The real concern in this country isn't our jealousy of wealth and success, it's our knee-jerk meanness towards those at the bottom of life's heap
New Zealanders love to get in a tizz about the supposed Tall Popppy Syndrome. Y'know, we resent other people's talent and success, especially they're wealth. It's all bollocks, of course.
Still, just this week the boss of the charity KidsCan was blaming the tall poppy syndrome for criticism of the way they spend their money. Heck, rather than learn lessons from your poor reporting methods, it's easier to nurse a sense of grievance. 'We're so fabulous, the only possible explanation for all this criticism is jealousy"
The criticism in this instance was that the coats KidsCan supplies to some schools come from Chinese sweatshops. It seems to charity hadn't bothered to check its suppliers that thoroughly, but even so, its chair Rick Shera said it had to "balance whatever those issues are with the fact there is a need in New Zealand".
No, you don't Mr Shera, you need to have some integrity. As most of those kids you give jackets to will be able to tell you, 'two wrongs don't make a right'. You don't fix a problem here by perpetuating one elsewhere.
Fact is, most accusations of Tall Poppy Syndrome in this country are baseless; those invoking the phrase are mostly inflated egos rather than tall poppies.
More of a worry in this country is what I call the Small Poppy Syndrome; and we've seen its ugly face in recent weeks thanks to the indiscretion of social welfare minister, Paula Bennett.
First, she released the income details of two mothers on the DPB who had been involved in protests against her decision to cut the Tertiary Incentive Allowance. We're still awaiting the results of the Privacy Commissioner's investigation into that one.
Now, Bennett has announced that 307 beneficiaries are getting more than $1000 a week from the state. That is, 0.1 percent of the 310,000 New Zealanders on benefits. "Many" (we don't know exactly how many) have eight children or more.
The Prime Minister is demanding an audit; Bennett has said the government needs to ensure that no-one is getting more than they're entitled to. But nothing in the figures suggest that anyone is. So why raise that question, except to provoke more outrage against beneficiaries and endear her further to certain voters? It's like The Simpsons' Mr Burns saying, "release the hounds". As The Standard has pointed out, why not ask how many beneficiaries aren't getting everything they're entitled to? Isn't that just as worthy of an audit?
Really, it's voter-baiting that leaves an especially bad taste when it comes from a former DPB mum. Simply, she should know better.
The problem is that $1000 a week sounds like a lot of money when no circumstances are added. But it's not handed out willy-nilly. It meets a need and follows set protocols. Simon Collins, in typical Collins fashion, has laid out some pertinent facts in today's New Zealand Herald – that even in Auckland that accommodation supplement tops out at $225 (not much in that rental market); that Otago University's study of food costs reveals that it can cost over $600 a week just to feed a family of 12 (ten children and two parents); and that if one of those fruitful parents was earning the average wage, the family would be $449 a week better off than if they were relying simply on benefits.
I don't know about you, but what I conclude from those points is that the money being paid isn't extravagent and that the incentives to work are strong.
At very least you might consider that the basic DPB is $272 a week. Add in another seven children and you're only getting a little over $100 per extra child by the time you hit $1000 a week. Good luck to you finding a house with five or more bedrooms, paying your mortgage, buying food and decent clothes, fixing the washing machine... you get my point.
What disturbs me every time an issue like this arises is how many New Zealanders don't. They ignore the simple fact that we as taxpayers offer this financial support so that these children don't lack the basics of life through no fault of their own. Instead, they turn mean. Their first thought is, 'hey someone's getting something I'm not getting'. They start bashing those small poppies.
It's not a matter of resenting success, but it is jealousy. On the good side, it reflects how highly we still value a strong work ethic in this country. But that instinct quickly goes to a dark place in spite of the facts. At the heart of this syndrome is an insecurity that is always comparing ourselves with others (a branch of cultural cringe?), suspiciously checking that we aren't missing out.
In these instances we don't lack ambition or pride in our great achievers, we lack compassion.
In his new book The Politics of Possibility, past-Pundit Jon Johansson twice mentions the "meanness" the pervades New Zealand politics. And we see it at its worst when politicians invite the beneficiary bashers out to play, as Bennett has done.
I had the misfortune to be listening to talkback radio a couple of days after Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnston had had the details of their income shared with the nation. It was a bitter soup being cooked that day.
One woman said that as a teacher in her first year out of college she didn't get as much as these bludgers. Did she have children? No. The fact that the DPB was then no point of comparison seemed to have escaped her. Fuller and Johnston, if in her situation, would have been on the dole.
Then a young man came on to say that he was one of ten children and his father had worked hard to keep them all, and who did these women think they were? He didn't bother to ask who would care for their children if Fuller and Johnston returned to work, neither did he recognise that their original complaint had been a cut to an allowance that would help them return to work at a wage sufficient that they could afford childcare. But what this man did mention was that while his dad was out working, his mum stayed home to support the family. The fact that these 'bludgers' were solo mums seemed to have escaped him.
It was classic Small Poppy Syndrome. We need to name and shame it so that politicians realise the fire with which they're playing. If a politician uses ethnicity to provoke public anger, the phrases "dog-whistle politics" and "playing the race card" soon appear in the public square. And a good thing too.
But it's just as destructive and unacceptable to play the small poppy card. We need to say clearly to this government, and any others, that we won't fall for it.
Comments (15)
The thing about real tall poppies, is that they bow. But somehow, bowing doesn't make them any less.
The squat poppies (and Paula Bennett is squat) never miss an opportunity to self-promote. It just looks pushy.
Beautifully argued, Tim.
Just this morning I ran a tutorial for first year politics students about whether NZ remained the bastion of equality that Leslie Lipson argued that we were in 1948.
We got into a discussion about how we perceive the welfare state, especially when we define welfare broadly to include health and education.
The consensus was that one cannot over-indulge in health or education; they are simply services you use when you need them.
On the other hand, benefits such as the unemployment benefit are perceived as being exploited and used by those who do not truly need them. Interestingly, we seem rank our welfare system's components so we feel differently about, say, Working for Families than we do about the DPB, despite both having equalitarian intent.
How one can 'over-indulge' on the miserly sums you've cited is beyond me, but our current political rhetoric certainly supports that misguided assumption. And you're right, Tim; New Zealanders love to carry a sense of grievance.
If we, as a nation, feel so strongly about these so-called 'bludgers' perhaps its time we opened a dialogue about the desirability of our entire welfare system rather than just bagging on the small poppies.
Hear, hear, Tim. Thank you for putting it so eloquently.
I am getting sick of the contempt showing towards our most vulnerable people at the bottom of the heap. Really, the question needs to be asked, do these people want women like these two thrown out on the streets, to live in cars, under bridges and in alleyways?
And even if they do get jobs, it still wont be good enough for redneck land, where unless you earn over 70,000 per year, every single cent of what you earned in you pay packet is begrudged. Look at the response to when that woman died after her power was cut a couple of years ago. They werent on any benefits (she was a teacher, I think he worked in a factory), but most people were still unsympathetic to them. You cannot win really. If youre not rich in this country (or own your own business) youre just a non-person.
Thanks so much Tim, for so precisely putting together those two equally unattractive discursive threads: that successful people can get away with anything (the ends justify the means); and that, when times are tough, we like to target for abuse those who are most vulnerable to the fluctations in the market. This morning, there's further ructions about special needs grants given to both beneficiaries and those in work. You would think Bennett would avoid reviewing these: they are awarded as either direct payments to utility companies etc or as vouchers for supermarkets, and like food stamps, cannot be redeemed for cigarettes or alcohol. So not much room for abuse. If need to aply for "special needs" has risen by 75%, then that probably suggests that the baseline benefit rates and the minimum wage are NOT supporting New Zealand families to provide their basic needs. A can of worms? Let's hope so. As a highly educated, middle class person who once had to fight for eight weeks to receive the married students' allowance to which we were entitled, I know exactly how difficult it is to receive your entitlements from the Government. It is indeed time for a review of benefits - one that looks into ensuring that our society's most vulnerable members are recieving all the funds and support they are entitled too. It wouldn't make for great beneficiary-bashing headlines, though.
This wider mean-spiritedness brings to mind Web supremo Paul Graham's essay, "Why Nerds Are Unpopular" (my emphasis in bold):
"Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if it merely caused them to be ignored. Unfortunately, to be unpopular in school is to be actively persecuted.
Why? Once again, anyone currently in school might think this a strange question to ask. How could things be any other way? But they could be. Adults don't normally persecute nerds. Why do teenage kids do it?
Partly because teenagers are still half children, and many children are just intrinsically cruel. Some torture nerds for the same reason they pull the legs off spiders. Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.
Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I've read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.
But I think the main reason other kids persecute nerds is that it's part of the mechanism of popularity. Popularity is only partially about individual attractiveness. It's much more about alliances. To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy."
Spot on.
Matthew, it's interesting to apply that theory to Bennett. Is she building her political popularity by creating a common enemy out of the very people she's supposed to embody? Will she be able to use her background to exploit class in the way that Winston Peters could explout race issues because he was Maori?
It's something the Republicans in the US are very good at - getting subsets of the poorer parts of society to battle with each other even though it would be to their economic benefit to band together and use their political heft.
Thanks Kate and Brendan. We don't talk much about class these days, but it seems that increasingly we're expected to value people according to their wealth rather than their character, community contributions etc.
Jonathan, what side did your milennial students come down on? Sympathy for those people dependent on the less popular parts of our welfare system, or did they dismiss them all as bludgers?
Tim: "It's something the Republicans in the US are very good at - getting subsets of the poorer parts of society to battle with each other even though it would be to their economic benefit to band together and use their political heft."
In the reputed words of railroad tycoon Jay Gould, hiring half the working class to kill the other half. 100 years ago, it meant sending in hired thugs to rearrange the faces of union organisers. Nowadays, it's more about Crosby-Textoresque wedge politics, but the motivations and outcomes are no less nasty.
My students were initially on the 'bludger' side. Then we got talking about whether the state should provide a universal student allowance.
Suddenly there was a lot more sympathy for those on the receiving end of the welfare state.
Matthew. Krugman is big on this topic from a much more recent point of view... Nixon and Reagan used culture wars - abortion v anti-abortion, black v white etc - to divide the working and even middle classes for the benefit of the wealthiest. And he's got some bloody good charts to back himself up. All in Conscience of a Liberal.
Jonathan... LOL. A lesson in the importance of universal welfare! If you'ev got a stake in it, your attitude changes.
More sinisterly, the articles below may be more closely related than we think...
Wikipedia: Producerism
Wikipedia: Parasitism
Tim
I think you have set up a false dichotemy. New Zealanders suffer from both a small poppy and a tall poppy syndrome. The sort of people you identify as tall poppies aren't that at all....just insiders playing the game.
I really like the article. Only I think New Zealanders suffer from an Any-poppy-that's-not-like-how-I-see-myself syndrome. For a country that revels in it's easy going attitude, most of us just simply aren't. We seem to be great at self-delusion.
Matthew SH - just read the producerism/parasitism on Wikipedia. Hitler was a master at divide and rule. A cohesive but financially depressed society was torn apart and a new uglier model rose in its place under his watch.
We have historical models, albeit less physically violent, to match.
I pointed out in the early 90s that Ruth Richardson was treating beneficiaries like the new Jews. Workers were slung out of job-for-life careers. e.g. Otahuhu and its railway workshop training, which, although often wasteful, provided job security and new skills for a 'comfortable lifestyle' type of society. The change in Otahuhu between the early 1990s and now shows how destructive that efficiency/cut costs philosophy was. There was no softer middle road for Richardson or Douglas before her; no gradual change.
Now we have Paula Bennett playing New Zealanders off against each other.
Now we have the Telecom dispute with many older family providers probably destined for the unemployment queue because they do not want the insecurity of self-employment and don't have the capital needed to invest (risky in this recession), virtually ignored by the Labour Minister, Kate Wilkinson. This corporate behaviour towards workers indicates another 'Otahuhu' situation and just as widespread since transport and communication are countrywide and will affect all New Zealanders. I remember also in the 90s when 40 year olds were too old to get a job. Is this being repeated in this new decade? If you aren't skilled for change you end up in the discard bin?
Question: Is this Telecom's and Wilkinson/Joyce's plan to offload older workers?
New Zealanders don't want extra money in their pockets or a flashy cellphone at the expense of other people's suffering or am I wrong?
Ian, I hadn't really identified any tall poppies. What I always find amusing are the people who call themselves tall poppies before they begin complaining about how misunderstood they are and how everyone's out to get them. By defintion, I don't think you can ever refer to yourself as a tall poppy and actually be one.
I'd be interested to hear of some genuine tall poppies who you think have been mown down by the cruel masses. I'd need more evidence, cos I don't see it. The Ed Hillarys, the Peter Snells, the Peter Jacksons... They are widely embraced. It's the wannabes complaining about being tall poppies who get whacked. And that's what I call a low bullshit threshold... something that's usually very healthy, I might add.
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