In a recent conversation with my daughter I jokingly said to her, “You know, if you have to kill, we will bury the bodies for you.” She had shared a minor issue that was bothering her and this was my glib reassurance that the family has her back.
It was a reasonably safe statement to make. She is soft hearted and would never willingly hurt anyone. I say reasonably, because her life experience has been sheltered from violence, but who knows what might happen in a situation where her life or her family is at risk?
Our family is tight. Like all families we butt heads fairly regularly, but at the end of the day we give one hundred percent support to family members ahead of anything and anyone else.
This is not because we are all the same; although life would be a whole lot easier if we were. We have very different outlooks and motivations reflected by our possessions. Some have bigger houses and more expensive cars. We don’t all value the traditional status symbols of success, but we do respect our differences despite holding different views, especially on politics and religion.
Because we do not have consensus on material stuff or beliefs; of necessity they take second place to family loyalty. If it were not this way, our family could be ripped apart by the varying accouterments of life. I’ve seen schisms split families where unequal wealth is assaulted by greed and jealousy. Loyalty stops our family from suffering that fate.
Loyalty is powerful. Loyalty engenders trust. You don’t have to agree with everyone in your family but through loyalty, you trust them regardless. Your best interests are their best interests, and vice versa.
In spite of this government’s abysmal performance, loyalty goes a long way in explaining Ardern’s support reflected in three recent polls.
Ardern created the illusion that we are a family of five million people. She demanded our loyalty and by and large she got it. We stuck to the rules during COVID-19. We stayed home. We washed our hands. We were kind.
Ardern demanded loyalty from us but she does not reciprocate. Her version of family is a one-way street and it was demonstrated in her interview with Mike Hosking this week.
Ardern’s motivation regarding COVID-19 has more to do with hogging the world stage than helping small business at home.
“…if we want to be in the position where we already have some of the fewest restrictions in the world um… if we want to be in a position where we are probably the only one [country] that has virtually none...”
No, we don’t want to lead the world, Jacinda; you do. We are on level two lock down longer than necessary, risking businesses and employment, just so you can fly the flag and say we lead the world. Sure, we are free of the virus that killed 22 old people with pre-existing conditions, but health is no longer the issue. Those days are past.
If you are not convinced that our PM has abandoned our economic future to assert her international political aspirations, here’s another admission.
“All the way through our entire strategy is about… bin about trying to open up the economy faster than others [other countries].”
Open the economy – not for the sake of small business or the economy – but faster than anyone else! What a slap in the face for businesses forced to close their doors from 21st March, with some operating now but with one hand still tied behind their back. They beg for level one lock down after seeing permanent business closures and mass redundancies. The longer the lock down, the worse the economic mess.
In the interview Ardern says she has a handle on “hospo” but admits she doesn’t understand the challenges facing retail.
“…retail I’d be interested to hear some of that feedback. Um… why… what those wider impacts are.”
Why hasn’t she bothered to find out for herself what those “wider impacts” on retail are?
While Ardern claims to defer to Ashley Bloomfield’s expert advice about the movement between lock down levels, she doesn’t think she needs expert economic advice on the effect of lock down on the economy because, as she tells Mike Hosking “
… by and large the economy is back.”
There you have it folks. Our leader thinks that by and large the economy is back. Someone should remind her that, besides the tens of thousands who will be made jobless when the wage subsidy ends, over half of all retail and hospitality employees are under the age of 30. A newspaper reports:
“In the pre-Covid-19 world retail and food services and accommodation employed more than 350,000 people, accounting for 17 per cent of all jobs, according to Stats NZ’s linked employer-employee data of 2018.
The first thing that stands out about these sectors is how young their employees skew.
In hospitality, well over half of employees are under the age of 30, and the bulk of those are in their late teens and early twenties.
Under 30s in retail fill 44 per cent of jobs.”
I won’t be offering to bury the bodies from this family of five million when the young and healthy kick the bucket at their own hands, or cancer patients die because they missed checks and treatment during lock down. I wager there will be more than 22 dead for reasons other than the virus before this is over.
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