The big reset

This article was originally posted in ‘The Hobson” magazine.

We now have a small feel what solitary confinement must be like and why it is used as a punishment. However, I get the sense if the lock down had gone on much longer the family would have built me a kennel for living, sleeping and eating purposes and it would have been outside.

Hastily on the day of lock down I wrote an out of office email that went:

“Well this is different but for the best.  Still shuffling paper, just now at home.  Anything you need let me know.”

And how different it has been. Never in any of our lives have we all had a “holiday” all at the same time. Yes it was enforced and no it was not a holiday, but it was a time to pause, take a deep breath and not have to breathe out because something or someone was waiting to take the place or any spare gap in the day or night.

We ceased to rush, as there was nowhere to go. We lived more sustainably as we worked out what we needed, especially when we had a stockpile of food and wine. For some absurd herd-like reason we even dedicated a spare wardrobe to a 2^nd pantry. Thankfully, the fear and panic subsided, and it now lives semi-permanent on my hips and buttocks.

We walked more – one client was walking 25kms a day, biked more and lived more local. But it took a complete enforced lock down to do it.  We got to know neighbours and we had “stop and chats” updating on the new cases and street gossip, where before a rushed wave was all we gave. We compared e bike accessories and the merits of water blaster attachments, while keeping an eye out for the narks who have become a vigilant third police force behind Hone and his bro’s.

Image source –  www.deccanherald.com

There was less pollution, no congestion, expect for the queues to the supermarket and McDonald’s on the dawn of Level 3.  But time was on our side.

And while Covid 19 may have cured other ailments as it swept by, we were less frantic, and less stressed about the day to day. What may fall out may raise these stress levels, but during the period of lock down we had time to think and that reset felt good. That time to reflect or even switch off was almost therapeutic.  It was like that feeling of being in Fiji on day 4, in the pool, cocktail in hand and not a care in the world.

As we hit Level 3 the phrase “shop local” not only became a slogan it turned us off Uber Eats, with many restaurants doing their own delivery or noting on their websites that they were not using the service as the corporate sucked the local dry. Even the future head of the UN told us to shun the service and click and collect.

From what I read, road deaths and accidents were down, murders were down, and domestic violence was down. Baking and eating were up but we walked more.

We embraced technology and now those weekly Wellington meetings which took 5 hours to get there and back and only 40 minutes face time can be traded with a Zoom meeting. We are doing more by doing less. Genius. This technology was here the whole time, but we carried on with the habitual path.

The rats in the reserve kept breeding, oblivious to the lock down, but now my poison came to the front door as an essential service, instead of me having to drive through traffic and battling to find a car park across town. We became more efficient, even though we had all the time in the world.

And then we come back to reality as rates need to be paid and resource consent time frames tick on, even if Auckland Council double them because of Covid 19 (never waste a crisis).

The Auckland Council has bowed to public pressure and given an option on the proposed 3.5% rates rise.  No not 0%, but 2.5% rates rise.  They turned down Ralph Norris’s approach to do a review of the business. If only the Councillors who decide really understood that the productivity of the staff is so low that cutting 30% of them and upping the output of the rest would lower the wage bill and get more bangs for our buck. Pigs will fly first. I suspect they all have Stockholm syndrome.

Yes, the parking revenue is down and yes, the airport will not issue a dividend, but you cut your cloth, and you look within and now is the time to do it.

Environment Minister David Parker urged Council’s to address the consent backlog so projects that employ people are not further delayed once Covid 19 regulations are relaxed. Should this not be the case all the time? We should not waste this crisis without serious reform of the red tape business.

Furthermore, and one we are involved directly with is a Shane Jones “pork barrel” project.  A roundabout near his house has taken 2.5 years to get consent. Well we are on the other side of that consent and I could tell you more stories than you have had hot dinners on how NZTA delay, delay, delay. There is no urgency or requirement to actually build the infrastructure in an agreed time frame. There is nothing special about this project. If Shane Jones cannot get his nephews off the couch, he will never get NZTA officials to tick off a bog-standard roundabout. And so, it goes on.

We as individuals and families have had a great chance to look at life differently and I hope we take a lot of the positives into our new lives. My wish is the government does the same thing and unshackles us from gatekeepers who dictate what we can and cannot do by their interpretation of the rules, not the rules themselves.