Well it’s been a tough week hasn't it? I mean many of us are still in the post-Covid malaise anyway but bad news makes it worse doesn't it?
We've had principals this week saying they’re worried about families who’ve just vanished due to truancy. So you’ve got large swathes of kids just not showing up for school for a variety of reasons, some of them so random, like they just don't trust the school system anymore.
You’ve got farmers infuriated by the emissions scheme being foisted upon them, which they say is going to kill farming and the communities they exist in.
You’ve got power and gas prices about to soar even further making it even tougher for our cost of living crisis.
Young people don’t seem bothered to work. We had Hospitality NZ CEO Julie White on the show this week and she said for all the advertising and wage hikes and flexibility on offer, they still can’t get Kiwis into hospitality roles. They need 30,000 people and she said whichever way you slice it, it just seems Kiwis don’t want to work.
And with school, it seems many parents don’t seem bothered to get their kids back into school.
Many who moved to working from home during Covid now want life to stay that way too. So we’ve had this gradual, but really impactful, disconnect in terms of the way we function.
We saw it on display this past weekend with the woeful local body election turnout too – literally no one cares.
A worse turnout than last time which is hard to believe, but maybe we just need to start believing it.
But when it comes to schooling, I’m not sure it’s all truancy because home-schooling, post the pandemic is up 80 percent. That’s huge.
“Northland and Southland have seen the biggest rises, with 91% and 86% increases, respectively,” one report said and then went on to question whether or not these students are actually getting a good enough education. The standard of their education seems in doubt.
Which is a worry; given how low the education standards are right now for the students who do still turn up for classroom teachers. I’m not sure home schooling should be isolated out as potentially any worse. All education standards across the board seem to have slipped these days.
But you see it in the general shift in mood in shops, cafes, restaurants and many of the service industries. There seems a lackadaisical approach across the board.
Attitudes are different. The one thing I hear from friends and colleagues who’re travelling overseas is that the rest of the world seems more upbeat, is getting on with it more, is less bogged down in the daily running of life.
The bounce back, I’m not talking necessarily economically, I just mean the bounce back in terms of attitude, has happened faster than it has here.
So I just don’t know if the future of the workforce and schooling here is now forever changed, and it just is what it is.
Or whether we do get our mojo back at some stage. I’m hoping it's the latter. And I’m hoping it starts happening soon.
Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.
2 comments:
There is a definite lack of mojo in nz. It feels like you are witnessing a counrty in slow collapse and that people who can, are leaving. Auckland no longer works. You cannot even get a reliable train to work. The lines are soon closing down for some years. You can't see a doctor if you need one unless you book a week or sometimes 2 weeks in advance. At night when you are trying to sleep all you hear are ferral people in cars doing burnouts and playing loud music to deliberately wake up the neighbourhood. You think of calling the police but you know they won't come. When you walk outside you see so much litter on the street. It is not nz. Then when you tell someone else your feelings, they dismiss you and say oh it's happening all around the world, not just here. Oh really? And then to top it all off you suddenly have people in parliament saying that colonists and their awful democracy ruined everything, so you no longer feel welcome in the country of your birth. For these reasons many of us feel this loss of mojo that you speak of kate.
The loss of mojo is partly due to the Covid hangover but that should be well and truly wearing off by now. However, it is mostly due to the terrible co-governance and social policies being followed by this government which continue unabated.
- People allowed to stay on benefits when there are plenty of jobs out there.
- Crime escalating but an ineffective, woke police force unfit/unwilling to combat it
- constant promotion of Maori to the detriment of everyone else, making 85% of NZders feel undervalued
- constant accusations of racism and colonialism leveled at anyone criticising the government
- a media which is guilty of dereliction of its duty to report fairly and in a balanced way
I could go on but it's been said so many times on this website by many others.
NZ is in a very bad way. This is worse than just a terrible government. This is an attack on the social fabric of our country and most of our citizens have been found wanting in fighting back. They are mostly resigned and compliant.
Have we ran out of No8 wire and where has our can-do attitude gone? Or was that just another tired media story with nothing to back it up.
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