We're not good in a crisis. We're lucky

Lucky that our brave people distract from our shocking planning.

(Another new photo of Verity FINALLY looking like a real adult. Not like a child whose just put a crayon up her nose a la my old pics)

Morena fam -

It’s wet, muggy, incredibly hot, and as sticky as a date pudding in AKL today. Welcome to the tropics, baby.

(Although I’m writing this in the morning, I may send this at night, because I realize I tend to read things in depth in the evening…and I enjoy a longer email at night when I have time to process it. )

I wrote this week about the tragedy at Mt Maunganui.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it, largely because when you really get into the reports of how the tragedy happened - and I really do recommend Bryce Edward’s substack on this - you see how much of the tragedy was a result of us having appalling systems for dealing with natural weather events.

The one that got me was that we have no equivalent of a 111 system for natural weather events. The thing where you - person on the ground - can report a sighing - eg. a landslip - to a central authority, who then elevate that concern to all the right groups eg. FENZ or council. And then we have a coordinated response.

But we don’t. We have nothing like this. We just have silos. Someone calls the Fire department. They say that’s a council thing, sorry. ect.

It blew my mind this doesn’t exist.

Read about the breakdown of how the tragedy happened, and see that members of the public reported the landslip to the fire brigade early in the day - pre-slip.

Fire then said that’s a council thing, then called council, but it only got to the general council info center (not the disaster response) and then basically the call got lost, no one knew whose responsibility it was, and hours later there’s a deadly landslide…..

How do we not have a system for dealing with this….in a country of natural disasters?

And that’s just one example.

There’s so many more of system breakdown that you just read it and think….how can we be that incompetent in our systems?

And what’s worse, know we needed things like the 111 system after cyclone Gabrielle, way back in 2023. And still not get it done?

So how many more innocent people have to die before we start properly investing in natural disaster prevention? But it just seems to be the same story. We react after - never putting the planning in to stop it happening in the first place.

So I got all fired up about that. Have a read.

And suuuuuper pissed that the Government tried to say that we shouldn’t talk about our systemic failure to properly plan because it’s ‘politicizing a tragedy’. And make all these noises about how we need to be respectful and wait for the enquiry - which is in itself, the oldest political play in the book.

(And man, if I’d just lost my family member, I’d want someone raising merry hell and holding the powers at be accountable.)

And also, read this by Bryce Edwards. And this by Andrea Vance.

It’s kinda nuts writing about all this in an era of climate change causing more extreme weather. I’ve low key got the feeling, especially from the past few years of Government, that we’re living in a late middle aged country.

Like, the attitude is, I’ll be dead by the time the rubber really hits the road on this so I don’t really care about doing any planning.

And all the young people are leaving have probably realised this. But for every other mug who’s still here, it feels as though we’re looking around being like,

“Oi. We’re gonna be 50 when this really kicks off, so it’ll be us managing the mess you’re currently creating through inaction. So can we pleaaaaaasse have a long term mindset.”

But nope.

But there’s no notion of that in this short term, middle management style, muddle through til house prices go up mentality. It’s all about, well, all NZ really cares about is interest rates so lets just talk about that…

When it’s clearly obvious, from the frustration you can taste at the back of the tongue of the country right now, how mad we are. And how everyone - young and old - want a sense of long term planning for our country.

Or just, like, a plan. Any plan.

It also begs the question, why do we tolerate such averageness? One of you raised a really good point on Friday’s video, about how NZ tolerates austerity - despite it clearly not working as an economic strategy - when so many other countries would kick up merry hell.

(Except the UK, which is also going through austerity, and equally suffering.)

And it made me realize, I do think NZ has a mentality of, ah well, we’ll just suffer through this. We’re proud of our stoicism, and our grit, but at some point it’s morphed into an over tolerance for - and even expectation of - low key constant suffering. Or an expectation that society has this base level of shitiness from our society that you just have to lump. Cos, ya know, we don’t complain.

But we don’t have to lump it. We can change it. Man. If this was a restaurant, and you got raw chicken, you’d send it back. Because you’re paying.

But we’ve been served such deeply underwhelming leadership - and civic ideology - for years now. And we lump it. We accept that NZ’s lost its way. And we grit out teeth and eat the raw chicken and tell ourselves that’s what we deserve.

Fuck that. Get mad. So honestly, now is the time to stop being stoic. Start raising merry hell. After all, you’re paying the bill for all this.

And also - this is how you channel that helplessness. It’s so easy in the face of tragedy to feel like you can’t do anything to improve things. But this is how we help - we donate money to local business, we help communities fund raise for flood fighting equipment, and we support everyone we know on the ground. But we also get hella mad about the systems we have - and pay for - and how they’re failing.

Getting mad is a super power - it scares the Government into action. Us getting mad - and kicking up a fuss about stuff - is the only way you ever make the Government sit up and take notice on things. Well, that, and the press, scare it into action.

And it’s a way that you can take that fury - and grief - over all this pain that’s come to the Mount, and turn it to good.

Now, that’s quite enough revolution for one day. Have a wine, watch Bridgerton, draft a letter to your MP on your notes app.

I’ll see you paid peeps back on Friday otherwise stay sane, get mouthy, and stay caffeinated.

Much love as ever,

Vee xo