EVERYONE’S A BENEFICIARY IN THIS NEW WORLD

Opinion: The old ‘them and us’ attitude to state aid suddenly looks very out of date, writes Rob Stock.

New Zealand may be living through a watershed event that changes the way we see each other.

For decades, we have had a divisive narrative pitting the haves against the have-nots, the workers against the bosses, the taxpayers against the beneficiaries.

But suddenly, the lines are blurred. Businesses are the recipients of vast amounts of Government help. They are the agents the Government is using to deliver wage subsidies funding a million pay packets.

Many, many businesses and their owners are beneficiaries now. So too, effectively, are their employees.

No longer will business lobbyists be able to preach so confidently from their tried and trusted book of ‘‘them and us’’. No longer will ‘‘beneficiary bashing’’ be quite such an uncomplicated sport.

Suddenly, it has become abundantly clear that bad things happen to good people.

Businesses were brought to accepting taxpayer help through no fault of their own. The very basis of our society is business. Business people do what we need them to do. They take risks, launch businesses, pay wages, and are to be applauded for that.

Apart from the truly arrogant few, most business people are characterised by their drive and their civic-mindedness.

Hopefully now, even the most arrogant will be humbled by putting a hand out for Government-guaranteed loans, and wage subsidies for their employees.

Suddenly, for the first time since the 1930s and 40s, we are in something big together.

Those of us not worried about our financial futures are a minority, and probably work for supermarkets, or the government, or are in healthcare.

I remember speaking to leading poverty academic Jonathan Boston several years ago, asking him what would need to happen for people to view children from poor families as ‘‘our’’ children, rather than ‘‘their’’ children, and commit to doing meaningful things to lift them from the poverty into which they had the bad fortune to be born.

Boston thought only an event as terrible as a war or a Great Depression could do it.

Well, today, New Zealand is at war with a virus, and a depression is far from an impossibility.

The world wars and the Great Depression changed how generations behaved and saw the world.

Will the same happen again? Will a sense of national togetherness live on into the recovery, or will we quickly return to tribal politics and business as usual?

Labour and the Greens will be worried that New Zealand voters favoured National in the recovery phase after the Global Financial Crisis, and the environment was sacrificed for economic growth.

They should also note that workers experienced weakened labour markets, which was bad for wage growth, the young and poorer people.

And as Government finances are weakened, and the cost of living with increased national debt bites, we may see a return to calls for benefits-trimming, such as pushing up the age of eligibility for New Zealand Super, and ending KiwiSaver taxpayer-subsidies.