All Kiwis entering the age of awareness

In 2010, Apple founder Steve Jobs launched the iPad, the gloom of the global financial crisis was still hanging over us, the Pike River mine explosion happened, killing 29 men, and the first of the Canterbury earthquakes struck.

It feels like these events were a premonition. This has been a decade of huge technological change, global turbulence and a succession of tragedies that have forever shaken our belief in New Zealand as the ‘‘she’ll be right’’ nation.

But there has also been great innovation and positive change – and a greater sense of urgency in acknowledging and righting the environmental and social wrongs of the past.

These things are not always defined by age or generation; young people don’t particularly own the debate over climate change and sustainability, for instance, though they are more entitled to their sense of grievance.

But age will shape how we meet the challenges of the next decade nonetheless.

For my generation and older, the events of the past 10 years have forced us to rethink much of what we thought we knew about the place we grew up in.

But, for younger generations, this was the New Zealand of their formative years.

Even home ownership – once seen as a rite of passage – has become weaponised; for many, it is the sharp dividing line between ‘‘them and us’’.

It is these different life experiences that will shape the New Zealand we become over the next decade as the generational changing of the guard gathers pace. The power shift is already under way; the oldest millennials are already in their 30s while the last of us baby boomers are in our 50s.

So, it’s not surprising that when we asked some high-profile New Zealanders what it would mean to be a Kiwi in the next decade, this was the theme many returned to.

The good news is that most were excited and hopeful about what that generational shift would mean for New Zealand.

Which is a great way to celebrate the passing of one decade and the beginning of the next.