Dialogue: Gifts of nature and family worth more than money

By RICHARD RANDERSON*

Last year I returned to New Zealand after five years working as an Anglican bishop in Canberra and south-eastern New South Wales.

As a returnee I found it fascinating to observe the wildly vacillating Kiwi self-image as reflected in the pervasive opinion polls that preoccupy us.

In March we were cock-a-hoop, riding a wave of confidence and positive feelings about the future. By July we were in the depths of despair - New Zealand was a basket case on the world scene. At year's end we were collectively of the view that maybe things were not so bad after all.

And what drives these crazy national mood swings? Seemingly it is that group we dub as the gnomes of Zurich and their international counterparts - a bunch of global financiers who peer into their computers and issue national report cards based on dollars and deficits, budgets and forecasts.

When one of the report cards arrives in this country it is trumpeted around by the gnomes' local agents, the media fan the blaze, and the rest of us all feel better or worse, as the case may be. When it's worse all the bright people (so we're told) skip the country, as though leaving a sinking ship.

But I wonder if we measure the right things. Does the true value of our nation really switch in such a roller-coaster fashion? And is that value to be measured in reductionist fashion by dollars and cents?

To be sure, a nation's economy is important, but is it the most important thing about a nation? Now that we are truly in the new millennium, let me suggest three things that are of much greater importance, and challenge us to value these.

First, here in New Zealand, we must surely be one of the most fortunate of nations with our rich heritage of sea, mountains and bush, and the uncrowded space we enjoy compared with almost anywhere else in the world. Environmentally our footprint on this land has not been light, and many challenges face us to conserve what we have. But this gift of nature is a treasure of enduring worth.

Second, the greatest human gifts we have are the gifts we are to each other - family, neighbours, friends, communities and cultures. Sadly, our social fabric shows much wear and tear. The tragedies of child abuse and violence against the innocent tear us apart. The often hidden depths of poverty and social depression are realities we have countenanced far too long.

But as New Zealanders we are few enough to be family to one another. We have the capacity to show compassion, be generous, and overcome the poverty and violence that too often beset us.

Third, as a nation based on the Treaty of Waitangi, we have done better than most other nations in building a partnership with indigenous people. In Australia I was involved as an Anglican representative in the "Stolen Children" review process. The publication of the Bringing Them Home report in 1997 made a huge difference to Australians in terms of increased awareness of their past, and the challenge of justice and reconciliation they face for the future. But they are light years behind the Treaty-based commitments and programmes of New Zealanders.

Sure, we have a way to go, and the fear of a backlash is always with us, but we have made good progress in rebuilding partnership and that is something to celebrate.

Extending the concept of partnership even further, the fact that Auckland's population is now only 66 per cent European by background gives us great opportunity to be enriched by the many colourful and diverse races and cultures which make us much more of a rainbow community.

The national vocabulary has now been peppered with such find-sounding phrases as innovation, flexibility, enterprise, knowledge economy, cost-effectiveness, re-structuring and the like.

These are worthy concepts as far as they go but they are not ends in themselves. In fact, they are no more than strategies in search of ends - ends such as those outlined above. When those ends are lost sight of we become no more than puppets on the end of the gnomes' economic strings.

The late British economist E.F. Schumacher, in his book of the 1970s Small is Beautiful, had this to say:

"To the extent that economic thinking is based on the market, it takes the sacredness out of life because there can be nothing sacred in something that has a price. Not surprisingly, therefore, if economic thinking pervades the whole of society, even simple non-economic values like beauty, health or cleanliness can only survive if they prove to be economic."

A quarter of a century later, Schumacher's words are ones we might savour to enhance our collective sense of worth and well-being in these rich southern isles.

* Richard Randerson is Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland.