Dialogue: Talking about my poor generation

I would like to begin this ode to self-sufficiency and independence by telling a story that, on the face of things, contributes nothing of relevance, meaning, significance or interest.

I will share the story regardless. There are a few who I suspect need to hear it to grow.

It is about how I discovered how small an income many people in my age group - in their late 20s and early 30s - earn. Even people who you would think would be rolling in it, unfortunately are not.

I apologise for raising topics as crass as cash and personal income but, alas, I must.

I must because there is a small handful of people out there who believe that most members of Generation X are obsessed with making money, and I'd like to have a crack at waking that small handful up.

I'd like to offer an alternative viewpoint to those people who feel that Generation X has been brainwashed by the New Right and thinks only in terms of personal gain.

More to the point, I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint to those people who feel that the only reason I've suggested means-testing superannuation in the past few weeks is that I think only in terms of personal gain. People can be so rude.

But where were we? Ah, yes, my little story about personal income. Actually, it isn't much of a story. It's more of a little point.

Basically, I've been interviewing a large number of people in my peer group for a project that I am doing. Several people I have spoken to have touched (inevitably with a wry smile) upon the subject of salary.

What's been interesting is how little they earn and have always earned.

I wouldn't (and probably shouldn't) touch on this phenomenon - except that I've been so struck by it.

Figures of $300 to $400 a week have regularly been mentioned. That would be neither here nor there except that quite a few of these people are well-known and successful (among them are musicians, film producers, techno-wizards and various personalities).

They are people who you would assume were taking some sort of victory lap on the gravy train. But they are not. They really are not. Instead, they work at part-time jobs or at activities extraneous to their main one to bump up their incomes.

Indeed, I have a part-time job myself - a 10 to 12-hours-a-weekend number that helps keep the ship afloat.

And bloody right, too. Self-sufficiency is the name of the game in this country. Nothing else makes sense. Why should you, or anyone else, finance me because I've chosen to live my life as a half-motivated freelancer? Why should you pay for my healthcare or education or kinky hobbies or retirement?

What gives me the right to expect anything above and beyond what a country this size can afford to give?

It comes down to realistic expectations. It's about working with what you've got. It's about understanding that this is a tiny country that makes a tiny income, and waking up to the limits therein.

Generation Xers who stay in New Zealand understand these limits all too well. After all, accepting the fact that you're never going to be a millionaire is part and parcel of making the decision to stay.

Musicians know that even if they are successful in New Zealand (and the ones I have in mind most certainly are) they will shift only a few thousand CDs at best.

Authors know that at very best, they'll sell 15,000 books. A successful dance-party is one that draws 1500 punters.

That is why I wish to put, in however minor a way, the suggestion that Generation Xers in this country are not obsessed with money. There isn't any money to be obsessed with. We're realists - not necessarily because we want to be, but because there's no other choice in a country this size.

For instance, my own loathing for universal superannuation stems not from a desire to see elderly people living in cardboard boxes or to get my hands on the whack myself (I hardly see how I could, anyway) but from a very real concern about financing a fund that is likely to gobble this nation's minuscule gross domestic product.

The question I always ask when state spending is proposed in this country is not "who is going to get it?" but "where is it coming from?"

That is the difference between your generation and mine.