Jim Hopkins: Keep quiet, world, NZ is still sleeping

We expect prosperity as a natural right while avoiding the hard choices that come with it. Photo / Sarah Ivey

If New Zealand was a motel, there'd be a great big "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door - to keep the world at bay. It would hang on the handle all day, every day, telling rowdy yobbos like change and decline to keep the noise down because we're trying to sleep and would be very grateful if they'd refrain from raucous clamour.

If New Zealand was a motel, every unpleasantness would be banished, no hard choices would be made and all the ticking time bombs would sound so faint that the sleepwalkers of Godzone would never be rudely awakened from their complacent slumber.

If New Zealand was a motel, there'd be no need to consult the menu in the restaurant. We would always know what we were going to have.

"Are you ready to order?" the waiter would ask, his disagreeably foreign accent suggesting he wasn't really here to serve but for some more sinister purpose, like buying a farm.

If New Zealand was a motel, our response would be brusque.

"Yes," we would reply, "we'll have what we had yesterday. Nothing different, thank you, no unpleasant surprises. We like what we had yesterday. We want every day to be yesterday. More of the same, please."

"Would you care to try a little Schedule 4 land with that?" the waiter might inquire.

"0.2 per cent, perhaps?"

"Did we have any yesterday?" we'd reply. And the waiter would shake his head.

"No, you didn't. Many years ago you did, as much as you could shake an axe or shovel at, in fact, and all the enjoyments of your lives came from it, but no, it wasn't on the menu yesterday.

"Well, actually, it was, but management kept it quiet, so you didn't know about it."

"Then we don't wish to know about it now," we would declare, "and you will not put it on our plate. We don't like hard choices, sir. Nor should we be obliged to make them.

"We are pioneers no longer, in case you hadn't noticed. The digging's been done. The felling is finished. The clearance is cancelled. Our mana falls from heaven now.

"Prosperity is our birthright, a natural entitlement, earned without effort - or from tourists who gratefully pay whatever we charge. So begone, you scoundrel. And take your Schedule 4 land with you.

"We don't know where it is or what it is but it is sacrosanct. Not one hectare shall pass our pristine lips."

If New Zealand was a motel, its owners would borrow $250 million a week so we could all stay in the same rooms we've always had and not move to cheaper accommodation, or, perish the thought, pay more.

And we would think this was a jolly fine thing.

"What's all this nonsense about mining?" we'd say. "This is New Zealand, best little motel in the world. Ask us, we'll tell you. Why should we dig holes in the ground when we can borrow all we need? It's so much better for the environment. Something from the mini-bar, my dear?"

But New Zealand isn't a motel. It's a half-empty resthome - or retirement village, if you prefer. Either way, it's seen better days.

Yes, it's spacious, yes, it's genteel and, yes, we've still got marvellous views (many over clear-felled land) but views won't buy slippers for an ageing population. If we don't want mines and we don't want dams and we don't want covered dairies and we don't want foreigners buying farms or anything to change, it's hard to maintain a standard of living.

Next year, more of us will leave the work force than enter it. And so it will go, year after year, for all the foreseeable future.

This week, in the Coromandel, an exultant chap - who must have had a way to make ink that didn't involve digging the ingredients out of the ground - proudly displayed a sign saying: "There is a place for mining. The place for mining is Australia."

And so say all of us. Apparently. But Australia is also the place for half a million Kiwis. Many of our children enter the workforce there, not here.

The young know they're in short supply. They know the world will mine them.

So they go to a land where the lights are brighter and the wages larger; a land where mining is also a matter of current debate.

Except, in Australia, pragmatic politicians defer to public opinion by backing down on moves to penalise an industry that's kept the lucky country lucky.

So our children go and we remain, secure in our Schedule 4 land. The sign has worked. We haven't been disturbed. This is reassuring. Just as it's comforting to hope, if New Zealand was a motel, that the kids would likely book in for a couple of nights every second Christmas.