Queen’s Birthday 1998 was an interesting three-day experience which opened my eyes to all manner of things. I realise this may sound a bit odd, but that weekend was the first time I had ever experienced how “ordinary people” (around 90% of the population) live; their lifestyles, their values, their [strange] view of the world. Hitherto my life had consisted of living in a bubble of sorts and I must confess to being slightly bewildered by my first meeting with ‘the other half’.
One person I met that fateful weekend mentioned a couple of mutual acquaintances in business circles; one thing led to another, and my business partner and I commenced ‘exporting’ to Australia. I haven’t looked back!
Draw an arc from Wollongong in the south, through to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, up to Newcastle in the north; 65% of Australia’s GDP is generated within that arc – a trillion dollars per year. Not bad for a land area the size of Auckland and the Waikato. As I have said before, God knows why more New Zealand businessmen aren’t also exporting across the Tasman and grabbing their share of that massive ocean of money.
It is always interesting to note the number of Maori in Sydney who are “making it” in business once they break free from Maori culture and whanau back home. I personally know 11 people, relatives of my “dearly beloved”, who arrived in Sydney with 3 bucks in their pocket after years on the dole in Northland and who, once they left their ‘culture’ behind, could finally be themselves, got stuck in and are now successful businessmen. It warms the heart, it really does.
For the last couple of decades (2020/21 exceptions notwithstanding), I generally spend a month each year in NSW visiting our business customers. It is always fun and always informative. Sydneytown really is a marvellous city, and let me assure you, dear reader, it is a very, VERY small town.
Something which always ends (rather predictably) in hoots of derisive laughter is to be sitting down with a businessman customer, having a cup of tea, and casually weaving into the conversation, “Do you know _____ ?” I mention the name of some big-noting Kiwi expat (there are plenty of them) emailing his parents in Dunedin, or somewhere, about his glorious life and success.
Invariably that person will have a ‘reputation’ around Sydneytown; a trail of failed ventures, debts, writs, and other matters along those lines, while back in New Zealand they are always held up as some sort of role model. Such Kiwis are so easy to spot, and I never trust any sort of media report about ‘New Zealanders making it in Australia’ because experience has taught me what the true situation always is.
Even what you may think of as ‘mid ranking’ stuff – being a lawyer or physician or engineer etc – is never what those undertaking such activities claim. They are always passed over for partnerships or promotions because the ‘Eastern Suburbs’ crowd (who own the places where they work) have absolutely no time for the gaucheries of the average Kiwi.
Moronic “Kia ora bro” greetings on your first day on the job may impress someone in, say, Wellington but consign you to an uneventful career in Sydneytown. It is therefore no surprise to me that Mr Matthew Tukaki has been exposed as a hoaxer. To put it bluntly, because I had never heard of him, his claims were never plausible. Only someone like Kelvin Davis would ‘swallow it whole’.