I once had a work colleague who predicated his opinions in staff meetings with a crisp “Respect! but…” which, of course, turns the respect into the opposite and makes it an infuriating oxymoron in the context of verbal skirmishing in teams.
Whether it’s public debate, political point scoring or collegial consideration of a problem, in this context the inflection signals a failure to recognise the inherent value and worth of the live persons, boundaries or issues in the room. Respect means treating with care, going beyond politeness or obedience, to acknowledge the right of others to exist, feel and think differently than you do.
The older generations’ version: “With all due respect, Mr Speaker…” at least puts a couple of seconds between the impatient fast-thinker response and other team-members’ slower – and often more considered – mental processes.
This time last week we were on tenterhooks about the political fate, not of a bunch of squabbling politicians including the Prime Minister with barely a scrap of mana between them, but of a country that, having survived until ’25, still cannot see its way out of a shoddy recession that, on every count, fell most heavily on its working people.
Disrespect and disdain have also been in evidence behind every tawdry policy or cancellation of the previous, elected Labour-Greens government legislation towards social justice and community initiatives, with families and communities buffeted by cruel, profit-driven decisions.
Paying tax has become a mug’s game, outranked only by the folly of expecting anything but contempt from the top towards our frayed social fabric.
Education, youth welfare and equity vanished in this legislative Punch and Judy show, starting with the spiteful decimation of years of hot school lunch initiatives which pay handsomely in terms of student engagement, absenteeism, local employment and mental progress.
Instead boot camps and charter schools have once again reared their unlovely heads.
Going into this election, more than half of the country’s pristine conservation land is up for grabs when we next have a right-wing government with a dislike for cost analysis. Things like bi-lingual road signs – which I personally considered a great way to lean into the language – are a step towards our foundational resolve to reclaim our cultural heritages and values.
Forget baby boomers. This is being done specifically by the generation that benefitted most from rental homes as a ‘passive income’ entitlement that has been around for barely 40 years, a happy accident for the Prime Minister and members of parliament, most of whom, like their parents, have never known housing poverty. Before that, our treasured Kiwi heritage was near universal home ownership as a fundamental right for families.
Frighteningly naïve or deeply disdainful of fully half of the country’s taxpaying voters, the coalition government apparently thinks – if it thinks at all – it can readily replace thousands of civil servants, probably with AI, a problematic phenomenon which it should have thought constructively about long before now.
In March, faced with the continuing tsunami of highly equivocal legislation enacted under urgency over the summer, civil rights activist group Action Station Aotearoa assembled a package of 99 pieces of legislation passed in the first two years of the coalition government, many with little or no consultation or under urgency, and certainly no robust scrutiny from genuine stakeholders or our remaining industries.
Number 68 on Action Station’s list was the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill, passed despite 96 percent of public submissions opposing the bill. Number 72 was a $200 million spend on fossil fuel development through new gas fields. There was also a lifted ban on oil and gas exploration and a plan to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment. None of them recommended.
Three years ago, when the election dust settled, the embryo coalition leaders took their time carving out pet policies, with many of these turning out to be deeply offensive to the captive taxpaying classes whose dwindling dollars disappeared into deeply unpopular political decisions and axed projects.
The National Party and its leader had only scraped in, despite a campaign donor war chest three or four times larger than any other party and with funds available for top-of-the-line advisors on campaign tactics and political trickery.
Has the coalition government fielded any compelling goals to repair the fraying social fabric which puts us ever-further back on wellbeing social policy.
Or does it seem to have spent the last three years looking back with rancour on its predecessor which – in reviewing all the Action Station legislation the coalition government has overturned so relentlessly – had some pretty impressive maturing initiatives?
The world is changing. The US needs to sort itself out and is not our friend, at least for now. Canada is showing the way to new and more fit-for purpose global trade and is already doing well. New axes of global power and co-operation are promising. We are behind the eight ball.
To catch up, I suggest we need more intelligent respect for New Zealand as a collective and a lot less ‘I, me, mine’ from those we elect to be our political thinktank.
• Liz Waters
© Gulf News & Waiheke Weekender Ltd 2026
