The picture is terms of "a caring society" is indeed in decline. The percentage of kiwi's who avoid seeking medical help due to the expense is way higher than in the UK, our source model for social support.
So after the 1930's global depression, social policy made NZ a more humane society. WW2 intervened with that way of bringing nations together in a mood of patriotism and a sense of working together for a common ( localised) good - so war is not totally detrimental - and the subsequent baby, building and consumerism booms created quite a land of milk and honey New Zealand through the fifties, sixties and seventies. The shite, of course, hit the fan in the eighties, with October 1987 providing New Zealand's day of reckoning -along with the rest of the global financial network.
Like the rest of the world we got it wrong in terms of money management, greed, speculation and this impacts on our risky ventures in real estate as confirmed in an international study. We overvalue our houses, rush into debt like it's hot chocolate and love the mountains of Chinese junk flogged off in our retail sector.
In 1999 the legal drinking age for alcohol was lowered in NZ from age 20 to age 18 with obvious and predictable socially harmful consequences. In 2010, 11 years later, with no policy reversal, the damage is chronic, endemic and generational.
Social Welfare policy, somewhere along the pathway since the 1930's, got skewed towards greater support for elderly than any other demographic. National Superannuation plus the SuperGold Card plus owning your own house for many years and any other personal wealth acquired or inherited places a sector of our aged community in a level of comfort not available to younger citizens who have health limitations, disability, or no place in the current work force. This inequality is a glaring, politically driven agenda.
Another NZ oddity is the extensive use of the DPB introduced in 1974 - the benefit system allowing scores of young mothers to chose single-parenthood as a lifestyle - rather than instituting social policy to promote other options - like the advantages of not getting pregnant. Children having children - another social experiment gone wrong. Whilst the girls took off to the "burbs with their babies, the boys got seriously into showing off ( no sign of feminist effects on NZ society here). The global "boy racer" trend gained a strong foothold in NZ by the start of the new millennium - combining youthful arrogance, easy credit with overpowered machinery and the right to do so from the age of 15, mass gatherings are enabled, facilitated by the viral spread of text messaging, the result: a determined flouting the system and frustration for enforcement agencies, while affected neighbourhoods are completely disempowered.
NZ gets it right sometimes, but overall we are a nation of failed social experiments, with people's well-being paying the price for ill-informed social policy plus lack of judicial and political grunt. But it's more than that, something in the NZ psyche that is desperately immature and child-like, rebellious in all the wrong places and not radical where it really could make a difference. The booze mentality certainly mirrors many of these symptoms - selfish, irresponsible, no thought for others - and NZ has been pickled in alcohol since the first sealers and whalers brought their grog onshore and spawned their DNA amongst Maori wahine from the late 1790's: over 200 years of genetic damage from alcohol abuse permeates this land and the mind-set that prevails. Why else would successive governments do so little to minimise that risk - and in fact contribute to it by engaging even younger citizens in legalised intoxication? Our student binge drinking culture has become chronic.
Our capacity for social immaturity, unmitigated by sound public policy, appears to be worsening. What is it that our nation's leaders fear most? Being termed a "nanny state" appears to be political death in NZ - especially if you're leader is female ( Helen clark managed 3 terms up till the 2008 elections as Labour leader) and this catch-cry is surely the voice of an immature sector - which in NZ is quite sizeable.
Parenting, management of money, alcohol, adherence to traffic laws are all things the NZ born kiwi struggles with - but those struggles don't confine themselves to adolescence - they have beome intrinsic to the NZ psyche and we need to find a way to grow up - or accept policies that promote this. Tough love works.
Footnote:
for those wanting an angle that pertains to planetary cycles and unfolding patterns: Pluto in Capricorn promises radical political restructuring and Uranus in Aries will be the child-like forces seeking to resist restraint. 2011, 2012, 2013 - in fact right up to 2016 will see major and sustained upheaval in society, globally, as we try to find the balance in every which way - the pendulum is definitely set to swing back into controls, austerity, restriction on a far greater scale than many have known. This is bigger than we could ever imagine & the process has clearly begun.
