AARON SPENCER: The Complacent Country

New Zealanders, in general, have had very little interest in the apparently baffling complexities of geopolitics, economics, and the way history doesn’t repeat…but does often rhyme.

Our main preoccupations have been work, rugby, BBQ’s, holidays, and the inter-personal relationships and dramas of family and friends. And if the Jones’ are climbing the property ladder, buying a boat, and upgrading the car “that’s good enough for us as well”. Herd behaviour around what we should aspire to has well and truly been the order of the day and, in case there was any doubt, there was always an older sage on hand to dispense the comforting adage that “you can’t go wrong with property”.

Plentiful debt has become the ladder by which we turn our aspirations into realities: an inexhaustible supply of cheap money ready to speed us to a lifestyle of comfort and ease. 

Our own personal financial genie from a magic lamp.

Over and above the standard preoccupations of a ‘normal’ Kiwi, the mental energy devoted to current affairs has been narrowly focussed on the shallow pool of New Zealand’s banal domestic politics. This is an arena where, for the tribally minded, your side is always right and the other side is invariably always wrong. And we should also acknowledge the large swathe of people in ‘the middle’ who will vote for whichever party that they believe will best be able to help them fulfil their ultimate life goal: owning the best possible house in the best possible location. 

The perfect environment for complacency to fester, and fester it did. New Zealanders came to believe that property prices only ever go up, interest rates only ever go down, and that the global geopolitical situation was essentially benign and, moreover, that overseas events of a military flavour would have little to no impact of any consequence on New Zealand. 

We also came to believe that government debt was largely just a matter of numbers on a screen, that we could borrow to our collective hearts content with no consequences. That those calling for fiscal responsibility were discredited ninnys seeking to churlishly deprive the populace of augmented living standards for no other purpose than to be spoil-sports. 

Understanding this deep and abiding complacency is essential to understanding the current atmosphere of angst and confusion as the country confronts anaemic economic growth, a falling-to-moribund property market, inflation outside its target band with inflationary pressures building, unemployment above 5% nationwide, rising borrowing costs, and a global energy shock playing out within the context of a rapidly destabilising geopolitical environment.  

One by one each and every complacent assumption has been - is being - destroyed by real-world events. And what is left behind in the wake of the these shattered assumptions? Confusion, anger, and a need to find someone to blame. 

So this is where we find ourselves. New Zealanders appear to be nonplussed by any of the regular alarm bells that have been rung as regards our waning productivity and steadily declining GDP per capita numbers. Confronting these issues is liable to give one a headache, and if we wanted to seriously address them….where would we even start? A mind that is calmed by complacency will always seek to revert to that default setting. 

Therefore the best guess I can come up with is that New Zealanders will desperately seek a return to normalcy - as they understand it. And they will support anyone promising that outcome. A return to the resumption of the complacent mental state that they are accustomed to. The promise alone will be enough to ensure the support. Leopards don’t easily change their spots. 

Aaron Spencer is a writer and truth seeker from the Bay of Plenty

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