Chief Human Rights Commissioner for New Zealand Stephen Rainbow.
Each day on The Great New Zealand Road Trip, we catch up with a notable and noteworthy New Zealander, posing to them the same nine questions. Today, Chief Human Rights Commissioner for New Zealand Stephen Rainbow responds.
What’s one word to sum up your mood right now?
Frustration. We’re not dealing with the big-picture challenges facing New Zealand; instead we’re too focused on day-to-day clickbait issues. In the lead-up to the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi, we need more opportunities to openly explore what kind of society we want. I believe there’s a widespread desire to make New Zealand a better place where we all have a sense of belonging and everyone is given a fair go, but instead we’re being divided and polarised, and not being given enough opportunities to explore our shared future in any depth.
What do you wish people knew about where you live?
I live in Auckland. My last weekend included a classic car fundraising event for Daffodil Day, hosted by the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple in Flat Bush – where we were able to explore its beautiful buildings and gardens – before heading to Papatoetoe for lunch at the Middle Eastern restaurant Khanz. So I love the rich diversity of our city and how you can have so many experiences in the space of a few hours.
What are your passions?
In recent years, music has become very important to me, particularly choral and sacred music, which has become a source of great consolation during the most challenging times I’ve faced. I also love my Mustang!
Which New Zealander (alive or dead) do you most admire – and why?
My Dad. He turns 92 in a few weeks. He has worked tirelessly his whole life to support his family, never complaining and living with impeccable moral integrity. He’s everything that’s great about our country. He is my North Star. Apart from my Dad, I admire Sir Bob Harvey, not only for his incredible career but for the fact that after every conversation with him, I know I will come away inspired by his relentless enthusiasm for life.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Good wine and food with trusted friends, discussing things that matter with total honesty.
What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is that the loss of faith in our democratic values and institutions has the potential to undermine the free society that has provided people like me, from humble backgrounds, such unprecedented freedoms and opportunities – particularly as a gay man. Our loss of a sense of history and an awareness of the sacrifices that have enabled us to achieve one of the most successful societies in history is a real worry.
What is it that you most dislike?
The disrespect of our public spaces and how our city streets are cluttered and uncared for is a personal bugbear of mine as someone who walks to and from work, and who wishes that we cared more about beauty as a value to be upheld.
What is on your bucket list?
Doing some kind of spiritual retreat at a place like Mt Athos or Safed, or doing a walking pilgrimage in Eastern Europe or Japan, and visiting the Arvo Pärt museum in Tallin, Estonia. I also have several books inside me waiting to be written!
What do you hope/think New Zealand will look like in 10 years?
One million of us will be over 65 within the next decade. I hope we will be a country that protects the rights of our older people so they can continue to contribute fully to our society.
I also hope in the next 10 years we will have paid much greater attention to the root causes of the mental health challenges faced by alarming numbers of our young people.
But most importantly, I want to see a widespread understanding of human rights underpinning a renewed commitment to a shared sense of values that all New Zealanders buy into as part of a focus on what the five million of us (and likely to be much more) lucky enough to share these isles have in common, rather than what divides us.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor.