So it’s Christmas

It’s that time of year again when everyone goes nuts. Delirious with exhaustion after a year to forget and a year to remember for many reasons. The things to forget are the fear and loneliness and anxiety caused by COVID and lockdown and the things to remember are the way we almost all behaved sensibly and did what Jacinda asked us to. We were kind and we were considerate and we thought about the welfare of others and we managed to avoid the horrors that are still ongoing in Europe and America and other places.

So, exhausted as we are, we embark on the insanity that is Christmas. For me, high pressure shopping (in fact any shopping at all) is a nightmare to be avoided. I watch my loved ones spring up from the couch in the evening and launch themselves out the door for the next lot of “few last things” seemingly on repeat every night for weeks.

In the business world it gets harder and harder to focus on doing the important stuff because doing Christmas stuff has taken over and everyone is in wind down mode.

As I sit in the calm of my office and write this Christmas note, confident that my family and my wider family are safe, warm, happy, well fed and much loved, I feel incredibly grateful for my life. I recognise that much of what I have is a direct result of my own efforts but I also recognise that I am the product of my history. My parents were as in love with each other the day my Dad died as they were when they met. We were never hungry or frightened by what happened in our home. We had a good life modelled for us and lived with the expectation that everything will work out fine. Me and mine - we’re lucky.

But I also sit here and think uncomfortably about how others are approaching Christmas. The fear of drug and alcohol fuelled violence, the fear and anxiety of there not being enough to eat and nowhere to live. If i could fix all the wreckage out there, I would. Being good middle class people donating to the Salvation Army and the City Mission and all the other feel good things we do to salve our consciences is commendable. We want the poor kids to have some food and a present at Christmas and that’s really nice.

The problem is, that awful reality of Christmas Day is the same on Boxing Day, the day after, right through the long hot summer, into the cool autumn and the cold of winter. Food, shelter, warmth, love, security and the hope of something better. For so many, these things are just a dream and for many, that dream has died and life is a series of disappointments and dead ends and nothing good.

I don’t believe that we can create the perfect world or society. I just don’t think that is possible. As humans, we are too flawed as a species to ever reach that state of perfection. I certainly don’t think that we can solve the issues that face the poor and the underprivileged by direct individual action. A world where pain and suffering is alleviated by charitable donation from the wealthy is exactly as the expression says - “as cold as charity”.

I believe that the only way we can turn our country into a place where opportunity is open to all and the basics of a good life are the right of all to enjoy is by collective action through the already existing infrastructure called the Government.

Yes, that often faltering and imperfect bureaucracy that includes the awfulness that is Oranga Tamariki. It gets so much wrong but it is the only mechanism we have to fully mobilise to change society.

We blame the Government for all our problems and we look for ways to get them to reduce our taxes wherever we can. We try and block or roll back regulation and legislation that is designed to protect us from our worst excesses and when our health, housing, education and poverty statistics are in the toilet, we blame them for getting that wrong too.

Going into this Christmas, I feel very grateful for how my Government has gambled on the best way to keep us safe and well and we are able to gather in groups as large as we want and enjoy each other and our beautiful surroundings.

I digress. I’m not ok with the inequities in our system. Hungry, cold, abused, homeless children and the endless cycle of people who never had a chance cycling in and out of jail and nothing seems to make a difference.

I don’t know what it will take. I think every Government is afraid to really tackle the systemic problems we face because there is one fundamental truth is that too much money is going to too few and not enough to the rest. It has been the case for a long time. It didn’t used to be and it shouldn’t be now.

Only Government can fix this. They need to reimagine the tax and welfare systems so that everyone has a stake in our society. We all need to ask and answer the question - does the economy exist to enrich the shareholders or does it exist to support the health and welfare of the society it exists in?

My answer is that it is both but first and foremost its purpose is to ensure that there is appropriate opportunity for everyone to live a decent life that enables them to contribute in their own way. Any society should be judged by how it treats its old, sick and very young. As a society we have a lot to be ashamed of here. Some things aren’t so bad, but when we look at what pioneers in social justice New Zealand used to be, we’ve lost our way.

It is monstrous that we allow the housing market to get so out of hand that young people are denied the opportunity to be homeowners and it is equally monstrous that nothing is done to stop speculators banking housing stock. Is it legal? Yep it is. Is it moral? No, it is disgusting.

That is why we have Governments. They are there to ensure that the extremes are stopped. That we don’t have the courage to entertain a Capital Gains Tax is a signal. It’s a signal that we have lost our balance. The ascendance of the rich and powerful over the rest is pretty close to complete. Things that are so obviously fair are intolerable.

Do you know what makes me proud to be a Kiwi? The horrifically complex issue of Ihumatao is well on the way to being settled in a way that addresses the vastly different agendas of so many. It takes the past, the present and the future into account and it required some real courage to get it done.

People say that it will open the floodgates. Open the floodgates to what? Making the wrongs of the past get seen and addressed? How terrible is that?

We live in paradise right here in Aotearoa. For my white, middle class family, it will be a beautiful Christmas full of family, friends, great food and good wine and a very special wedding in a fabulous location. Good for us.

Somewhere else, there will be a family, probably brown who will spend Christmas scared shitless that Mum and/or Dad will come home and beat the kids because they’re full of meth or booze and there won’t be any Christmas dinner or presents except possibly thanks to the Salvos or City Mission. Somewhere a baby will be murdered by a step-parent and somewhere else kids who grew up like this will spend their first stretch in jail because they’ve never known any different.

I’m sorry New Zealand. This isn’t good enough. I’m going to spend at least part of Christmas working out how I can do more in a a direct way to help, but more I’m going to be thinking about how we can convince our Government (not just this one, but the ones to come) that their responsibility is to set the standards and regulations and policy settings that make poverty and all its attendant consequences unacceptable.

I want to be part of a society that is once again seen as the most socially progressive in the world. One of the ways I will actively participate in this transformation is by working with businesses to make them better, stronger, more competitive, more profitable and more focused on their opportunities to make a difference.

Merry Christmas everyone and I really hope that the shitstorm of 2020 is not repeated in 2021.