Editorial: Should we just give up?

NZ First leader Winston Peters

Those who are appealing for our votes on September 23, at least in Northland, have plenty of good ideas for taking us to a happier, more prosperous place. Trouble, as always, is that what a candidate says and what their party believes in, and will actually do, are not always the same thing.

The exception in Northland is Winston Peters, who, as the only party leader seeking to represent us, has the ability to make firm promises.

Whether or not he will deliver is debatable, as always, however, by virtue of the fact that the electoral system that we were conned into adopting 21 years ago necessitates a degree of post election bargaining between parties, a process that means that no promise is beyond compromise. And history tells us that bottom lines don't always mean much.

We have grown so accustomed to political and bureaucratic incompetence that we seem to accept that it is the best we can hope for. It isn't.

Peter Jackson

But is this election really about creating a happier, healthier, more prosperous New Zealand by addressing problems that seemingly become more intractable by the day? It's true to say that this country is a very different place to what it was a generation ago, but the speed of our descent is gathering momentum.

Do those who know we can do better continue to rail against our decline, despite the evident inability of politicians to arrest that process, or do they just give up, and settle for doing what they can to protect themselves and their families?

The picture might not be as grim as we are constantly being told it is, but even if the lily is being gilded somewhat it isn't pretty. We are told that thousands of us are homeless, the lucky ones living in cars, the unlucky ones living (and dying) on the streets.

For all the staggering sums that are spent on health we have apparently made no inroads at all in terms of issues in a country where those who are prepared to make the minimal effort to live a fundamentally healthy lifestyle have no reason not to do so.

There is plenty of evidence that some young New Zealanders are receiving a first-class education, but many are not, whether that be thanks to failings within the education system or within those children's families.

We are witnessing increasing levels of crime and violence, last week's double murder outside Whangarei reinforcing the fact that authorities are no closer to effectively preventing access to firearms by those who clearly should not have access to them than they ever were. Or providing effective mental health services, for that matter.

Owning a dairy has become one of the country's more dangerous occupations. And who was genuinely shocked when a man was fatally stabbed in Hamilton last week when he confronted a bunch of kids breaking into cars? The three apprehended so far, all reportedly girls, are aged 12, 13 and 15.

We have an unemployment rate of around 4.9 per cent that, apparently, is as low as we can expect it to get. The 4.9 per cent, it seems, are unemployable, while we continue to import people from other countries to do the work they cannot or will not do. The individual rights that are now so deeply entrenched in this country include the right not to support oneself or one's family.

We have a society where more than half of families receive more in benefits and tax credits than they pay in income tax. That might be no fault of theirs, but how long will it be before the crushing weight of the few subsidising the many becomes too much to sustain?

And now we have a new drug crisis in the re-appearance of so-called legal highs. Those who promote the legalisation of marijuana don't want this stuff to be known as synthetic cannabis because, they say, that gives cannabis a bad name. Heaven forbid that a drug that has done incalculable damage over many years, and continues to do so, should be unfairly maligned.

If any of our current or aspiring politicians have any ideas about how to put a stop to this latest scourge they have yet to share them.

So we increasingly have two New Zealands, one where people do their best to support themselves and their families, to ensure that their children have a future and come to no harm, and the other where poverty of spirit has become so chronic that they can see no further than feeding their addictions while they depend upon the state for their very existence.

All this in a country where, by virtue of its size, solutions should be eminently achievable, and that, by any measure, is truly blessed.

Our political system, however, seems to be based on ignoring the worst of the problems, not so much in the hope that they will go away, perhaps, as in the expectation that we will become inured to them, to the point where we accept that they are beyond remedy. Life in 2017 is what it is.

The answer is what it has always been, to give every New Zealander the opportunity to contribute, and expecting that they will do so.

We are told that all this began with Rogernomics in 1984, and there is truth in that. Those reforms put paid to countless thousands of jobs that once sustained provincial communities, but we need to accept that the days when uneducated 15-year-olds could walk into a job are over.

Undoubtedly politicians could do much, if they wished, to revitalise the provinces, those parts of the country that actually create our national wealth, such as it is. But we need more than apprenticeships, taxes on soft drinks and the return of GST to those communities where it is generated.

We need to accept that the socialist society that has been created for us isn't working, and that we must restore the individual responsibility that was once a trademark of our national character.

And while governments rarely fix anything, we need those who aspire to represent us to accept a far greater degree of accountability. We have grown so accustomed to political and bureaucratic incompetence that we seem to accept that it is the best we can hope for. It isn't.

The ability for government to put out fires, whether they be a biosecurity threat, unlawful access to firearms or a drug industry that seems to function all but unmolested, has to improve markedly.

Then perhaps we can focus on actually constructing a future that includes everyone, establishing a clear path to making this a safer, healthier, happier, more prosperous country for all.

This hodge podge of ideas that we are seeing once again as we prepare to elect a government promises no such thing, whether those ideas be loopy (registering cats), insane (giving young New Zealanders $200 a week no questions asked) or eminently rational (encouraging the local processing of primary products).

The current options seem to be the status quo or further entrenching social welfare. Anyone who truly believes that more welfare is the answer doesn't understand the question.

The one thing we can be almost certain of is that nothing much will change on September 24.

This time next year we will still have problems in health, education, crime, poverty and drugs, when what we need is a new way of thinking, in Wellington and in every community in the country. In reality politicians will continue to promise us what they think we want, and studiously ignore the malaise that is not so gradually destroying us.