’re good people. Why the heck would I want to change all that just because Mike and Christopher keep yelling that the sky is falling?
Yesterday after I’d written my article about Kiri Allan I watched some of the parliamentary committee that she and Simeon Brown were appearing at. I’m not sure there could’ve been more of a contrast. Kiri was under pressure, heartbroken - we subsequently learnt following the break up of her relationship, and yet strong, determined, and passionate about governing in the interests of the people.
Simeon Brown was just revolting, asking petty questions to try and make Kiri look bad, at a time when she was vulnerable. Simply to score political points in some messed up game that National MPs seem to think they are elected to parliament to play. How anyone could look at that encounter and think I’m voting to make the weasel guy a Minister in the next government, is beyond me.
This is our country, the people who love this land. The ones who care about others and want to see them with happy successful lives, acknowledging that we don’t all start in the same place and some of us are going to need a bit more help than others.
I’m not saying it’s not your country to anyone. What I’m saying is join us. The joy you get from seeing New Zealanders who need it get a helping hand, of being part of a society where people care about each other and think everyone deserves a decent life, will be of far more value than a few bucks from a tax cut.
Aotearoa, and it’s people, are pretty wonderful. We do need to remember to take it easy and enjoy that. Hopefully the 15th of October will be a good day for it.
Hard to choose my favourite line today but when push comes to shove, I think it has to be this one:
And best of all Slap the bejesus out of Simeon Brown.
Just what I needed to read right now, thank you. 😊