IT IS SOBERING to see your own country identified as offering the world a seriously bad example. New Zealanders are accustomed to seeing their country as the home of good examples, full of instructive role models who consistently “punch above their weight”. John Gray’s words, taken from his latest offering in The New Statesman, force us to look at what is happening in New Zealand through a very different lens.

You need at least a Silver membership plan to access Insight articles.

Known principally for his political commentaries in The Dominion Post, The ODT, The Press and the late, lamented Independent, and for "No Left Turn", his 2007 history of the Left/Right struggle in New...