NZ April 2017: Top 10 Issues

After an extended visit to New Zealand I sat down with a select focus group (the people sitting in my daughter’s living room at the time) to nut out the top ten issues for New Zealanders in the last few months. 

Number One: By a long way. The state of our fresh water. Urbanisation is always a cause of water degradation, but the upsurge in polluted waterways from ‘dirty dairying’ is causing people to question the economic strategy of making money by turning New Zealand into the world’s largest dairy farm.

Number Two:   Rugby “That Beauden Barrett is something special, isn’t he?”, says Russ. As for the composition of super rugby, that’s for the Australians and South Africans to worry about. We’ll just play whoever turns up.

Number Three: Housing. Provision of, quality of, price of, the rent trap, homelessness. This has been an issue in Auckland for some time, but has now impacted residents of Wellington and other provincial cities.

Number Four: Cyclone Debbie topped off a decidedly underwhelming summer. The small Bay of Plenty town of Edgecumbe got through a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in 1987, but may not recover from Debbie’s floods.

Number Five: Speaking of earthquakes, the impacts of the 7.8 magnitude November earthquake in South Island’s Kaikoura region are still being felt in Wellington with several central city buildings demolished or closed for repair. As with the Christchurch earthquake, a particular type modern building did not perform as well as expected, sparking discussion about building standard regulations. 

Number Six: Donald Trump and how did this happen?!

Number Seven: Rest in peace New Zealand’s gumboot men - Murray Ball (Footrot Flats cartoons and movie) and John Clarke (aka Fred Dagg – although, to be fair, younger New Zealanders and Australians may not be familiar with this John Clarke persona). For better news, and to complete the trio of our legendary gumboot characters check out last year’s Taika Waititi movie “Hunt for the Wilderpeople”, based on the Barry Crump book “Wild Pork and Watercress”. It’s the best thing since, well, Footrot Flats!, or Waititi’s own charming and funny 2010 movie “Boy”.

Number Eight: ANZAC Day, where the usual Dawn Parade and service in laid-back town of Raglan was at the very civilised time of 11am. The commemorations were a little subdued this year, I feel, and affected by the recent publication of “Hit and Run” a book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and John Stephenson. The book alleges a cover-up of a SAS operation in Afghanistan that led to civilian deaths and injuries. The 12 year-old son of a New Zealand First politician made international news by angrily shouting at a peace activist protesting SAS actions in Afghanistan, opening up a national debate about rights of expressing dissent on the day.

Number Nine: Just as we were leaving, a surprising news item on the Pike River mine disaster that killed 29 miners in 2010. The mine is to be closed off without recovering the bodies of the miners. The government and mine managers insist the drift is too dangerous to enter. The news item in question showed a robot and men in the entrance of the drift, refuting that assertion. To this day no-one has been prosecuted for the design, operating and health and safety violations in this mine. It has been said that mine would never have been able to operate in Australia under Australian mining and health and safety regulations.  

Number 10:  It is an election year and housing, immigration and clean freshwater are shaping up as the issues of most concern. However the consensus is that the National Party will again win because, paradoxically, wealthy urban voters are benefiting from higher house prices and economic growth substantially driven by immigration and dairying.