Opinion: I used to regard New Zealand as unique, a kind of paradise, akin to an isolated, innocent and slightly naive child yet to grow up. No matter what happened in the world, we had the sanctity, charm, creativity, work ethic and opportunity within our own country to make a great life for ourselves.
I have questioned that more times in the past three years than I wish to admit - and if that kind of paradise still exists it’s much harder to find. Stories from two families got me once again reflecting on it.
I gatecrashed a small farewell dinner held by a mate’s family last month in Hokianga. I say gatecrashed because I was staying with him, doing a bit of fishing, when he told us we were off to a small family dinner at the local hotel to farewell his nephew, Sam, who is heading to London in search of work.
I already knew Sam, through work and as a family friend, before I turned up at the dinner. He’s a young journalist who wants to live and work in New Zealand, but his industry has collapsed, it’s laying workers off not hiring them, and now he’s forced to find work overseas.
About 30 family members sat down to say goodbye, they made speeches and sang waiata and his dad said Sam may never return to live in NZ again. I guess it sounds dramatic, but it’s also a very real possibility.
Our country can no longer offer Sam a future in the industry he trained for just a few years ago.
His dad started to tear up. He lost his wife, Sam’s mum, to cancer a few years back, his daughter works in London and now his son is off. It was sad, but it’s also part of the NZ reality and our stumbling and struggling economy. I can’t see it improving for some time yet.
It made me reflect on my own start to working life. When I graduated with a journalism degree, I worked for the Taranaki Daily News in New Plymouth before being hired by TVNZ as one of two interns. I was paid $15,600 a year - half what the paper was paying me.
Everyone in our class of 31 had some kind of work lined up. I can’t imagine today’s recruits having the same story to tell. I doubt we now need as many journalism graduates.
A vastly complex world
Our teenagers are heading into a vastly complex world where economies are changing as fast as technology is, and disruption and uncertainty are everywhere.
The alarmingly rapid rise of artificial intelligence is under way and the frightening forecast that around 40% of the world’s jobs could disappear in the next 15-25 years makes you wonder if this is the beginning of the end.
AI is not just “on its way” in some distant future scenario, but it’s here at a sprint, not a jog. It’s as scary as it is exciting and, without the necessary regulation, limits and frameworks to manage the good, the bad, the downright evil and all the unintended consequences, are we designing our own demise?
The upheaval we’re about to face over the next 15 years will, according to experts creating the technology, be bigger than the influence and introduction of electricity. It comes on top of our concerns right now about jobs and our work futures, with the cost-of-living crisis as a backdrop.
What a turnaround from last year when the job market was tight and employers faced taking whoever turned up. If Sam cracks it in London, I can’t see him risking it all by coming back to NZ.
Imagine having $1.1 million in debt
Why have things turned so sour? Because inflation is a killer and getting on top of it is painful.
Interest rates have dealt families a savage blow; discretionary income has been swallowed up and as a result, retail is facing some of the toughest times on record. Cafe owners surveyed by economist Tony Alexander say they’re not sure how much longer they can stay afloat. Other economists now say these difficult conditions, and lack of confidence, will be present until the middle of 2025.
So much for bouncing and rebounding strongly out of the Covid era.
Which brings me to my next tale, of Reagan White who hosts the Where’s My Money Podcast.
Unlike Sam, Reagan is not travelling anywhere for the next 30 years. Why? His mortgage is $1.1 million and the house he bought for $1.4m at the height of Covid is apparently worth less than that today. That might be so, but his mortgage payments have almost doubled since he bought the house and now cost close to $8000 a month. I find that mind-boggling.
Reagan spends every last cent on just getting by. Every cent is now budgeted for; he has various side hustles. It’s a great welcome to life for young parents trying to get ahead.
A debt of $1.1m is eye-watering and difficult to comprehend. So is the fact that it will take 30 years to pay it off at a rate of $7100 a month. Of that, $6400 is interest so, every month, White pays off just $700 of the actual loan.
It’s the definition of madness. Here’s a young family suffocating in debt and stuck in a house that they can’t afford to do anything else with. For White, a new deck or holiday is impossible.
Now, first-time mortgage holders finally understand low-interest rates were not going to last forever. You can argue our parents’ generation had to contend with high interest rates but at least for them house prices sat at three times their salary rather than 10 times or more, as they do now.
NZ has changed, not for the better. It’s now a dog-eat-dog, painful and excessively expensive fight to just live, let alone get ahead. The worst bit is that we’ve sat back and watched as we designed it this way this.
Sat back? Yes, because report after report has been published, expert after expert has spoken out, warning of what would happen. We either did nothing, were too slow to react or wrote another report.
So, is buying a house still part of the Kiwi dream or is it now a 30-year nightmare, a life sentence that drowns you in debt? And is heading off to London still fun and part of our rite of passage, or is it simply the only way to get a job?
