A letter on entitlement
A non-partisan plea to do better. Not critical to Shoebox Christmas.
This is one of those community kōrero I talked about in the last newsletter. It’s not Shoebox Christmas-related, but I thought it was worth sharing.
Just a reminder that if you only want to receive posts strictly related to Shoebox Christmas, just click the button below and follow the instructions to turn off these Koha Tree community posts while still receiving the Shoebox Christmas critical stuff :)
Dear Prime Minister,
If you think claiming $52,000 of taxpayers' money to live in one of the homes you own mortgage-free seems like a distraction because you're ‘entitled’ to it, get better advisors or rethink your perspective.
Better yet, investigate what could be delivered with $52,000 of funding through community services.
Off the top of my head, that’s 8 rangatahi learning leadership skills while delivering a community outcome through a kaupapa like Shoebox Christmas on Koha Tree so they can grow into positions like yours and remove the actual distractions like entitlement.
Systemic inequities - or gaps in outcomes like wealth or health at a population level - don’t happen because people are breaking the rules. They happen when people do what they’re entitled to do within the system even though their actions cause harm. They happen because some of the rules in the system are flawed and create those gaps in outcomes, or allow smaller gaps to widen. That’s what the system part of systemic means.
The way the tax system works means big overseas companies are ‘well within the rules’ when avoiding an estimated $500 million of tax here in Aotearoa each year. Those are flaws in a system designed for the collective wellbeing, being taken advantage of by individuals motivated by profit.
Australian banks with New Zealand names are well within the rules when they continue making more money per home loan every year, while housing becomes more and more unaffordable. A record $7.18 billion in profit for banks while 40% of adults can no longer afford to buy an average-priced home is not “ok” because it is “well within the rules”. Same system, same individual motivations.
Every American is well within the rules when they exercise their right to bear arms. Tell that to the 6192 teenagers or children shot last year, or the victims of the 656 mass shootings. That’s a flaw in the system individuals take part in.
Justifying a wrong because you’re entitled to do it is individual, not system-level thinking.
Any system has flaws, and it relies on good individuals with strong leverage to keep it spinning in a way that brings the intent of the system to life. That’s kinda what we hope for in our Prime Minister.
By claiming that little ‘distraction’ until people started noticing it, you’re telling us that you don’t notice this little truth about the way big systems work. Or that you do, but are motivated more by an individual $53k than the collective wellbeing and the system you’re responsible for. That’s not the behaviour a country expects from its Prime Minister.
People will say “It’s only $52k - a drop in the ocean of what any government spends.” But it’s not the proportionate spending that’s the issue, it's the carrying out and justifying a wrong because it’s “well within the rules” of the system.
You own over $20 million worth of houses. If you can’t see it’s wrong to claim taxpayer money to pay yourself rent for your own mortgage-free house, what else can’t you see? What other wrongs will you carry out because somebody made it a rule? And what new rules will you make? Again, having a right doesn’t mean it is right. There’s a reason no Prime Minister in 34 years has claimed that ‘entitlement’.
A system is what a system does. Those rights and entitlements are how it does that.
If you won’t stop and consider a housing entitlement granted to a millionaire in a system that allows 210,000 children to live in poverty, and prices nearly half its adults out of owning just one home, what other wrongs do you believe too wholeheartedly to question?
Do better, please. For all of us.
Pera
PS I know this letter sounds political or partisan but I don’t actually care which party is in power. I do care deeply about how that power is wielded though. It was interesting reading responses to a snippet of this I posted on LinkedIn with so many reactions seeming more about our political identity or affiliation than the actual behavior, justifying this behavior with: “Someone else spent some other amount of money, at some other time, therefore this isn’t a thing.”).
You probably already knew that, but it was an interesting learning for me!