This page will feature writing related to particular items in the news, and issues with a more regional focus.

On Remembrance Day

Possibly the strangest thing to surface in light of Britain’s Remembrance Day, was this storm in a teacup about certain people failing to wear a red poppy. Yes, a perceived *failure to remember* the wars and fallen of the past – where that red poppy pin is the necessary outward symbol of having remembered them, lest we forget. What a load of codswallop.

For starters, when we hear the words “they served” and “we shall remember them” it is assumed to be a very homogeneous “they”. And I guess “they” would have been very homogeneous in the sense that rows of marching, uniformed men do tend to be homogeneous, having been virtually stripped of identity. But underneath that, those that go to war are not homogeneous in why they go and partake in wars. Nor are they homogeneous in how they feel about their ‘service’ after the fact, should they come back alive.  

Let’s see what some of the reasons might be for going to war, supposing it’s a choice: a belief in service to one’s country, doing one’s duty, a feeling of patriotic fervour, strident nationalism, allegiance to the monarch or leader, because all of one’s mates are going, in defence of values, to protect one’s children and those less able to protect themselves, to defeat tyranny, to stand against tyranny, to be a man, to die for a worthy cause, to fight, to avenge, to have an adventure and see some of the world, to defeat the enemy, to preserve one’s country and culture…what else?

Now, to say this is a homogeneous group motivated by a common drive and purpose is a bit of a stretch. The urgency some were faced with – tyranny overrunning their lives — versus the distant wars that others joined as part of a commitment to empire, is another point of difference. So, when we hear of morning services, and solemnity at the local war memorial, or the wearing of poppies – these are valid expressions that serve the desires of *some* to outwardly display their remembrance of those who went to war, and of those who died. That this poppy has also come to symbolise some kind of militaristically minded, toxically patriotic nation state is unfortunate to say the least. The white poppy seems greatly preferable in what it stands for.   

I take my cue from my grandfather. He left England after the Second World War — in today’s terms it might be described as an attempt to ‘escape his demons’. He was largely successful in that, it would seem, although he was displeased to find they had ANZAC day commemorations in the new country. He wanted nothing to do with remembrances. From what I’ve heard, he didn’t understand why anyone would want to parade around years after the fact and remember any of it. He didn’t want his medals and tried at various times to dispose of them, to my grandmother’s dismay. Now, I’m not entirely sure if it was the bad memories themselves, the horror of war, the silly military hierarchies and orders given, or some combination of all of it. Whatever it was, as far as he was concerned it was over and that was all there was to it.

I can only imagine what his response might have been to the idea that not wearing a poppy was some kind of blasphemy. As for performative poppy-wearing, the whole business of remembrance feels performative in light of the ongoing war in Europe.   

Talking about Police Culture

The case of Jevon McSkimming, a senior New Zealand police officer who accessed child exploitation and bestiality material, has raised many questions. I am not sure what is most concerning – the fact of his offending, the police responses to it, or his own account of why he did it. I do not wish to dwell on the first point, nor the allegations of sexual misconduct. While his behaviour has been condemned and disowned by New Zealand Police, it would seem there is little interest in understanding why someone – specifically a senior police employee — might do such things, and what all of this says about wider police culture.

It is hard to accept any move by Police to distance themselves from McSkimming – something they’ve already started to do. With a 29-year career in the police service, McSkimming was no new-kid on the block. I suspect there might be some who would point to him having entered the police in what were very different times, with different attitudes and outlooks. That much I could just about accept. While the police may well want to paint McSkimming as a ‘bad apple’ that came out of nowhere, I think it is important to recognise that the apple in question was very much a product, and a part of, police culture. That culture has thrown up bad apples in the past, and simply shutting these instances down and trying to stamp them out, does not address the underlying reasons for such behaviours arising and going unnoticed in the first place.

Second, attempts to ringfence the revelations as a problem relating exclusively to the police’s leadership team, or a ‘past executive’ cannot be taken seriously. It is fair to say that the actions of one person do not reflect the rest of an organisation or a wider group. But when it comes to police, those at the top are generally quick to point out their links to ‘the frontline’, and how much time they spent doing boots-on-the-ground stuff. Attitudes and values don’t come out of nowhere, so it’s only fair to expect a wide-ranging review of Police’s culture. It is therefore alarming to see the current commissioner quoted here, assuring new recruits that the problems are limited to “a small group of former, very senior police officers”. In the interests of integrity, he may want to start thinking about how the culture and character of the organisation as a whole, shapes the people who work there. Pasting a line of words that represent ‘values’ across the bottom of emails doesn’t mean that they magically appear in practice.

When it comes to police culture, the notion of the ‘blue family’, otherwise know as ‘the police family’ is often referred to. This is generally understood as the police being bound together, looking out for each other, and effectively being like one big family. This has both positive and negative implications. Looking at the positives, it could suggest effective teamwork, bonding and strong relationships. But just as any family can be toxic, the ‘police family’ is no exception. If what is meant by the ‘blue family’ is a shuttered place where unhealthy attitudes grow, or bad behaviour is allowed to flourish unchecked because people ‘have each other’s backs’ and won’t say anything, then this becomes very toxic. So too with the ‘blue family’ that prioritises its own people over members of the public. Or the ‘blue family’ that does not know how to foster healthy dialogue, nor how to engage in difficult, or even regular, conversations. The fallout from McSkimming’s actions suggest that a combination of these factors might have been at play. 

The initial police focus in light of the McSkimming case has been on how to better monitor their electronic devices and secure the internet. I feel this largely misses the point. It’s a police force, not a high school: there shouldn’t be a need to put in place these kinds of controls for the people entrusted to do those jobs. We’re supposed to be able to trust them, that’s the whole point. And that’s the other thing that makes this offending so difficult to reconcile: the fact that it involved the very kind of exploitative material that police themselves are tasked with investigating and policing. The sensitivity of that material, and the fact that the victims are in an extremely vulnerable group, is a highly aggravating factor.

The various details of McSkimming’s offending, such as what search terms he entered, and how many of those terms were likely to return images of a certain kind – these are the kinds of ins and outs which might keep a jury occupied for hours. It does matter, particularly in terms of what he was hoping to turn up with some of his searches. We might wonder what he was trying to find with a search term like ‘nude nazi girl’. The Hitler Youth were a real thing, but it is not clear if that is what he was looking for. A word such as ‘girl’ can broadly refer to a female of any age if it is used informally, or it can refer specifically to a young child of female gender. Which of these was it that he was looking for images of? As for words like ‘abuse’ and ‘slave,’ these can likewise have different interpretations depending on context.

It is possible that he may also have been looking for images one might associate with particular sexual preferences – that of a kinky nature, or of what might be described as falling under the label of BDSM. McSkimming’s sexual preferences, or indeed the sexual preferences of any employee, are generally no business of their employer. However, in this case he very much brought his fantasies to work, where they manifested in behaviour that was illegal, and which many if not most people would deem inappropriate and unhealthy – particularly for someone working in such a role. A willingness to talk openly about relationships, in all their different forms, might be helpful here. So too with boundaries, informed consent and distinctions between what might be acceptable in different contexts.

Suppose that McSkimming had been viewing explicit images of adults who had freely agreed to put themselves online. That would be different again. We would be highly likely to conclude that this was not something he should be doing on work time. And we might perceive it as being inappropriate full stop, depending on our views. Critical to all of this is the matter of consent. And consent, at its most basic level, is something the police need to think seriously about. Not only is it critical to much of the work they do, but it is hard to see how they can hold any serious idea of what it really means in practice without being able to talk openly about it, and promote healthy expressions and validations of it.

More recently, the Police Commissioner gave the impression that a ‘get hard on integrity’ approach was what was needed. An analogy that comes to mind is that of putting out fires without looking at why they started, or what conditions might have led them to take off the way they did. There are parallels here with a ‘let’s get tough on crime’ approach. This is broadly the idea of going after offenders, putting them in jail, showing no mercy and feeling like a good day’s work has been done. What this approach fails to do is look at the wider circumstances, or attempt to understand why certain patterns of offending occur, and possibly reoccur, and what might be driving them. It is punitive and strict, but it does not really get to the root of the problem at all.

Turning to what we know of the reasons for McSkimming’s offending, then. In his own words, McSkimming said he needed pornography to “make him feel anything”. Now, these do not seem like the words of a psychologically happy, healthy, adult male, let alone those of the country’s second most senior cop. However, that is how it was for him, as he has said. It brings to mind why some people might resort to self-harm – out of a desperate sense that feeling something, even pain, is better than feeling nothing at all. His words could point to a deep existential boredom – a boredom so deep that there was nothing that could pull him out of it except looking at these images. In that respect, his behaviour would perhaps come closer to a form of addiction. Alternatively, it could hint at some kind of dissociative state, where the physical McSkimming was at his desk, but his soul or spirit was essentially so far away as to be wholly inaccessible to him. Puzzling, but possible. Without knowing his background, one can only surmise. As with any offender, it is possible to look at his offending and to see the actions of a potentially sad, lonely, troubled and rather desperate individual.      

Again, there have been noises made about how vetting can’t have been sufficient — the implication here being that someone should have been looking at what his search history was, particularly during work hours. Would it have been less bad had he been doing it on his own device outside of work? And is trawling through each employee’s search history necessary to protect against this kind of thing? If it is, it would seem there is little reason to have any confidence in police whatsoever. The issue, at its most fundamental, is one of the character of individuals, their attitudes and what I would call their social health.

Even in light of what we now know about how the McSkimming case unfolded, we might still wonder how an individual with this kind of mindset essentially flew under the radar of many other presumably competent, healthy and well-rounded individuals. It is my opinion that with his 29-year career in the police, those working with McSkimming should have had a clear idea of his character, and maybe even some sense of what was going on in his personal life. That is a failing of police culture, and not something that an ‘Integrity Unit’ or more vetting can reasonably be expected to pick up. This brings me back to the earlier mention of ‘the police family’ and how this can be both a healthy and unhealthy influence depending on how it develops, and the attitudes and values it decides to foster and cultivate as its own. Apart from attempts to ‘cover someone’s back’, it appears there were attempts to prioritise career moves for those in one’s inner circle. I would guess there might also have been an element of not really knowing at all, and a sense of being unsure as to which way to go, or how to proceed, or even of just trying to block things out altogether. Possibly there was also a lack of care, interest and understanding.    

More broadly this a question of what kind of a police force we want to have, composed of what kinds of people. To think that vetting, or checking search histories, or putting controls on peoples’ internet use is the answer, is a typically bureaucratic, technocentric answer to what is really a matter of the heart. Good conduct and integrity don’t get talked into being by government ministers or commissioners. Healthy, consensual relationships, being able to talk to each other, being open about feelings – even awkward ones, and prioritising care for each other might be a good start. While it may be tempting for police to distance themselves and slam the door on this as an isolated incident, the nature of the job and its demands are such that it would be unwise not to look at the wider culture and how it might have contributed. 

Privilege in Disgrace

There is privilege, and then there is privilege in disgrace. It is something I’ve noticed a couple of times over the past year, when considering high-profile employment scandals. There is a tendency to place great emphasis on a full and fair investigation of whatever these high-profile individuals might have done, or been involved in, after the fact. There is good reason for this when it comes to those at the top – and that is public interest. That is to say, if it is a case of public trust and confidence being invested in those under investigation, then it is perhaps desirable that no stone be left unturned in finding out the full story. When scandals or issues affect those at the bottom, this public interest factor is generally lacking. So, there may be less of a perceived ‘need’ to go after the facts of the case. Although there may be other reasons to do so, such as fairness, justice and critically – improvement — the costs and investment of time and effort may not be seen as being worth it.

There are other differences too. Those at the top can generally afford legal representation of a high standard. This means that if they wish to argue the point, then they are in a strong and privileged position to do so. Comments made in a recent case highlight this fear of individuals who can afford to wage a lengthy legal battle. Those at the top may get ‘special leave’ while lengthy investigations are allowed to run their course. This is to protect what are perceived to be their important dignities and interests as privileged professionals.  In the case of those at the bottom who never had this kind of exorbitant salary to start with, there is unlikely to be much in the way of compensation, or even much in the way of consideration.

Apart from the obvious ethical implications which should concern all of us, the other overriding impression is one of vast inequality. Here are people who have it in their power to make decisions for the better on a daily basis – something out of reach to most of us — who are paid extraordinary amounts for the privilege of doing so. We are expected, as tax payers or members of the public, to afford them respect, taxes and gratitude for their ‘service’. None of it really stacks up. It is unclear how much have any of these people might have experienced of the other side of life, except from the position of privilege afforded by their roles and status in society. For some, it is possibly not until their reputations are abruptly called into question through a costly, taxpayer funded inquiry that they really have to start thinking about other paths in life at all. And even then, it is with the funds of that career solidly behind them.

Taken together, all of this smacks of vast entitlement. It is of a kind with the entitlement of politicians engaged in comfortable debates while parts of the population sleep in cars. It is comparable with pampered poodles being dressed in luxury coats for a walk in the park, while others starve. If these individuals of privilege were really intent on changing the world for the better, it seems unlikely they would be taking in six-digit salaries and paid leave the way they are.

Meanwhile in New Zealand – Honouring Privilege

The new year brought news from New Zealand: the judge who chaired the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care was made a Dame. In receiving that honour she joins a long line of people awarded state honours simply for doing their jobs. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about her joining the ranks of the receptionists who cheerfully fielded years of complaints from difficult customers, or the factory workers who kept showing up despite years of low wages and lack of fulfillment. She is not just one of any number of workers or professionals who did their jobs through difficult times, appearing each day again with a renewed resolve to give it their best.  

No, the judge will join the ranks of privilege including former Prime ministers, for example. She joins the ranks of those who will say it is such an “honour” and a “privilege” to be where they are, having the power to lead, to “give back”, to make decisions on behalf of others, and to have a meaningful impact on lives and outcomes. She will join the ranks of those who get paid exceptional salaries for their ‘selfless service’ to the community; those whose benefits might continue for a lifetime. In New Zealand, it is virtually by right that the prime minister becomes a dame or knight upon conclusion of their time in office. What they do or don’t do while in office is virtually irrelevant. When they lead the country through ‘difficult times’ it is not simply regarded as them doing their job as they’re supposed to, but as something honourable. Although they were elected to office with the expectation of serving the country through both easy and hard times, they can expect to receive the highest honours for doing so.

John Key and Jacinda Ardern are two recent New Zealand prime ministers who received this honour. Key had the extraordinary misfortune of the Global Financial Crisis to deal with, as well as a mine disaster where 29 workers lost their lives in a way that likely could have been avoided had there been greater interest in protecting workers lives over profits. Ardern was faced with a terrorist attack on two mosques, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Both prime ministers were therefore obvious candidates to have the highest honours bestowed on them. Key’s ‘flag referendum’ may have been a source of international comedy at the time, but it eventually became just another part of his knight-worthy legacy in New Zealand. When Ardern suddenly quit and walked out on her term in office, that was just water under the bridge. Never mind those who voted for her. She had shown some level of empathy in leading the country through difficult times, so that was it – Dame Ardern.

As for the judge of the Royal Commission, she didn’t lead the country. She chaired a large, bureaucratic and costly inquiry into the abuse of thousands of people while under the ‘care’ of the state, and faith-based institutions. Presumably the emotional sacrifice of hearing all those highly disturbing, traumatic and tragic stories deemed her a worthy candidate, as this interview suggests. That work has only gone some way in righting the wrongs of the past. And it has yet to completely change the present. Amongst the thousands of cases that the inquiry heard, there were survivors who showed extraordinary capacity for patience and civility. There were those who gave media interviews with an unbelievable sense of hope and optimism. Some persisted with bringing cases forward despite decades of being ignored and rejected, pushing forward again and again against the overwhelming odds of official indifference. Others retained their humanity under the most unimaginable of circumstances – withstanding the kind of treatment that would break most people. They have been heard, but they are not recognised.

In honouring the judge who presided over these cases as the “hero” who finally brought to light the truth of this dark chapter in its history, New Zealand begins a New Year very much true to its own tradition. In Aotearoa, it seems it is those of privilege who mean the most, are valued the most, and are recognised as being of critical importance to the community. Some might point to recipients of New Year’s honours who do not come from a background of privilege. While that may be so, in awarding the chair of the commission into abuse by the state the highest honours, rather than any number of survivors of state abuse, a familiar message is being transmitted yet again. It is a tacit signal that it is still the state and the employees or servants of the state that hold the answers. Even when the state fails to prevent decades of abuse; when it fails to respond to that abuse, and ignores and shuts down those who bravely come forward – it is eventually still the state that confers and takes the honours.

Protest in New Zealand (& Australia)

• Protest against “Move-on” orders

A recent protest in New Zealand against the government’s proposed “move-on orders” attracted a significant number of people. Move-on orders are an attempt to deal with the issue of homelessness in New Zealand by getting the homeless to just “move-on”. Apparently, the government doesn’t like them being on the streets in full view of tourists, families with children and local shoppers. It might affect business. What’s more, the homeless might have something to say for themselves. It’s one thing to be cluttering the place up with cardboard and shopping trolleys, but if someone should raise their voice about it or display emotion over their situation – that could very well be a step too far. I’m guessing they might call this “abusive behaviour”.

Where the homeless are expected to move-on to is anyone’s guess. Speaking as someone who “moved on” before they ended up on the streets with a blanket and some cardboard boxes, I am in the privileged position of having escaped this lot. The last time I checked, housing in Auckland was particularly unaffordable, even with a job. Housing prospects in other places is not a great deal better. I was lucky in that I was able to camp in vehicles for a few years – again, this is not something everyone has the privilege or possibility of doing. The New Zealand prime-minister was recorded as saying that the police could exercise their discretion in the matter, either choosing to issue a “move-on” order, or to “plug someone in” to social services. This sounds as if it’s as simple as putting a plug into a socket. The reality may be closer to a dire shortage of adequate, affordable housing that no amount of attempted “plugging” by the police will fix. It seems likely that “move-on orders” are a context-specific offshoot of the already well-established “trespass notice”. New Zealand continues to have a peculiar obsession with handing people a bit of paper – preferably courtesy of the police – and getting them “out of sight out of mind”, so to speak.

But that is not the point. The point is that there was a protest. Thirty people taking part in a level-headed human rights protest of this nature in New Zealand is something of a sea of solidarity. To put that number in context, solo protests over human rights are not unheard of, and one can spend years politely sending letters and starting petitions and get absolutely nowhere with it. Could this finally be a sign of progress? It is perhaps not surprising there weren’t more people at the protest. The risk of a trespass notice and its potential consequences is always there. For those who still need to afford themselves into a place to live, it may simply be too much of a risk. Oppressive regimes tend to be good at finding ways to curtail protest.

• The reverse trespass notice

This guy was one step ahead – he came prepared. The fact it happened in Australia rather than New Zealand doesn’t make much odds. He appeared at the glass doors – the photo of those doors and the people on either side brought back certain memories which I won’t go into here – and just placed his trespass notice on the door before the occupants could follow through on “calling the police” and what would probably have been their trespass notice. In a complete re-write of the usual drama, this just turned the old plot on its head. The message is loud and clear: “Take your seabed-mining proposals and go – you’re not welcome here”. If I could go back in time, I think I might have liked to use this tactic myself.

It will be interesting to see where human rights protests and the reverse trespass movement go from here. I am generally not in favour of tit for tat thinking, but I can just see that the homeless might want to start keeping some of these notices at their disposal. People elsewhere in the world might be forgiven for thinking the idea of trespass notices is just too ridiculous and pathetic to be true – little do they know of the wee land down-under and its quaintly oppressive little ways.

Crisis in New Zealand

Well, here we have it: homelessness amongst older people is at “crisis levels” in parts of New Zealand. In my last update to this page, I posted about the ‘move-on orders’ that the Government was proposing in response to homelessness, and the protest efforts against that proposal. Since then, there has been a letter from concerned Wellingtonians. One of the lead signatories of this letter, now an esteemed “community leader of the Wellington region” was in a good position to have made changes to the housing situation while in government himself – nevertheless, better some action late than never I suppose. Perhaps he will receive a knighthood now, along with the former leader of his party – a certain Dame who I believe lives in Australia these days.

The church group featured in the more recent article appears to have adopted a cross-party approach to their campaigning. This would seem like a step in the right direction for a country where the politics has long revolved around two major parties behaving like antagonistic terriers, and taking turns to have a go at each other. To see something approaching a more mature, consensus-building happening, is heartening to see. I also wanted to take some time to analyse the photos included in the article. “A picture says a thousand words” as the saying goes. Sometimes a photo contains a lot of subtle information that isn’t conveyed by text. Photos can offer a more direct, unfiltered sense of the way things are. I think these photos do that rather well.

Photo 1 (the second photo in the article): An older woman stands at a lectern, facing the camera and looking slightly to the right. She wears a black top, with a black and white, floral-patterned dress-jacket over top, and black pants. She looks to be standing in a church, with part of a stained-glass window visible behind her. Her expression is one of good-humoured inquisitiveness. She is flanked on either side by standing banners.

The banner on the left, which is partially obscured, shows a pair of hands folded over what looks like a walking stick. The banner on the right reads: “Doors to Dignity: Ensuring all older people are housed well.” There is a picture of a solid-looking brick house in the background, and a logo featuring a stylised image of a hand holding a house with a generic person in it.

• The well-meaning older woman: to me, the woman in this image is representative of many others like her. These women tend to be civic-minded, kind-hearted and caring. They frequently have an intellectual bent, with a strong appreciation for data, evidence and reports. They can be found in many sectors of society including education, community services and politics.

As the accompanying text of the article conveys, this woman (Jill Hawkey) stresses that “there is a lot of evidence that this is a growing crisis.” And it mentions that “anecdotally, the number of older people rough sleeping was on the rise”. Care is taken to distinguish between numerical evidence (for example, percentages of those on the social housing register) and anecdotal evidence or observations.

• The standing banners: I do not know if ‘standing banner’ is technically even the correct term for these things. Whatever they are called, they are ubiquitous in New Zealand. Any charity worth its salt gets at least one, preferably two, so they can flank the speaker at events, as in this image. They are a must-have at conferences, marketing events, and sales. I think that if all the banners — past and present, charitable and corporate, black and white, and red and blue — were all laid out end-to-end, they would probably form a banner-carpet the length of the country. I do hope there are adequate banner-recycling provisions in place.

The banners represent one part of the overall New Zealand mindset when it comes to new ideas. Whenever someone has a bright idea, it generally isn’t too long before someone else will suggest that they really need a committee, a marketing strategy and a corporate identity in order to do it justice. The banners are part of the marketing, and the identity. There are large parts of the world where there isn’t time or money to spend on making banners. New Zealand is not one of those countries. While there may be large numbers of homeless people living on the streets, when it comes to the banners, they will always manage to find the money for those.

“Doors to Dignity”: this is another critical part of it – the campaign slogan. Given the setting and organiser, it could have been “Churches of Crises”, but clearly the organising committee gave it their due consideration, and decided that doors were very much a symbol of housing, while dignity was a jolly nice thing to aspire to. It is entirely possible that by the time any of the doors materialise, if indeed they ever do, then they might well be doors of fatigue and frustration. Floors of it too.

The logo: as with the other aspects outlined above, this would have been a source of frustration and irritability to me if I were still living, or camping out, in New Zealand. The benefit of distance renders it more of a comical thing. One might wonder how a bland, corporate logo could possibly arouse feelings of frustration and irritation. No doubt the hand is meant to represent caring and nurturing. Perhaps the fact it is holding the house is meant to show that having a home is part of being cared for, and nurtured. And that’s the thing – while money gets spent on designing these feel-good logos and slogans and banners, nothing happens. The other thing about that logo is that it puts a typically corporate spin on things. It suggests a blandly caring, business-minded officialdom. The reality may be a very cold case of fending for yourself in whatever way you can – a bit like a possum in the gorse.   

Photo 2: The fisherman. In this image, a man in a navy-blue suit, white shirt and maroon tie stands behind the same lectern, with the same backdrop, looking at the audience. His hands are spread wide apart with palms facing inwards, and his expression is neutral but serious.  

Supposing the back drop were a pub rather than a church, and Chris (one of the many Chrises) Bishop had changed his attire, the question put to him might be:

“How big do ya reckon that fish was you caught the other day?”

“It was this big”

“And how much do you care about housing, again?”

“This much.”

On a more serious note, Chris is quoted as saying: “We’ve been building the wrong houses for years and years”, noting that what is needed is one-bedroom, affordable units, increasingly for seniors. Amen. I could have told Chris that years and years ago, based on my anecdotal housing struggle as a single person trying to live in New Zealand. It would seem the country has stubbornly kept believing, or perhaps hoping, that a husband, wife and 2 or 3 children is the demographic that needs to be catered to, almost exclusively. Hence, sharing houses with random strangers is, or was, one expected survival strategy for single people. Not happy with sharing a 3-bedroom house? Well, go and find the money to pay for your exclusive single quarters then, and good luck with it.

Photo 3: The serious lectern-leaner. In this photo, a bearded man in a dark blue suit, pale blue shirt and what looks to be a slightly different shade of maroon tie, stands behind the lectern. He leans forward slightly, with his hands placed on either side of it. He is looking straight ahead and has a serious demeanour. This man could be a boys rugby coach announcing recent match results, a school principal outlining academic achievements, or a police officer reporting the annual road accident statistics. This particular man, however, happens to be a housing spokesperson.

One of his pet hates is flawed data. If only the scores had been kept properly from the beginning, then we would see that the boys had actually performed even better at the rugby, that more crashes happened than the year before, and that there are in fact more homeless people than anyone had previously thought possible. If only the data had been better, then there wouldn’t be all these gaping holes and missed opportunities. Damn the data, it has failed us. Yet again.

This man, Kieran McAnulty, says: “We, up until now, have been relying on a census that happens once every five years and, frankly, despite the best efforts of all of you and others, if you are living rough filling out a form is not going to be a priority and then we have a five year gap before we have another idea.”

Photo 4: The young-woman activist and organiser.

In this photo, a young woman stands at the lectern. She wears a short-sleeved white shirt, and a ruffly black, blue and yellow-patterned tartan thing that could be a modern take on the traditional Scots kilt. Her hands are clasped together. Her expression looks to be one of cheerful disbelief.

This young woman, Tamatha Paul, is concerned about infrastructural shortcomings, particularly around accessibility. She points out that only 2% of the overall housing stock is accessible, despite a growing ageing population and many people with disabilities.

The concluding line of the article reads as follows: “Its [the church group’s] Parliamentary petition to increase and target investment in social and affordable housing for older people had 911 signatures.” I seem to vaguely remember a well-meaning older woman somewhere in the recesses of my education, telling us that anyone could start a petition about something they felt strongly about. That was part of the beauty of living in a democracy. You could gather signatures for a cause, and then the elected representatives might consider it in parliament. However, these people aren’t the homeless living on the street. They can afford to live in the capital city – Wellington, a place where many can not even afford to think about renting. For all their talk about urgency, they live in a different world.

I have sometimes thought it wouldn’t take much to change the housing situation. A conversation about where to build. A discussion about the kind of houses that would be required – even on a case-by-case basis — with specific, tailored modifications for people with disabilities. A commitment to build to the requirements of what was needed, rather than some kind of over-blown idea of modern standards. Good insulation, efficient heating, plenty of green space, communal areas. Some builders. And prioritising the building of these structures over the other, nice-to-have projects. How hard can it be?