There are those saying this was only a matter of time given the state of law and order in this country these days.
I know the state of our country right now is enough to drive people out, I know many who are doing just that - upping sticks and leaving.
I don't know him personally, but Marc Ellis is another of them. The former All Black, and iconic Kiwi personality, is leaving for Italy. And who can blame him?
His reason is, we’ve lost our mojo. As in the country - and he’s not wrong. He’s trading us in for Mediterranean coastal paradise, pasta, property ‘as cheap as chips’ as he put it, happy people, and ‘gorgeous food at reasonable prices’ he said. Sounds alluring.
What’s wrong with NZ? He said our finest days are behind us. “We’re not at our peak, you don’t feel the same vibe or energy anymore,” he says.
As hard as it is to hear those brutally honest words, it’s also confronting because it’s true. It’s horrible to admit, but he's right. There isn’t the same vibe or energy anymore.
There’s angst and friction and division, there’s fear and there’s a malaise we can’t seem to shake. There’s low productivity and high expectation that everyone else will solve your problems.
There’s less personal responsibility, less ambition. Stats are all going backwards, education, health, crime, it’s a shambles. And that’s before we even get to Auckland’s CBD witnessing a traumatic shooting yesterday.
And so we surely can’t blame those who are seeking refuge elsewhere. Ellis says, “New Zealand is being pulled apart at the seams. I thought we were egalitarian and unified,” he says, “but some people who feel slightly disenfranchised use that to exacerbate rifts for political reasons.
There is a cost of living problem and it has become a heavy place – it’s not the New Zealand of five years ago.” It’s awful to hear it isn’t it, because we know there’s truth in it.
We wish it wasn’t so. I’m always amazed at how little time it took to wreck a country but I feel like that’s what’s happened here. And the worry I guess for many of us, is how do we turn it around? Can we? Or is it too late?
How do you turn around all our woeful stats? How do you encourage productivity again? How do you get that vibe back?
It’s almost an overwhelming concept for the next government, I’m not sure how they take on all this debt, all these issues, all these attitudes, and actually do anything tangible about it, it seems like an uphill battle. Aside from better weather and warmer seas, Ellis says the people are happier in Europe too. He says there’s ‘twice the product at half the price.’
That could be why people are happier. I mean when you look at what we pay for stuff here it really feels like an island nation at the bottom of the world doesn’t it.
Limited supply, inflated prices, increasing crime and violence. Yesterday's shooting doesn't help. So is Ellis right when he says our glory days are behind us? Sadly, I think he is.
Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.
9 comments:
Like Marc, we voted with our feet. As did 2 of our adult children, with their families.
And yes, it’s probably too late to fix the country. The ideological brainwashing delivered through the education system is slowly boiling the frogs.
Those of us who remember NZ at its best have already jumped, or are getting ready to do so.
He has hit the nail on the head. But why do our politicians try to deny it? What is wrong with National that they don’t seem to want to admit it? Act has toured the country and hearing just what Marc Ellis espouses. We are a divided country like never before.
I agree with marc. I have a number of friends who have their leaving plans in place and are just waiting to see if labour and the coalition of chaos get back in. If national and act can get in , then there may be a chance for us. Nz has lost it's mojo like mark has said. Italy has it all, fashion like you would not believe, beautiful people, culture, food scenery. Many of us have an "under the tuscan sun" fantasy and there are still websites selling houses for 1 euro. No one over there will be telling you should feel colonist guilt for being born in your own country the wrong colour. I agree with marc about the vibe and energy. The kiwi can-do, we are all in this together, attitude has completely gone due to this govt creating division and harm. Good luck to marc ellis and his family, What a fabulous future he will have.
And it can all be laid at the door of the most corrupt, lying, treasonous, incompetent coalition of cockups this country has ever seen.
I feel only disgust for the present administration and what they have done to this country in just six years.
I feel sorrow for the children with the present education system which includes indoctrination rather than education. Having to grow up in an environment of fake pandemics,climate fearmongering, authoritarianism, apartheid, state propaganda and politicians who cannot define a woman.
Having grown up in the 40s, 50s through the times of CMT and National Service the decline in respect, self-respect and self-discipline has become more obvious as has the decline in the willingness of certain sections of the poulation to take responsibilities for their own actions and lifestyles and the effect that has on the wider community.
There must surely be someone who can turn this situation around, but I cannot see any prospects in the present crop of politicians.
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
Thomas Jefferson
Ho Hum,
Just another week in KiwiLand:-
Gangs take over Opotiki - police help them to own the road.
A rapist is "sentenced" to home detention.
A shooting in Auckland.
Business as usual !!!
Kate, just read a headline in the Herald that public service zombies will receive a $3,500 bonus to learn maori. How bloody unproductive is that? A stone age unwritten hobby language that is not understood by most of the NZ population and zilch internationally, more taxpayer's hard earned dollars thrown away. If this bunch of wombles get back in my wife and I will return to China, a first world capitalist Country compared to our racist lefty banana republic. Forgot to mention the embarrassing war dance that pops up everywhere now and the shame I feel when overseas guests start laughing at it. Kiwialan.
The evidence presented at the Chch infanticide trial re life in South Africa gives a good glimpse of where the Treaty reinterpretations, Labour maori Caucus and Te Pati are taking us. The shooting incident in Auckland wil not help. With very many brainwashed embittered, deranged, like Reid about, no one in politics, Police or the Court system will dare take a tough line.
Dear Ms Hawkesby.
I find it interesting, that a "noted person"- Marc Ellis, produces "verbal sound bites regarding NZ". Other than being a sporting figure, in his day "lauded for his sporting ability", but what did he do for NZ in between "games" or after "retiring"?
You make the comment (quote) "His reason, we've lost our mojo.. "(end quote), may be you should go to Australia, particularly Queensland and source New Zealander's who "crossed the ditch years ago" for the (possibly) same reasons as Mr Ellis is now stating.
The loss of people, from NZ, to Australia has been a common process, starting back in the 1950's, and from those whom I have spoken to, their reasons - "NZ at the time did not cut the mustard, and employment was becoming hard to find". The other comment was, that a return to NZ was not being considered and possibly may never happen.
This process is still ongoing. You only have to read news reports from those who have recently moved. And when you read the comment - "should have done it years ago..", I feel, is very revealing.
IF (big IF) we have a change of Govt, later this Year, I would contend that National will be no better that Labour and our migration of Citizens from - to, will increase. Should Labour (heaven forbid) return to the Treasury benches, then the same action will occur.
With a decline in Education at all levels, the loss of people, with skilled, will be hard to replace, as we are currently witnessing that we have a generation who have no interest in working, other that their cell phones.
ANON, of New Zealand.
New Zealand is in a very sorry, divided state and it is obvious that this Labour Government and a worldwide woke narrative are to blame. If it doesn't change as a result of this coming election, along with a cancellation of
the welfare/gender identity obsessed Greens and the separatist Te Pati Maori, this country is truly stuffed and there will be an exodus of our best like no other time in our history.
Unbelievably sad that it has come to this - and what a despicable legacy Ardern and Hipkins.
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