If New Zealand was a motel, there’d be a great big “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door – to keep the world at bay. It would hang on the handle all day, every day, telling rowdy yobbos like change and decline to keep the noise down because we’re trying to sleep and would be very grateful if they’d refrain from raucous clamour.
This is the opening paragraph of Jim Hopkins’ NZ Herald column, in which he points out, wittily and well, the consequences if New Zealanders keep saying no today to anything that’s not like yesterday.
He’s right.
Homepaddock 
Thanks for the heads up;-)
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And as usual, so damned right.
Have you noticed that its the oldies who want to do things and the younger supposedly better educated younger ones who insist on a life developed only since the 1980s?
About all we’ve retained from Lange’s two terms was a fear of nuclear power, a church like atmosphere about our native forests and lands and fear of Gaia’s retribution if we stick a spade or saw in Her.
Milton said it.. “and that one talent which is death to hide, lodged with me useless”.
Our opposition to doing things seems rooted in a fear of offending the tourists who think we are cute and quaint, and our returning expats who want to retire to a “nice” place where they can enjoy the dollars they earned in more vibrant and perhaps grubbier climes.
John Key uses the word “Party Central” and a heap of wowsers rear up in disgust at the imagery of a piss up and a couple of old corrugated iron sheds suddenly develop huge historic potential. Then the locals demand to know whats wrong with their own over priced piss up shops..
JC
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