I don't think anybody expected billionaires to become a topic of discussion in this election but here we are.
It started, of course, with Jack Tame's question to the Chris' during the leaders' debate on whether it was basically morally offensive for someone to be a billionaire.
Then John Key raised it again during Herald Now's Future of New Zealand debate, taking issue with the question itself. He says we're wowsers if we think it's okay for sportspeople and artists to be successful but not okay for billionaires, businesspeople and entrepreneurs to be successful.
And he's bang on, isn't he?
Because we should be celebrating success, whatever it looks like. We need to stop this strange impulse we seem to have to turn rich people into evil caricatures.
Often, you'll find rich people do very good things with their money.
Nick Mowbray, who made his money from his toy empire, and his wife have helped dozens of people have children they otherwise wouldn't have had by funding IVF treatment.
The Plowman family has donated $150 million to conservation projects in New Zealand this year.
Mark Dunajtschik in Wellington built a children's hospital.
What, you don't want a children's hospital? I'd like a children's hospital. And if he has to build it, I'll take it, thanks very much.
And that's what Chris Luxon should have said.
After all, his Government is actively trying to attract this very type of person, wealthy individuals, to New Zealand by offering the golden visa.
But he didn't. He didn't defend them. John Key did.
Because do you know what John Key's got?
John Key has the clarity of thought and the absolute certainty in his position that is only possible because he is not embarrassed to be in the National Party.
I'm grateful for John Key's return to politics, if only to remind people in this country to be proud of our successful people and to want more of them, even if they're billionaires.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
I used to mentor teen-aged boys in a program called Tracks. Some of these kids came from low income families. Some of them told me "All those rich people are assholes." I said "Well I guess you'll always be poor because you don't want to be an asshole, right?"
I added that I'd personally spent time with several rich people who were good people and supported charities, and I'd also known poor people who were ratbags and took advantage of everyone around them.
In New Zealand the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" and the "Politics Of Envy" is alive and well. These memes are very difficult to change. They are reinforced by Identity Politics, Neo-Marxism, and Woke where everyone is either a victim or an oppressor.
The three great fallacies that define woke consciousness are, first, that being a victim makes you morally superior to other people; second, that this superiority can be inherited; and third, that this superiority is unaffected by your actions — thus you can be a bully and a tyrant, and still remain morally superior to other people because your ancestors were victims.
This is the reason that Luxon will not be PM a year from now, even if the right coalition wins.
I recall the death of a UK-born Chch businessman several years ago who donated heavily to charities. He died and left all his money to charities. On FB he was derided by some as just giving back what he had stolen. There are many in this country who detest anyone being better off than themselves through work and brains. Losers who think they are owed something.
How many billionaires are there in Russia and China ?
Hypocritically, so many of the poor Communists aspire to be billionaires.
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