The real question is: why?
Why has a society that took enormous pride in itself for its integrity and accountability become a haven for hocus and a den for deceivers; and why - if we really were who we believed we were, as Kiwis - do we tolerate it?
Some would say it's a result of the patterns of immigration since the 1980s; people coming in from countries where graft and fraud are pandemic, carrying those values with them.
Or because of the Americanisation of everything from the food we eat to the libel suits we file; the falseness of existing only to consume and play one-upmanship under a thin veneer of "freedom".
And some would say it's the shallowness of modern living, where everything is instant and everyone's too busy chasing a buck to survive.
All are partly true, but it still doesn't explain how we could fail so abysmally to stand up against these forces and retain our cultural mana.
Could it be we're not the people we thought we were? Or have we lost heart under the strain of trying to resist all the crooks and war-dogs of the big wide world.
Or is it that we New Zealanders are intrinsically so fair-tempered and forgiving we have allowed our goodwill to be extended far beyond the point of abuse - and simply cannot conceive these disastrous changes are happening here?
I'd prefer to believe that last, and that there remains a large solid core of "kiwiness" out there rendered more inarticulate than usual by the shenanigans going on around it.
But ... and it's a big but: no other prime minister in our history could have got away with what John Key has got away with. In less than three terms he has dissembled, forgotten, misled, ignored, or otherwise obfuscated over more questions of policy and law than any dozen others put together.
His venal, vile and sometimes blatantly vicious pack of Ministers have collectively done the same.
And we love them. Or so 50 per cent plus of those polled would suggest.
This at a time when our lakes and rivers are dying, our national parks are being grubbed for minerals, our children are hungry and unkempt and our pride in this land as the greatest social democracy on Earth is shattered beyond redemption.
We have become dishonest and untrustworthy and we have only ourselves to blame: for putting our faith in "leaders" for whom "trust" is merely a form of tax avoidance.
We don't want to be a tax haven. The only trust fund we need is a social one - and we need it now.
- Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's.
