Clive Bibby: We have had enough

The following contribution is not a boast. Nor is it meant to be a statement that is verifiable as fact - although it probably could be. It is simply the personal opinion of someone who believes he represents a majority of voters in this country who are concerned about the direction of where this nation is heading.

It is time to take stock of the current situation and do something meaningful in order to stop the potentially disastrous trend which has no mandate and is foreign to most kiwis who value their freedoms.

Readers might ask what qualifies me to make these claims.

I’ll let you be the judge of that after reading my personal history followed by observations where you can note the similarities to your own life experiences.

Here goes.

I am a simple person - but l am not a simpleton!

I will be 77 years old this November.

I am what many describe, using the most insulting terms that are becoming popular in today’s New Zealand Society, as a “pale, stale male!”

I am a member of what is arguably the luckiest generation to have been born in this country. Our formative years were spent during a couple of decades when New Zealand came as close as it is ever likely to get to becoming the true “egalitarian“ society. Sadly, that status appears to be a rapidly fading dream.

Contrary to what the radical Maori activists would tell you, our numbers include many of their forebears who have benefitted from our association at a time when the nature of ones birth mattered less than the quality of your individual character.

A good many of us are the product of a provincial, small town upbringing where families recognised their responsibilities for one another irrespective of status on the local social ladder. Many have made contributions to their communities that have far exceeded their financial ability to do so.

Most of us have experienced “struggle street” - sometimes as a result of bad choices but also, often simply as a result of events that found us in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However, those difficult times usually helped cement families together, all working for a common cause and in the process, becoming stronger and more resilient. We all had to make contributions to the family unit that were critical to our survival - the size of each contribution dependent only on our individual ability to make it.

Our values are those of our forebears who went to enormous trouble instilling behavioural standards in us that were recognisable and accepted by society as the codes by which we based our interaction as equals. Unfortunately, too many of our current leaders would fail to recognise those values if they fell over them.

The absence of and lack of commitment to those standards is one of the main reasons we are in this mess struggling to find common ground upon which we can build sustainable plans for the future. We have lost our way.

Those values systems included the following beliefs:

All kiwis are entitled to expect these living conditions as citizens of this country.

* a society based on equal opportunity for all irrespective of race, religious preference, sexual preference, political persuasion or status on the social ladder.

* the freedom to pursue personal objectives as long as they don’t interfere with the basic rights of others.

* a society where those who can acknowledge a responsibility to support those who can’t. It is called a welfare system that ensures no individual suffers needlessly as a result of being excluded from opportunities that should be available to all.

* an education system that is available to all in all it’s forms that teaches the real history of this country, warts and all. None of this revisionist crap that is currently being foisted upon us.

* a justice system that protects the ordinary person from the powerful and ensures that the laws of this country are applied evenly to all irrespective of individual background or origin.

* a government that is by the people, of the people and for all the people.

I’ve probably missed a few important things from that list but there should be enough there for most to identify with.

I would be surprised if most people haven’t ticked a majority of the boxes.

If you don’t identify with most of my observations, then it is more than likely you will struggle to understand why l am predicting a groundswell of those who have had enough that will become a tidal wave by Election Day.

Already the signs are beginning to show in the opinion polls and that momentum is likely to grow until it sweeps these imposters from the treasury benches next time we get the chance to vote.

They say it takes one to know one.

I trust my own judgement on this one. It’s really quite simple.

To use an familiar East Coast description - the facts are “sticking out like dogs balls!”

Clive Bibby is a commentator, consultant, farmer and community leader, who lives in Tolaga Bay.