By Chris Trotter*
"What about inequality?" It was Newshub Nation’s Rebecca Wright who lobbed the question at National’s campaign boss, Chris Bishop. He watched it bounce towards him stony-faced. There was a long pause, until, finally, in one of those responses meme-makers dream about, Bishop replied: “What about it?”
It is difficult to think of a better illustration of how important the concept of equality is to New Zealand politicians, and how imperfectly it is understood. Wright is from a generation for whom the idea of inequality – the negation of equality – is a moral catastrophe. They have been taught to prize equality as an unequivocal “good” – hence her non-sequitur of a question.
No wonder Bishop was flummoxed. Wright did not appear to understand that the policies he had just been outlining in education, health and housing were critical to facilitating social equality; or that the goal itself can only ever be achieved by multiple processes operating simultaneously. One cannot simply command inequality to disappear and – Hey Presto! – it is gone. Politics is not a magician’s trick.
But, if equality is imperfectly understood, then the notion of “equity” poses an even bigger challenge to the nation’s political comprehension. Which is unfortunate, because the word is appearing more and more frequently in New Zealand’s political conversations.
It has been the “go to” word for activists, journalists and left-leaning politicians for some time now – but not for the rest of the population. In the week just passed, however, Equity crashed into popular consciousness when New Zealanders were informed that to ensure equity in health outcomes, Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) will, in part, be determining the order of access to non-urgent surgery by factoring-in the patient’s ethnicity.
The entirely predictable popular reaction has been one of outrage at the notion that one’s ethnicity may soon be a deciding factor in where one stands in the surgical queue. If this is what Equity looks like, then a great many New Zealanders don’t want a bar of it.
For many – perhaps most – people, the word ‘equity” is a synonym for the word “equality”. And, to be fair, this is very often the way politicians expect the word to be understood. But the assumption that “equity” and “equality” mean roughly the same thing could not be more wrong. The difference between these two words is as important as the difference between “reform” and “revolution”.
Most New Zealanders believe in and expect to enjoy “equality of opportunity”. They recoil from the idea of people receiving preferential treatment. Everybody is expected to line-up behind the start-line before the starter’s pistol sets them off and running in the great race of life. Very few people, however, expect the runners to cross the finish line at the same time. Most accept that in a contest someone comes first and someone last. A race in which everyone crosses the finish-line at exactly the same moment is not a race – it’s a jack-up.
But “jacking-up” the race is precisely what the proponents of “equity” believe in. What they are seeking is not “equality of opportunity”, but “equality of outcome”.
If there are people in the race who have had the advantage of professional coaching, then those denied that advantage need to be advanced several metres ahead of the start-line. If there are runners who have enjoyed excellent nutrition all their lives, then those who have been poorly nourished since childhood must be similarly advanced along the track. If there are competitors who, on account of their ethnicity, enjoy a greater measure of confidence in their ability to win the race than those whose ethnicity has accustomed them to coming last, then those so afflicted also deserve advancement. Calculate these handicaps correctly and every runner should cross the finish-line simultaneously. And there you have it – Equality of Outcome!
Except, of course, that’s not the way it would go – not unless the people calculating the handicaps have guns. What sort of seasoned runners are going to consent to seeing others positioned so far ahead of themselves? Rather than compete on such terms, many athletes would simply walk away from the contest altogether. Those awarded handicaps in the name of equity would then have to be reassessed and assigned a new handicap. How else could everybody be guaranteed to cross the line together? Not that anyone would be there to applaud them when they did. If the outcome of a contest has already been thoroughly engineered, why would anyone turn up to see it? Life is uncertain. So is sport. That’s why people watch.
The partisans of equity insist that their only goal is “fairness”: all they are seeking is a society in which everyone gets to enjoy life’s bounties; a society without “winners” and “losers”; a society in which the very idea of some people being allowed to “succeed” while others “fail” is regarded as obscene.
“Team Equity” will always get a hearing in New Zealand, where “fairness” is celebrated as the Prince of Virtues. What they will not find so easy to sell, however, is the idea that fairness requires people to be treated differently. That’s because Kiwis understand “fairness” to mean everybody being treated the same.
When someone attempts to jump a queue in New Zealand, or is given more than others are getting, the backlash is extreme. Those responsible are told in no uncertain terms that while everyone is entitled to a “fair go”, that does not mean they’re entitled to receive special favours. It is astonishing that Te Whatu Ora decided that provoking such a backlash – especially one brimming with racial animosities – was an acceptable risk.
This is where the propensity of New Zealanders to treat equity and equality as synonyms leaves Team Equity facing an enormous problem. In regard to Māori-Pakeha relations particularly, the argument has shifted well beyond the generally accepted notion that the indigenous people, the colonisers, and their descendants, were guaranteed, and receive, equal treatment.
According to Māori nationalists, “equal treatment” can only mean that all the advantages accruing to the destroyers of Māori sovereignty must be left untouched, while the tangata whenua, stripped of their autonomy by colonisation, are condemned to play a never-ending game of catch-up. Unsurprisingly, they’re demanding a solution considerably “fairer” than that.
What that fairer solution might look like is set out in the He Puapua Report. It presents a twenty-year plan to give effect to the promises of equity (not equality) embodied in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Essentially, it sees Māori and Non-Māori running in the same race, but on separate tracks, until such time as both sets of runners become genuinely competitive. And the handicap? Well, that will come in the form of a more “equitable” distribution of the New Zealand state’s fiscal resources, achieved by the construction of a more equitable, te Tiriti-based constitution.
This is what makes He Puapua less a blueprint for reform, and more a road-map to revolution.
The chances of selling that sort of revolution to Pakeha New Zealand, however, are as slim as the chances of selling the idea of moving Māori and Pasifika patients ahead of Pakeha New Zealand’s nearest and dearest on the waiting-lists for non-urgent surgery.
Is this racism? Of course it is! Will Te Whatu Ora’s Equity Calculator defeat it? Not a chance! The only way to come anywhere near a true equality of outcomes, is to build a system – in this case a health system – sufficiently well-resourced to accommodate the needs of all New Zealand’s citizens – when they need them.
After all, no one really minds where they’re placed in the queue – providing it’s a short one.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
90 Comments
True that. I guess the man could put the little one on his shoulders like parents used to do back in the old days. Just call me a problem solver. The other comment about this image is that the background appears to be some fenced stadium playing live baseball so it's probably safe to assume it is a pay per view activity. If you don't pay, you don't get to view, or at least shouldn't get a boost (box) to view....
Yes, there are a lot of issues.
- What if the kid with two boxes grows, and then doesn't wan't to give up the boxes he already has?
- What if the adult gets injured and can no longer see over the fence?
- What if the fence is raised?
- What if the box breaks?
- What if another kid comes along?
Equality is a complex issue that none of our MPs are even remotely capable of addressing.
- What if the kid with two boxes grows, and then doesn't wan't to give up the boxes he already has?
They grow up and decide they don't want to save for their own retirement. There should be another cartoon page, showing the kids (grey haired) still standing on top of the boxes, except the boxes are now 6 x taller, the fence is 3 x taller. The side of the box is cut away to show a young family, head height at 1/3rd the fence line.
Well said. Can be taken in a number of ways (for housing at least):
- Unsustainable immigration fighting over existing boxes,
- Unnecessary rampant investment/speculation in existing boxes,
- Too much red tape to supply additional boxes to the market,
- Too much market concentration in the materials that go into making a box.
You've gone too far. Your analogy would equate to those watching being able to play the game instead of watching it. But the fences are for a reason; it is where the fences are and their purpose that counts. I think you're on the right track.
Something in all this that we must remember; Every species alive must work in someway to survive, to feed and grow their families. As humans we have modified our living environment with artificial constructs which include money. Today there are increasing numbers who are of the opinion they should not have to work to survive, to provide for their families (but breeding is a right they won't give up). Inequality can in effect deny them the right to support themselves. Socialism can be seen as a way to rob people of the ability to be self sufficient.
The circumstances of inequity, giving rise to inequality, is hardly new and the solutions are yet to be found. That is because before recorded time humans have fought for ascendency over other humans and in that quest some are more talented, energetic and/or ruthless. Barrie in The Admirable Chrichton and Golding much more savagely in The Lord of the Flies for example, well depict that side of human nature in their respective stranded island settings. Some are more equal than others, now who said that.
Actually the humans greatest survival quality (shown in archaeological records) and what lead to the formation of civilization and key developments in farming, trade and science was our ability to collaborate and care about other humans. Our earliest human records so evidence of supportive structures that enabled different tasks to help the community to survive. Right down to strong evidence of medical carer support for struggling humans in remains from before humans migrated from Africa. Collaboration was such a successful strategy we out competed other species and survived many extinction events.
Too far? Granted, it is an extreme analogy, but it begs the question, what is equality? and when does it end?
Those three on the boxes are clearly not as equal as those in the stadium? Those in the stadium are clearly not as equal as those on the field, and I would imagine that even those on the field, will not be treated/remunerated equally.
The human condition. And you're correct. But I think it starts with equality of opportunity. Just ensuring opportunity is there is a problem. Children born in Auckland or Wellington have more opportunity than children born in Patea or Kawerau. And it goes on... This is not about social welfare but about making sure as Grant Robertson said that the beginning of this Labour Government's first term "Jobs everywhere, for everyone". Not easy, but not unachievable either.
Once upon a time, Maori sailed vast oceans in search of opportunity. Now they cant even be bothered to move a hour or so down the road.
Back in ancient times, when hunter gatherer societies ran out of food in the area in which they had been living, did they just sit around and starve to death? No, they packed up and moved on to somewhere that provided food. However these days there is an entitlement mentality that the Govt is obligated to give you welfare benefits for life because there are no jobs in your area, rather than packing up and moving on like humans have done for millennia. Equality of outcomes would be improved if some people took actions to help themselves.
It is incredibly complex. Personally I believe it all comes down to education, which was obliterated by Mallard under Clark's reign.
Now the issue we have is that none of the current bunch appear even remotely capable of addressing this. Which is not just a Kiwi issue. The complete absence of capable and competent governance appears to be common around much of the world at this point in time.
Not available for the disabled though are they. There are not work income generating jobs for everyone because you excluded the one thing you claimed to think of: the diversity of humans. For many who are bedridden and struggling, say those recovering from a stroke, or those with MND, or those with ME, MS, cancer etc there literally are no jobs possible in the world now or in the future that can accommodate no ability to work in them for any hours in a given week, month or year. It is just a factor that for many with disabilities yes they are so severe they literally cannot work, many are born who cannot work and ironically they are also subject to denial of any income support in NZ because we deem income support for disabled people not as essential for them to live as say income support for wealthy able bodied working people over the age of 65.
Go figure.
Good point. Most Kiwis don't mind helping out people who are having trouble through no fault of their own, but it does irritate us to see our income being taxed to squander the tax wastefully. Moriori shifted to NZ to try to better themselves. Maori did the same after them. Europeans followed suit, a few hundred years later. Most of us still adhere to the principle of battling away to look after ourselves and our loved ones. So how do we sort out the issue of the ones who refuse, or are unable to try and get on with their lives in a manner that we approve of?
Do we get tough with them? do we pander to them? Do we conditionalize the help we give them so that at some stage they don't need the help.
Something has to change in NZ so that the rich are forced to help the poorest up to a certain minimum standard of living. Whatever that means. But no more. If one needs a hand, one cannot expect anything other than the minimum to get to this standard of living. It has to be supervised to try to minimise corruption. It has to be recognized as charity given by Kiwis to other Kiwis, and only given if and while the need is there. Great. Glad we got that sorted.
The worst butchery and famines in France were during the reign of terror after the revolution, not before it. Why do you think that was? It was only after the revolutionaries were gone, and France went back to it's old ways, very similar to the old kingdom, but with a president etc, that things started picking up again.
come anywhere near a true equality of outcomes, is to build a system – in this case a health system – sufficiently well-resourced to accommodate the needs of all New Zealand’s citizens – when they need them.
And what might the cost of such a system be? We currently pay around 6.50% of GDP for healthcare. Would 10% be enough? Where would the money come from? We can't just keep on printing more and we are not about to suddenly become more productive. Even if we could produce the money, we don't have the infrastructure or the staff to cope even now, so I'm not optimistic.
Radical suggestion, but possibly a sovereign wealth fund if we were brave enough to keep drilling for oil... there are abundant reserves in NZ. Quelle horreur, "what about climate change"? Well, yes. But caring about climate change, as any economist would tell you, comes with trade offs. It is for us to decide whether we're willing to bear the cost of our decisions. The sacrifice might be a first-world health system.
You are so true. NZ out of all western countries has the most land as National Parks with so much untouched in demand resources that yet all these liberal greens want free health care free this free that yet NZ is quickly turning into a third world. Look at that Aussiw miner getting all the permits just to look at some areas of NZ for rare earth minerals to build EVs yet forest and bird the greens and DOC are already saying no. F...wits yet they want us to have EVs ok to have slave labour and pollute the eco systems of other countries. Think of all the gold in the firth of Thames and the Coromandel Waihi Gold mine right in the town center had huge fight with the greens who said all this bad shot was going to happen 30 yrs,ago never did yet makes alot of money and they wanted to expand but no.
Great, thought provoking article CT.
I also believe that most if not all politicians have no real idea how to restore equality across our society. But to begin we must first understand that there is simply not enough money in the world to adequately compensate for wrongs of the past. Besides no one in their right mind would really want to be judged on the sins of their fathers. But this article still has a flaw in it in that it tends towards some degree of extremism where there is no middle ground.
But it is in the middle ground that progress towards equality and equity can be achieved. Much of today's inequity and inequality stems from colonial policies, and then were further entrenched by poor economic policies that favoured wealthy and powerful. These policies had many adverse impacts on Pakeha as well as Maori, but those colonial policies meant Maori suffered more.
Today Governments can work towards undoing the damage done, but they won't achieve is with the standard of policies they have used recently, or are proposing for this election!
Just popped in to say that I dislike Rebecca Wright's style of interviewing in News Hub. Been watching her a view times on you tube and the comments section is disabled. She was insistent that she was scoring some points of some kind by describing National as not having new ideas and didn't seem to understand what Chris Bishop was saying. People are tired of slogans like '100,000 new homes' when they see their living standards deteriorate. As Chris states at the end of his piece specifically regarding health care, "The only way to come anywhere near a true equality of outcomes, is to build a system – in this case a health system – sufficiently well-resourced to accommodate the needs of all New Zealand’s citizens – when they need them."
The politicans don't care. They only go on Newshub Nation, and Q&A, for a chance to get a 30 second sound bite on the evening news and social media out of it .
Newshub nation has become more watchable than Q&A , Tame will spend most of the interview getting a single word answer to a complex question , making the politican look evasive in the process.
Equality of outcome is not something to strive for. There is an element of motivation needed for a productive society. What we should be aiming for is equality of opportunity. I think the best way to achieve that is to provide the same base platform for everyone. A basic income to cover the bare necessities such as food and shelter would be the best way to approach it. Avoids any race or gender based favouritism. And would actually provide a fair bit of stimulation to the economy, as those with the least spend a larger portion of their income. Would decrease crime levels. And those that don't really need it would likely be carrying a larger tax burden anyway. It seems like the perfect solution. We could do away with so many other bureaucratic welfare systems if we had a basic income. Couple it with a land tax, and you'd cure what ails us.
Because if you accept it as 'equality of access' which is what this goal actually needs to be, the people in charge of delivering health services and policy would have to acknowledge they're not as effective as they think they are.
You can have all the new tax systems you want, but if you allow a failing policy delivery system free-reign to entrench their own failings by endlessly dreaming up new sources of revenue, all you're going to end up with is the same failures and new taxes.
The people who got us into this mess aren't going to suddenly become competent if you throw money at them. They're literally part of the problem, their own existence just relies on never actually accepting or changing that.
I like what you're saying, but not some of the detail. Equality of opportunity to me is the opportunity irrespective of education to get a job that has decent pay and conditions (beyond minimum wage), to the degree that people don't have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Those jobs ned to be available just as readily in places like Patea or Kawerau as in Auckland or Wellington.
You're leaning towards a UBI which I do not favour. I believe there are still traps of dependency in a UBI that will hide a can of worms.
Try not being an extremist. The ideal should be the goal, not dismissed because it is considered unachievable. I am not arguing that people with no qualifications be paid exorbitant wages, but they get paid a fair wage for their labour. Why should someone get rich of the backs of their employees when they would only pay the minimum wage?
I was listening to Crazy Town podcast on spotify last night and the episode released on 5 April was 'The twisted logic of the worlds greatest CEO'. Basically, Jack Welch came along took over GE in late 70's and transformed the business from a 'successful business for all' into a hugely successful conglomerate for the shareholders (owners) only'. By having a sole focus on maximising shareholder value at all costs. Those costs were quite literally the environment and the employees who were made redundant by decimation (10% staff cuts) per year. Quite interesting.
the whole statement is "considered unachievable", in other words it is just someones opinion. An ideal is not necessarily unachievable, but it is too easy to just say "oh that's too hard" and not try. That way nothing is achieved.
But the point of this debate is wages. Before the free market policies were introduced in NZ under the banner of "Rogernomics", what I am arguing for pretty much existed. Labour laws that defined a working week as 40 hours, overtime had to be paid for and so on. It is a long way from impossible. Business's would prefer to have slaves though. The 'free market' is a big part of why we have so many societal problems now. Time to consider going back to a better regulated market?
Maori already have huge numbers of government-assisted and local body programmes in this country.
When does it stop becoming assistance and become apartheid? We have maori schools, maori wards, maori seats in Parliament, maori education programmes, maori housing projects, maori health initiatives, maori language funding, special maori education curricula, maori radio and tv, maori only scholarships, maori prisoner programmes, maori RMA consultation rights, maori farming, special maori tax rates, maori kindergartens, maori seabed rights, to name just a few. And now maori are going to get priority health care. Where does it all end?
It doesn't end, the moaners will just not try and keep on moaning. The people at the bottom of the heap get there through lack of opportunity or lack of trying, and that is effectively it.
The problem starts with the parents. There are many parents in this country that are absolutely hopeless and do not encourage and look after their kids and therefore they miss their opportunities and therefore do not get equal access, so others end up more equal. I am doing my very best to ensure that my kids, are safe, well feed, looked after, have a good education, and know about all the things that matter, like good food, gardening, and taking part in sports. all those things. We don't pressure them, but we use real-life examples to teach them things, all of the time. They are top in their classes and I am sure they will be successful and wealthy and have good lives, and won't be dependent on any sort of hand out - ever.
Is it my fault then (or will it be my kid's fault) that they will live like this in the future? No, it isn't. Just like it is not my fault that some people have had less access than me to opportunities. It is other people's parents that sat around and got drunk and provided a bad example to their own kids which has resulted in this mess.
The answer to this problem is effectively that some people should not be having children because their lifestyle/attibude/behaviour results in unequal access to resources and therefore outcomes, this is an intergenerational slow-motion train wreck. There is nothing that can be done to stop this because we can't stop people like this from having children and we cannot force them to look after their kids properly and think about their futures. This is continuing to cause this problem (good luck with restricting peoples right to have kids), but the parents are the problem.
So, instead of looking at the actual causes we just blame colonialism and all sorts of other irrelevant stuff and give people hand out after hand out hoping the problem will go away. All the Maori stuff is complete bollocks. Putting them on boards and councils, and silly stuff like that makes no difference whatsoever. The problems are at home and always have been.
In the short term it ends in "white flight" to Australia. And long term it ends in decolonisation of the country in the same way as Zimbabwe and South Africa are decolonising.
However Asian people now make up 17% of the population, where are their voices in all this? What impact do these policies have on attracting new immigrants to this country? Or keeping the highly skilled ones here, when they have their pick of countries to move to.
I suppose we can just wait until there are enough immigrants here and the CCP can take over politically.
Ironically post colonial Zimbabwe has translated Animal Farm into multiple local languages and it is highly popular as it best represents the state and the dangers of corruption in post colonial Zimbabwe. Before wasn't good, but it is a far cry from what the current state is and the post colonial path they took should not be held up as a model to follow. All animals are equal, except some animals are more equal than others.
It's a storm in a teacup;
https://www.teaomaori.news/ex-health-nz-boss-slams-surgeons-over-ethnicity-surgery-queue-complaints
The noise and anxiety being created by guidelines for surgery within Te Whatu Ora may be serving some political interests. But it is not serving health outcomes.
We need to follow the clinicians, who follow the evidence;
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/119627680/why-do-maori-suffer-i…
I'm not sure what the meaning of white privilege is. Does it mean in this case that some people take note of health issues, go to the doctor, actually turn up at referrals and help ensure that problems are dealt with while they are small problems rather than ignore them and wait till they are large problems that cost loads of money to deal with ?
It's a well-known fact that loads of these people supposedly without privilege just don't turn up for stuff, which wastes everyones time and money. That is the part that needs to get fixed, rather than implementing racist policies that disadvantage people that look after their health in favor of people that are simply lazy.
Why don't we have a rule where if you miss your referral and then come into the system much later with a much bigger problem, you are at the bottom of the queue no matter who you are, or what race you are. That would be a much better rule and would rightly punish those responsible of the misuse of our collective health resources.
Easy
When you have $50 disposable for a GP visit (in case it's only one) and you can easily take time off work
When you don't, you want to make sure the problem is worth your time and money
Your answer is the very definition of privilege: having opportunities without even realising that you have them
Interesting that you made an argument that privilege is therefore a matter of economic inequality rather than racial inequality. Fewer people have issues with equity on the basis of income or wealth than on skin colour. A preferential option for the poor is a laudable ideal, but the racism is that race has become the target rather than poverty. White people can be poor, too.
Ironically those suffering from the worst levels of medical bias, lack of access to medical care and the worst medical outcomes with a much much lower estimated lifespan, the disabled are ignored, (with a estimated lifespans so far below the estimated lifespan for Maori and others that we literally had to rewrite the kiwisaver law to recognize that for conditions, that should have the same estimated lifespan as the general population, people were instead dying in their 20s, 30s and 40s due to lack of sufficient medical care). They will suffer worse outcomes due to this policy as it will only increase the lack of access and denial to waitlists leading to further disablement and early death. I know so many dead family and friends in their 20s and 30s who would have been overjoyed to be told they could have access to the basic medical care like an ER or GP that would enable them to live into their 60s. The shame of the policy above is that it is designed to deprioritize those suffering the worst health bias and outcomes and denies their existence as humans in our community at all. Almost like Te Whatu Ora in Auckland was just grandstanding and pretending to do something and in turn they are so discriminatory they make the inequality gap and inequity much much worse.
If we all want better "outcomes and equality" later in life, we all have to accept that we need to take some responsibility for our own equality of opportunity, and responsibility for the equality (of opportunity) of our children and our children's children (mokopuna, if you like). We have to move away from the "she'll be right" atitude that many pakeha, and maori, and pacifica have developed (other ethnicities appreciate the equality of opportunities available in New Zealand).
An example, our education system, in early education (in towns and cities, rural is not quite so equal) all is equal if we make use of kindergartens and child care (its generally, and relatively, free for 3 to 5 year olds), yet some pakeha, Maori and pacifica do not fully utilise this equal opportunity for their children and grandchildren, as they do not attend on a regular basis, and so these children get left behind in creativity, learning and general interactions with other children. they maybe there for a few days one week, then missing for a week, then attend for a few days some weeks later (expecting the position within the kindergarten or child care will remain available to them), they are lazy, so their children become lazy. Thus the loss of equality of opportunity has begun.
The same in the health system with immunisation. These same people do not take up the opportunities that are free and readily available, and so their children and grandchildren become the disadvantaged. So these same kids become sick and miss more education in schools.
It is not an ethnicity problem really, just an attitude of "she'll be right" and being lazy. Thus id one does not take some responsibility, then theer will always be disadvantaged children.
Protip most beneficiaries are elderly or disabled. NO ONE CHOOSES TO BE DISABLED, to be born disabled or struck by illness or bad fortune. Just like no one chooses to grow old. Being unable to work due to severe disability is NOT a life choice. If you are so ill and disabled you are denied work, education and life opportunities by others your life still has enough value to have human rights to live. Unless it is in your country where right to life very much depends on how and who you were born to.
Brilliant Xing. Even better than most of your inaccuracies. The four countries mentioned all have a devil of a problem with people from non western nondemocracies desperately trying to get to them. Let's make a list of all the countries that have people desperately trying to leave. Oh look, the one run by your mates, the CCP is top of the list.
You are brilliant at winding us up with your obvious falsehoods, Xing, or if you do actually believe them, you really are a poor misguided fool. A useful idiot, I think is what people like you are called.
There will never be equality of outcomes because people are responsible for their own lifestyle choices. If you choose to smoke, drink, take drugs, be obese, eat junk food, not exercise, or not work, then your outcome will be worse than those who choose not to do those things, regardless of how much money you throw at them.
Punishing those people who have made responsible life choices by denying them healthcare until all those who have made bad choices are "fixed" is appalling. Doubling down by making it a racially based system is beyond appalling.
Interesting points that Chris raises. I hear and understand the arguments around equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. I am definitely of the view that we should have equal opportunity to succeed when we turn up to the start line. My point of view is that not all starters arrive at that start line with an equal opportunity of succeeding. I think the start line is at birth. Depending which family you are born into pre determines your future chance of success in NZ to a significant degree. I think it beholden upon us as civilised beings to direct our government to eliminate poverty to usher in the desired ‘level playing field’ at birth.
Equity in social and human rights terms has nothing to do with equal outcomes. That is a failing in understanding the UN human rights. Equity is used for equity of opportunity. Taking the most disadvantaged and discriminated group in NZ society, the disabled, equity would mean they too also would have access to education, the freedom to choose what to study and they also would have safe access to housing of any type in NZ. In health disabled people have lifespans often 40years less than their non disabled counterparts for issues not related to the disability. Issues such as covid had disabled people often denied access to medical care, medications, and medical treatment and so they had resulting death rates many times higher than the non disabled population. In the UK the disabled had blanket non resuscitation orders imposed even if their disability was completely unrelated to their health.
Equity would mean all people would have access to a building and it's opportunity not that we all get the same results or all get the same items. Equity would mean disabled people should have access to a survivable income to live and make choices of discretionary spending. Sadly this is not the case (often the incomes disabled people live on cannot even afford housing so they have no ability to visit a GP even). There are many cases where disability care does not include food support so yes, starvation, poor nutrition, and untreated medical conditions lead to further disabilities and in turn early death. All my family around my age or who were older with my condition are already dead, in their 20s and early 30s, due to denial of basic medical care, denial of access to employment opportunities, denial of access to income, denial of access to housing etc. I am the lucky one. When over 50% of disabled people cannot get work income and most of those also cannot get income support then yeah, NZ very much does not have equity or human rights for disabled people in NZ.
The experience of children going through state education is very different to those with private education, the low standards and low expectations at state schools impact the rest of a childs' life chances. The best way to level NZ would be to abolish private schools and make every child attend the closest school to their home. Politicians would then have a much greater incentive to improve all schools, as it would directly impact their own children. Sam Uffindell thinks kids fail because they lack the desire to win, he has never attended a low decile state school and I doubt his kids ever will either. Equality of opportunity is possible, equality of outcome is not.
So you are confirming that the state provides generally rubbish education. That is very true. However, that is not always the case. There are many state schools that are well supported by their communities and old boys/girls who wish to contribute to the place they were educated. Many of these are better performing than private schools. Are you going to ban that assistance also because somewhere someone will not be equal ? Are you going to ban private medical insurance because the state system is falling over ? Are you going to ban everything that anyone ever does to get ahead to make us all thickets so that we can all live in poverty together? What is your solution ? I see you seem to be from Waikato. Will you ban the Crusaders because they crushed the Chiefs (again), even when the Chiefs felt so entitled? Is it not fair that this Rugby team is better than the other ? Remember, no matter what you do, there will always be a loser...
There's do-gooders out there that just cannot accept that some make very bad choices in life, and no matter what you do for them they're doomed to fail. They'll spend their lives with their hands out.
I've got 2 nephews, one's a winner, and the other's a complete failure that's had every opportunity in life if he chose to. He got 2% (that's right - 2%) for School C English, told by his mother that "you don't worry about School Certificate, you just go on the dole". He's nearly 40, sponged off my mother for about 13 years, drove up up North to bring dope back to Auckland, got heaps of speeding and drink driving citations, helped himself to my mother's money (probably about $200k), is allergic to any kind of employment, smokes, drinks heavily, and hangs out with losers. The BNZ called me and requested they see me about the money disappearing from my Mother's account - in the end I did manage to stop it and got rid of him by trespassing him from her house which was in Trust.
He thought the trespass notice was something you printed off the internet, and told me "this is my house". The local constabulary put him in the slammer and we haven't seen him since. Thankful for small mercies.
Somehow I think this is all your fault or it should be according to many on here. He should be equal to you, even though he did not try at all. Shame on you for ruining this person's life on purpose. I think the state should gift him a free house, and a series of handouts for the hardship you deliberately inflected on your poor nephew. This is so unequal, so unfair.....
Here's a thoughtful and articulate and description of what contemporary "social justice" means, and why it's so dangerous and corrosive to society.
There's no doubt that Labour are pushing this agenda hard. Kiwis are fair people, which is why I think this form of weaponised empathy has gained so much traction. We're really going down a dark path here.
No. Just... no. Equality of access is what we want. We want everyone to have the same access to education, health care, employment, housing, healthy food.
But we don't want to impose on everyone the same outcome.
I mean, where is the opportunity for excellence if we impose a limit on what people are allowed to do or to achieve?
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.