The Flight Home
Hello and thanks again to readers for their interest to date in Brenty’s Two Cents.
My wife and I have been exceedingly fortunate to be away in Europe and elsewhere for the last little while.
As I am sure many New Zealanders will have felt, being so far away creates a distance to our affairs down here, and with that comes a fresh perspective on them. This can be one of the biggest parts of being away.
It’s possible to see that a lot of things are similar elsewhere, that a lot of things are different, and that any similarity or difference is due to any number of things. In my experience many point to “the population” to explain differences, and with this its market implication. “Our isolation” is often raised in similar vein. And there’s a lot in all that, no doubt. But it seems to me that market implications can explain as many of New Zealand’s similarities with other places as it can our differences.
This time we were largely in the German-speaking world, a language and culture in which I have very little background. Being out of the Anglosphere loomed large to me, and with that what seemed some cultural and values implications. This time also, questions of similarity and difference came up through a little bit of climbing in the Swiss Alps, as well as some walking, running and paragliding in their Austrian counterparts. (Hard work.)
Alpine Huts
The plethora of tracks – literally everywhere including through farms and commercial forests – had me thinking of our relative lack in the Upper Clutha basin. Could our lack here be different in certain places, and what if it was? Is there any place for a network of “Alm”-like mountain huts, serving expensive but cold beers, along with lunches of local food, to weary travellers - like some extention on the popular national cycle trails network? How good could a multi-day “Around Lake Wakatipu” track be, complete with similar accommodation? Is there any place for lifts from the lowlands into the New Zealand alpine, such as the never-quite-dead Skyline proposals at Franz Joseph? (A place named for a Hapsburg monarch who was often resident just down the road from our house while away.) What are the drivers – whether they originate in values, the market or anything else – underlying the lack of these things here in the Upper Clutha or New Zealand?
These kinds of questions swirled about in my head and helped stave off giving in to the heat or a high heart rate as I went about my most-loved activity of “Eating Metres”, aka climbing hills quickly. It occurred that such questions could cast an interesting light on the likes of the recently delivered advice on the Milford Opportunities Project, or MOP. Or on the recent review of the International Visitor Levy, or IVL. Or what about stories that DOC is considering shrinking New Zealand’s backcountry hut network, perhaps shaping to divest itself of huts?
The huts story has been bubbling away for many years, but the budget pressures of 2024 seem to be moving things along once again. Some think that things will bumble to a situation somewhere like now. But to me it seems that soon, people in the outdoor, tourism communities will need to join hands with the wider public and mana whenua to imagine the future they want for huts and tracks, say why, and say how they will get there. Which really means talking about the various relationships we want to cultivate with the DOC estate.
I think this is positive, because change is the only constant and reality truly can be said to be conversational, a la poet David Whyte. Including in the backcountry or wilderness. It’s a privilege to come back home to FMC and be a part of that conversation. And as I’ve said before (at least twice), a durable settlement in this area will involve re-articulating “recreation”, which is legally an aspect of “conservation”, in a way that a contemporary New Zealand can recognise and respect.
Pondering in Dubai
Of course, even a passionate outdoorsman knows that huts might be seen to be a bit of a niche issue. Most of us need to pay the bills first. So readers may be relieved that getting some perspective on huts was just one of many interesting aspects of being away.
Another involved returning via Dubai. In the gigantic arrivals hall were plastered pictures of the Emirate’s autocratic ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and large print displays of Duabi’s “eight principles”. Reading these brought on the confronting thought that here were some really positive ideas. So too did browsing some of the Shaikh's books, on sale among generic trinkets high up the Burj Khalifa.
It was interesting to visit Dubai and see firsthand its undoubted economic boom despite its brutal climate – it’s not unlike having a city in Antarctica in many ways. It was also interesting to observe some of the differences between the “principles” and reality, particularly to my eyes in the social dimension. In addition to what appeared to be a lesser place for women in its society, there also seemed a material commitment to as much distasteful glitz as possible - from diamond Rolexes right down to buying number plates with as few digits as possible. There was also a feeling of safety and complete lack of visible police presence. But it was eerily underpinned by knowledge that the state was no stranger to repression, had biometric data linked via passport to the free SIM card in my phone, and maintains a significant undercover police force. Even so and for all this, many, be they the women or Pakistani taxi drivers I spoke with, were clearly very happy with their situation. It was clear that I don’t understand its society well enough to make a robust comparison.
Most interesting of all was to set Dubai’s economic principles in real time against New Zealand developments. Here regarding state economic involvement, no doubt we’d say something negative about “picking winners” based on a received and uncritical understanding of a narrow range of ideas originally published in English. Dubai, on the other hand, has an unabashed commitment to state-backed economic diversification and growth. It was interesting to be amongst the results of that policy and check the New Zealand news briefly. One found lukewarm support for Canterbury’s new spaceport despite early signs of growth. There was yet another story on recent decisions to subsidise an at-risk milk powder industry by unambiguously weakening freshwater quality law. And of course there were the numerous and laughable reports of electricity gentailers’ claims that they “are not profiteering”. Never mind that everyone in the South can see, with their own eyes every autumn, Lake Hawea or the Waitaki scheme spilled at every possible opportunity.
Channeling the Dubai mind might have seen different decisions on any of that. For example:
On spaceports, the isolation of Kaitorete Spit might be turned to advantage, as it is at Tewai Point’s great success – not New Zealand Aluminium Smelters but SpaceOps. No doubt ties with Canterbury University or the ecosystem effects with local firms like Tait, Dawn, or even the Pratt & Whytney Engine Centre could really go somewhere with the right initiative. There might even be foreign policy leverage available through such a facility.
On water, one thought about the possibility of building a very simple nationalised freshwater export industry for public benefit. What could be simpler than filling bottles with clean water? We could even sell to Dubai. Inevitably we would have to face plastic-related challenges. But Evian or San Pellegrino might be unable to match New Zealand sustainability credentials or marketing potential, and might meet a worthy and lucrative match. But here we leave the field to private and generally foreign interests – no doubt because of on-going fears about confronting issues of Māori interests in freshwater. This seems a shame, because such a company could form the basis for a Sealords Deal Mark II, and provide a way around the co-governance sideshow that has marred the Three Waters discussion and stalked so much resource policy for a generation.
On power, to the extent current issues are created by an under-supply problem, we might see regulatory settings straightforwardly altered in favour of maximum possible Alpine lake levels, and minimum lapse time on resource consents for renewable generation among other things. Alas, none of that seems to be in the frame.
Of course, I’m just some guy. I don’t know much about many of these things, and the above ideas probably wouldn’t work for some reason. And after all, if they could, maybe they would have been done. Even if they did, many might not like them. That’s fine too. Whatever the case, there is a narrow possibility that we as a “Team of 5 Million” just need to get out occasionally, to open our imaginations. I certainly did.
(As a slightly lengthy aside, this seems the more likely if we think of government commitments, of all things, to convention centres. This started with Stephen Joyce and John Key in about 2009, and 2024 finds one much delayed by a fire and tied up with ill-considered gambling policy, one opposite relatively new buildings condemned for earthquake reasons, and a third opposite an incomplete cathedral restoration project set to be mothballed, naturally behind forests of road cones, construction fencing and scaffolding. None seem all that well-used either, to me at least.)
Of course one doesn’t want to get too negative about home, or too positive about elsewhere. Nowhere is perfect, least of all Alpine Europe or Dubai. It’s just that some of the better stuff we see elsewhere really does seem possible here, too. Whether or not any of it comes to pass is something we are able to decide – another huge positive.
The Flight Home
For many, coming home to New Zealand can be a melancholy thing. But even if we don’t feel that way ourselves, it can also be melancholy to recognise much of what is said in cultural comments on that feeling. It’s also melancholy to know that so many of us share in this recognition, in fact, that it can become a contemporary cultural icon, one tied up of course with records at the departure gate. It can also be melancholy to reflect that even people we might reflexively recoil at can feel similarly: I should know having once sat next to a very nice man on the plane home. After a long conversation it became abundantly clear he was a 501, who sadly seemed to have long since turned his Australian life around and was coming here to nothing at all.
Thinking of all this on the plane earlier this week offered yet another perspective on my own position, one only available by going away for a while. It made me feel extremely fortunate. Because for me at least, all told, after a while away there is a literally felt dimension to the appreciation for home.
It’s a special thing, sitting on the left-hand side of an aircraft flying southeast towards southern New Zealand and perennial dark or light. Perhaps you spend a moment wondering at the audacity of Kingsford Smith, Ulm or Menzies almost 100 years ago in situations at once similar and a world apart. Then at some stage, if you’re lucky enough, something slightly too flat for a cloud will distinguish itself on the horizon. A triangle shape will open out at its right-hand or southern end, dark, white or gold depending on the time or season. In a flash, it becomes the only thing: it’s Aoraki’s summit ridge, and south face. Memories of seeing that place will come flooding in, and because you can see the ridge from Paparoa nikau forest to Olivine icefield, Tasman to Pacific, and almost any high place in the island, these will invariably be special memories. The heart wells up. This is what it feels like return somewhere you belong.
Next installments
Except for that last plane trip, and despite the inchoate observations, questions and half-baked ideas rattling around my head, I didn’t think much about serious issues while I was away. There were just some comments to Fox Meyer on the above freshwater story – with thanks to Fox for his interest – and a bit of reading. After starts on a few duds I’m trying Tillich’s The Courage to Be.
Some friends and readers have been in touch to suggest ideas for future pieces, such as on section 4 of the Conservation Act, EDS’s Conservation Act and Wildlife Act reform proposals, more on fisheries, more on the Fast Track and recent developments there, recent Marine and Coastal Area issues, FMC’s Griffin Creek case, re-articulating recreation, MOP, the IVL, EQC settlement processes, legal barriers to a better electricity situation, developments in High Country further to 2021 work on that, and perhaps trying to anticipate what Kay (a communitarian and conservative economist), Illich (a one-time Priest and public intellectual) or McGilchrist (a psychiatrist and philosopher) might say about some of these things.
I will come around to writing about some or all these things in good time, and welcome any other suggestions. But I will scale back the frequency of posts for now, in part because I need to focus on other things: working on earning a crust again and getting the tomatoes and basil going for summer. But also because when writing earnestly in public, I found I didn’t actually know that much about all that much, let alone what to say about what I do know to standards I was comfortable with. Getting any further involved in “hot take” opinion than today is not somewhere I want to go.
Nonetheless, the experience and interactions have been enjoyable to date thanks to readers. The routine and discipline were also a positive thing at my end. So with no guarantee I’ll aim for something modest every couple of weeks, on a Thursday, unless someone can give me a significantly better idea.
Thanks again to readers for their interest, and once again feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested.
Until next time, be well.
AB
29 August 2024