Were the “Good Old Days” really that, New Zealand?

“I miss the ‘good old days’ when….”

One of the most common gripes heard in general conversation is about how people miss the “good old days”. A common, possibly cliche sounding phrase given how much it is trotted out, the “good old days” most commonly seem to revolve around a few basic, yet intertwined themes that New Zealanders at large seem to identify with across the societal spectrum. I attempt to explore what I believe those themes to be, how they are intertwined…. and how they relate to the known problems of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Those mentioning the good old days are generally the older generations, born in or immediately after World War 2, and through to the early 1980’s. The phrase is often uttered in a nostalgic sense, referring to past era of “simpler times”. In other times it is more wistful, perhaps triggered by viewing classic memorabilia or well known former landmarks or meeting long lost acquaintances. Sometimes it might be cultural icons, such as “Goodnight Kiwi”, a short cartoon played at the end of regular programming of a Kiwi turning off the lights at the television station, going home to its nest and going to sleep.

If we go with the former interpretation, a potentially serious question arises. In thinking about the phrase, which is often inserted into the same sentence as statements such as “youth respected authority” or “race problems didn’t exist”, how many stopped to think about the institutional forces at work? How many would have still thought that way with the knowledge of institutional horrors such as – but not limited to – Lake Alice, Maori not having any Treaty of Waitangi redress or the environmental safeguards that were made possible by the environmental legislative framework that has been built up.

These things often came at great – hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) cost.

Lake Alice for example was meant to be an institution for treating people with psychiatric issues. What it turned into was a place where torture, rape, completely unethical experiments being conducted on inpatients was not only common, but until recent years, completely ignored. Only just recent have we started finding out about the horrific violence meted out to former patients. And even now, decades after the abuse, institutional resistance to helping the victims achieve some kind of justice is still present.

For Maori, the price of getting the state to look into legal redress for historic grievances continues to be counted. The process has not been easy; at times bordered on violence (Moutua Gardens, 1995) and in others actually exploded (Sebastian Point, 1978). The redress awarded to Iwi continues to be a political battleground for points scoring, especially among A.C.T., National – despite the good work of past Attorney Generals such as Christopher Finlayson – and also New Zealand First M.P.’s, keen to appease a backward base that want erasure of Maoridom as a political force in this country.

The environment is one of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s greatest assets – not just for the sublime beauty that it offers, but also also one of our biggest revenue generators. But getting to the point where we have one of the few environmental legal frameworks in the world with an emphasis on sustainability, has only come against quite deliberate opposition from some quarters who see environmentalism as Green Party wishy washy. It has been forged against a backdrop of politicians deliberately misunderstanding how the Resource Management Act works because it doesn’t fit neatly into a category.

I am not necessarily opposed to rewinding the proverbial clock, so to speak, but when people talk about the good old days, it is questionable how many have actually given thought to how this might happen without undoing some of the gains that have been made. How many people have thought about the fact that to achieve the near 100% literacy rate we had for people over five, the ability to buy a house comfortably for $300,000 or less; afford a car and weekly living expenses and still have a bit of money left over, New Zealand would need to ditch the entire short term thinking/growth now model that currently exists?

I think that the distinct break came in the 1980’s when from 1984 onwards New Zealand began to open up what had been a relatively closed economy. Rogernomics – the first round of neoliberal market economics as espoused by former Minister of Finance Roger Douglas – The N.Z. Dollar was floated in 1986. Large Government agencies began to outsource functions, which led to massive job losses and the introduction of increased competition from outside.

Despite the opposition to the socio-economic costs that would inevitably follow, New Zealand Rail was broken up in the 1980’s, which led to the closure of depots, the outsourcing of maintenance and other work. The privatization also led to a general long-term decrease in government support for the railway network, which as a result has suffered equally significant long-term degradation. It has lost much of its once competitive edge to road transport, which is heavily favoured by the National and A.C.T. Parties.

Electricity Corporation New Zealand which was responsible for the co-ordination of electricity generation was broken up in 1997, which led to companies such as Meridian, Contact and Genesis being formed as a result. In doing so, the market – which former Minister of Energy Max Bradford claimed knew better – opened the way for over a decade of electricity price hikes of sometimes more than 10% per annum every year until about 2011. Despite constant rhetoric about improving the market, little substantive progress has been made in making electricity more affordable for households. At the same time, the shareholders in companies such as Meridian, and Genesis – among others – have done very well. This is despite some glaring inefficiencies in co-ordinating the generation capacity. This failure for example caused large parts of Waikato to have power cuts on the coldest day of winter in 2021, when not enough reserve generation had been brought online.

The opening up of New Zealand has also led to huge distortions in the housing market, among others. A few individual landlords now have portfolios that consist of up to 80 properties. If the properties were 3 tenant units being charged $300p/w, a landlord with that many properties would bring in $72,000 a week or more $3.6 million per annum. Those wealthy landlords are often among the most resistant to embrace changes that might address this.

In the end, New Zealand is going to have to make a choice. The status quo has being evolving for over 40 years now. It is clearly obvious that if it means giving up their wealth, few who have done well out of the neoliberal reforms of the last 40 years are going to support going back to “the good old days”. And yet, they are the same ones who yearn for Maori being put in their place, an end to Green Party “wishy washy” ideas and an absence of – despite it being a massive modernisation of environmental law at the time – R.M.A. type legislation.

Maybe the “good old days” are not quite what we thought they were.