Framing NZ as first world country isn’t realistic

Framing New Zealand as an Oceanic country with strong Asian connections makes more sense than a frame derived from Europe, given our location, economic and population relationships. Photo: Getty Images

How useful really is our adversarial, executive-dominated, single chamber Parliament? As Dorothy Parker said of heterosexuality ‘it is not normal, it’s just common’.

Opinion: We are often held back from achieving goals by limitations in our thinking that we impose on ourselves. This is true for individuals, whānau, firms and other organisations as well as countries.

For sure, we also have limitations of both physical and social kinds on what we can achieve. We make our own futures, a wise person once wrote, but we do not make them in conditions we choose. In pursuing our aims we think and act within frameworks of what we think is normal or realistic.

I read a commentary sent by a friend this week about “framing” and how significant it is if we adopt an austerity or scarcity frame of thought and language as compared to a positive or abundant frame. There is sense in this, though I’m not convinced that it is a full explanation.

From individual to national level we will not achieve much if our language is dominated  by negativity, posing problems rather than solutions. But happy language on its own will not suffice either. Positive thinking can hit physical and mental walls and not prevail.

But the idea got me thinking about frameworks which do hold us back in our political and economic management. These are not so much distributed across a continuum of positivity but rather across a range of views which simply do not accord with current reality. They are views which hold us back from making the best policy decisions.

A simple example is the idea that there is some arbitrary level of government debt which we should not exceed. This idea has had currency across a wide range of our political parties but has no inherent logic.

There may be some level at some time which is too high but there is equally a level which is excessively restrictive. The arbitrary level, even allowing for some short term flexibility in extreme conditions such as pandemic and some political number juggling at the margin, is a fiction.

We might wonder whether our adversarial, executive-dominated and single chamber structure of parliament is useful… As Dorothy Parker said of heterosexuality ‘it is not normal, it’s just common’.

There are many examples of successful economic management where it has not been applied and simple logic tells us that source of funds and use of spending is far more important than this macro limit.

It has been labelled as “responsible” but in practice it is the opposite. It prevents us from achieving our objectives.

Another obvious and broadly shared shibboleth is that of central bank independence. It is not obvious, if you take off the blinkers, why monetary policy should be any less political than fiscal policy.

There are obvious reasons why operating both policies in concert and co-operation might be very much more desirable than separation. Transparency and diversity of input have strong cases against an unelected cabal of “experts”.

While we are thinking freely we might wonder whether our adversarial, executive-dominated and single chamber structure of parliament is useful.

Our ‘non-political’ public service … may pretend to ongoing faithful monogamy between public servants and political masters but in practice there is frequent resort to hiring in preferred partners from the escort agencies like EY and PwC.

We may see its historical development as culturally-imposed or mutually-evolved depending on viewpoint but there is no compelling reason why its current state should be accepted as inevitable.

It is not “normal” or “natural” in any meaningful sense but historically and culturally limited and limiting. As Dorothy Parker said of heterosexuality “it is not normal, it’s just common”.

Let’s not stop there.

Our “non-political” public service is another colonial relic. In recent times the credibility of its status has been stretched. It may pretend to ongoing faithful monogamy between public servants and political masters but in practice there is frequent resort to hiring in preferred partners from the escort agencies like EY and PwC.

The pretence of “non-political” service might work where political differences are not wide or deep or mono-cultural but there is no pretence possible in today’s Aotearoa.

We need to open up to a wider range of skills and backgrounds and beliefs and accept a more fluid process for delivering service. Our current structures limit vision, optionality and effectiveness.

These limiting frameworks apply across old-style political divides. I have been prone to this in the public versus private dichotomy in areas like health, social service and education. Just as proponents of “private enterprise is the only valid enterprise” limit us, I have grown to accept that “public service is the only valid service” also limits us.

Reality has shifted around this dichotomy as the social makeup of Aotearoa has changed. “Social enterprise” is active in the gaps created by the failures of the opposites. We are much better supporting and enabling these flourishing initiatives than defending or tearing down old walls in the interests of private versus government as the only options.

These frames do shift over time but they are stubborn. We have made progress on gender and sexuality framing but still struggle with trans issues. We seem to make progress on environmental framing but keep hitting the lasting frame that economic aka commercial interests must prevail.

We seemed to have made a shift towards an independent and disarmament based foreign policy but the lingering hold of “western world vs a shifting enemy” framing threatens to be strong enough to even overcome commercial interests.

Our frame that we are a “first world country” and that we are entitled to be that leads us to often unrealistic ambitions. It has strong colonial and mono-cultural tones as well.

To my mind a framing that we are an Oceanic country with strong Asian connections  makes more sense than a frame derived from Europe given our location, economic and population relationships.

This would reflect in us working with the peoples and resources we actually have and look considerably different to being a supplicant at the large Euro-American tables of economic and military power.

As you grow up, your frames of what is normal, appropriate and useful change. Same goes for countries.

By: Rob Campbell
Originally published at: Newsroom