Editorial: Common values pointing the way

The worst illnesses are those that advance insidiously, doing their work undetected until the damage is so great that the patient goes from apparent good health to critical condition in one agonising moment. Worse still is the realisation that early detection and treatment could have produced a vastly different outcome. Had the patient known of the illness, swift and perhaps radical action would have been taken.

So why is it that, although New Zealand is displaying all the underlying symptoms of a serious illness, there is no sense of urgency that the sickness must be treated?

Consider what those symptoms are. In the past decade New Zealand had a significantly lower economic growth rate than nine comparable countries of less than 10 million population - and that included Puerto Rico and Uruguay. In that period Puerto Rico's relative gross domestic product a head went from $US9000 to $US15,000 while our own rose from $US13,000 to $US14,000. Continuing at that rate, in 10 years we will trail even Slovenia, a country struggling to pull itself out of its communist past, and our GDP a head will be a quarter that of Singapore's. It is no 10-year aberration. Over the past 40 years our economic growth has lagged woefully behind that of other developed countries.

Such statistics should come as no surprise. They are being pointed to time and again by those who see the country as a sick man who continues to smoke and eat fatty foods in spite of the cardiologist's warning. What worries those concerned individuals is the lack of any sense of immediacy, the infuriating belief that we have all the time in the world to set matters right. The simple truth is that we are fast running out of time. We are staring at a crisis that will see us slip off the register of developed nations.

It seems that only the patient is unaware of the problem. Diagnosticians have been gathered around the examination table for a year or more, engaged in very useful discussions about cause, effect and treatment. Unfortunately, none of that fraternity has been able to harness sufficient leadership to order the patient into the operating theatre.

That moment will come only when there is a sense of crisis. When New Zealand as a whole realises we have a problem - a big problem - the motivation will be there to act rather than talk. There is, however, a clear distinction to be made. The country needs to recognise it is faced with a crisis but that is no excuse to panic. We must place ourselves in what one of the diagnosticians has called constructive crisis mode. There is nothing like peril to draw people together in a common cause. That cause is the resurrection of New Zealand's fortunes in a way that allows the majority of its people to contribute and to share in the rewards.

However, if we are to win the battle to return the country to robust good health we need to have a clear understanding of what we want to be and the values that will guide us as we move in new directions. Unfortunately we spend insufficient time talking about such apparently esoteric matters. When Austin Mitchell sought to paint our portrait in The Half-Gallon Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise in the 1970s he quoted the head of an Oxford college as saying that all New Zealanders looked alike: tall, craggy featured, nothing to say. In the same decade Gordon McLauchlan gave us an enduring label in The Passionless People. We have not come so far in the intervening three decades that we can claim we have become spirited upholders of a well-articulated national identity and aspiration.

A debate on those ideals must be a forerunner to change and it must be seen to reach popular conclusions. That requires wide community participation. The Herald will play its part by offering our Dialogue pieces as a forum. We will commission commentators in key areas to begin the process. The first of those essays, by historian Michael King and columnist Gordon McLauchlan, address that most basic of questions: what makes us what we are?

In a note accompanying his essay, Dr King wrote: "I thoroughly approve of the crusade. But it is possible to overstate the value." He is right. A debate is not an end in itself.

It can and must be only a beginning - but an important one.

Herald Online feature: Common core values

We invite to you to contribute to the debate on core values. E-mail dialogue@herald.co.nz.