It's a movie PM Bill English and his caucus need to see en masse. Not only to give them a taste of reality, but because his government don't take the Arts and Culture seriously. They spend more on sport, and God knows we're not getting our money's worth of good role models there.
I recalled English's remarks last year as deputy PM, that a cohort of Kiwi job seekers are 'pretty damned hopeless' and 'can't read and write properly'. Then his more recent crack about how each week two or three business owners tell him how difficult it is getting Kiwi workers applying for jobs to pass drug tests.
He was campaigning already, grabbing headlines, backed by his Business Roundtable cronies, and clobbering those clinging to the bottom rung of the job ladder - those least able to defend themselves - ignorant of any Drug Foundation data.
Fact is, the failure rate is quite small. About 0.17% of those tested.
I'm not saying there isn't a problem, either; I'm not that naïve. I worked in a sector where drug use was prevalent (and still is). But as PM, English - well-off and secure behind his pinstriped cloak of position, surrounded by his well-heeled mates at a press junket - had no right to write-off or accuse a generation or large sector of potential workers of taking drugs, without understanding why.
Maybe Moonlight might enlighten him.
Here's something he could ponder:
I began work in 1966. Through amity and great wit old hands took me under their wings, mentored me and showed me the ropes. Work colleagues became a part of my life almost as much as my wife and children. We worked diligently and long hours and were well compensated enabling us to buy homes and provide for our families.
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Government reforms in the early 90s saw many old hands made redundant and opened the way for management to casualise our industry. Applications for casual work covered my desk, and if stacked right would have reached my office ceiling.
Casuals thought getting a foot in the door would open a permanent career path for them in the industry.
The pile dwindled when most grasped this wasn't happening. Those who stuck it out spread their options between three companies drawing from the same pool of casual labour; or elsewhere.
To survive, despite being told they shouldn't, some switched from one company to another, straight from one shift to another, without sleep. P - methamphetamine - became a big part in how some survived. And it's still happening.
Without administrative backing, I learned to make a fist of working alongside my casual staff without the permanent hands that I'd grown up with. Management accused me of siding with a bad lot - the same casual workforce they themselves had created.
In my last job, I worked with a young Maori given the Christian name of an 80's Rock star he loathed: Let's call him Bono.
Bono was a hard case - an artist/poet/rapper/DJ who loved fooling around on bikes and skateboards. I saw something in him that management didn't. I asked, could I take Bono under my wing and show him what I knew, but was turned down.
Problem was, Bono was the sort of kid who could tell Bill English a thing or two about National's health and education systems, about poverty traps and inequality, zero contracts and 90-day trials, lack of apprenticeships, and the pitfalls of casual working - that's why management didn't like him, and why English and his ilk won't ever see Moonlight in their La La Land while eternally ensconced.
Graham Chaplow is a retiree, volunteer teachers' aide and award-winning writer.
¦Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz
Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz