Despite living in Sweden dow for the best part of 6 years, I do still like to keep up to date with the happenings back in New Zealand. I've got no intentions of ever living there again, 6 years living in another culture has made me less tolerant of things that I thought were perfectly reasonable 6 years ago. People would just annoy the hell out of me with their ignorance. Not malicicious ignorance for the most part but, when you grow up on an island, you only know what you know. Especially with a media which is so clearly state controlled when viewed from the outside. You can almost read a feeling of panic in the NZ media. New Zealand is a country a limited opportunities for everyone. It is not a large country, nor does it have a globally dominant industry. It's quite good at the things it does, but there is only so much that can be achieved by a workforce of a couple of million. The result is that the country acts very much as a feeder nation for other larger countries. Much as a small country town acts as a feeder town for neighbouring cities. People grow up and then leave for the city in order to pursue a more exciting lifestyle or to achieve incomes that the small country town cannot compete with. That's the nature of global migration. It is also something that the government of New Zealand stresses over. It is often the case that the people who leave are the very people you would like to keep. Now, NZ can't compete with salaries, variation, or excitement. So the national media have tried to counter the attraction by introducing fear. If you go too close to the horizon then you'll fall off the edge. Or, at the very least, you'll be eaten by sea monsters. Ok, that sounds ridiculous, but such is the theme generated by the media. If there is a slightly negatively slanted story about any other country then you can guarantee that it will make front page news. You have to read through the trashy headlines in order to find out for yourself if there is (a) any substance to the story, or (b) what the actual scale of the story is. Easier said than done. If the New Zealand media want to run a story about why ex-pats are not returning, I can give them some pretty good ideas. Look no further than the mirror for the answers.
There was classic media trash talk a few weeks back. Someone had come up with the idea that, because tourists to New Zealand were having car crashes, then it should be compulsary for all tourists to sit a NZ driving test before being permitted to drive on NZ roads.
WTF !!!
I got my NZ driving licence when I was 15 years old. When we left for Sweden, I was 43. So that means that I have had (had to get the calculator out there) 28 years of driving experience in NZ. And I can say without any hesitation that NZ born drivers are amongst the worst drivers in the world. Of course I didn't think so at the time, the "island isolation" problem again. Like all NZers, I was allowed to drive for a period of 12 months in another country before being required to take the diving test as required in my new country. I can tell you that it took me way less than 2 months to realise that my driving skills were nowhere near the standard required to blend in. We were crap drivers. Yet, while we expected the right to be able to drive in another country, we wanted to take away that right from other people coming to our shores as tourists. Tourism is the number one growth industry in NZ but the competition is so strong that you don't want to be putting more, un-necessary hurdles in front of the very people who's money you want to take from there.
Let's put the media back into the spotlight for a moment. What exactly is the problem in a country where the vehicle mortality rate is twice that of Sweden ? well, according the the New Zealand media, it's all the fault of tourists. Remember, anything outside of NZ's shores is dangerous and is to be avoided at any cost.
Yesterday I glanced through the local headlines on an on-line NZ media outlet. One of the lead articles talked about the petition about to be presented to Parliament: "The petition aims to prevent tourists driving on New Zealand roads without sitting a test".
On the same page, but lower down for the list, I noted the following headlines on the same day:
Two killed after train hits car
Crash driver jailed
Jandal blamed in fatal crash from the ("Strange but True" files)
Truck driver charged over death of cyclist
Speeding dog owner arrested
Quadbike helmet fine "unjustifiable"
Pedestrian hit by car
Siblings dead in car smash
Car seat found in boot after baby killed in crash.
Terrible reading and unthinkable for those involved. But my point is: "Number of tourist drivers involved ?". Answer: Zero.
Fix your internal problems first before worrying about the shortcomings of others.
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