Dialogue: Out with modesty, let's celebrate what we are

By CHRISTINE RANKIN

Here I am at the end of the most intense experience of my life, and I've had a few.

When I received the thunderbolt from Judge Goddard last week I was stunned. I never thought I was going to win everything, but nor did I think I was going to lose everything.

After a few days of reflection I decided no good was going to come from pursuing any further action. What had to be said had been said and it was time to move on. I was pleased that the Government has seen it the same way and will not seek costs.

So the action is over. Each party involved can now take the time to assess what was learned and what should happen in the future. For my part, I have things to do and want to be forward rather than backward-looking.

I was in Australia when the judge's decision was announced, taking a break from the stress.

I took a cab from the airport. I love talking to cabbies because they are the fount of all knowledge on everything.

Fortunately he hadn't heard of me so didn't have an opinion on my dress sense or my competence. Nor did he want to talk about me. In fact, we talked about him. It soon unfolded that he wasn't any ordinary cabbie.

He has an onboard computer to provide tourists with the happenings on the Gold Coast. He carries water bottles, especially on Thursdays because that is pension day when his elderly passengers generally go to the doctor. The water is so that they can take their medication on the way home, which apparently they like to do.

Besides that, he has been to language classes to gain a working knowledge of three languages - Chinese, Japanese and one other which he did not specify - so he could converse with his passengers. This guy seemed just an ordinary cabbie, but in fact he was an extraordinary cabbie. What passion for his job, however ordinary. What commitment to his customers.

I had a moment of a deep sense of loss. For three years I visited the frontline of Work and Income two days every week. These look like ordinary clerical staff. But they are not ordinary. Time after time I would meet staff who were going the extra mile for their clients, trying to make a difference, listening to their needs and delivering solutions.

In the end it paid off with spectacular results. I am going to miss that. This is about the triumph of human nature and when harnessed it is hugely powerful.

I always enjoy Australia because I enjoy Australians. They are a positive and optimistic lot. They are positive, often passionate about their country and have a sense of direction and purpose as a people and a nation, and they're not afraid to tell you.

Back in New Zealand it's different. There are still ordinary people who are willing to do extraordinary things and many, probably just as many as in Australia, are doing it, but somehow our culture says that we cannot talk about it. That means, we cannot easily recognise achievement and without recognition the spirit can shrivel.

Australians believe they are competent, believe they are winners and as a result they are. If this is a nation taken in by a huge confidence trick, then give me more because look at the results.

Knowing our strengths and weaknesses and understanding the huge potential in every one of us is the key to our individual development and achievement. Believe me, as a young woman on the DPB I would never have dreamed of being head of a welfare organisation or taking on the Government when I felt myself to have been wronged. But I have and I did.

It seems that in NZ being different can be easily seen as a negative. As a nation we don't encourage each other to show our personalities, to put ourselves or our country up. If we succeed and we are very quiet about it and we're not showy, then it may just be all right. Our lack of celebration of achievement is almost lonely.

We have the talent, we have the ordinary people with extraordinary capability and motivation, but if we are to succeed and have the spontaneity of Australians, we have to turn around this closed and closeted attitude of modesty and sameness and not drive achievement underground but let it flourish, talk about it, celebrate it.

I remember being told at Stanford University when I went there for a four-week programme back in 1997 that until you fail you cannot understand success. If we closet ourselves from failure, or if we punish it through socially ostracising people, then we will find it that much harder to succeed and express that success.

I almost always come away from a cab ride feeling stimulated and optimistic. This one was no exception.