Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Richard Chambers just reminded us of how good we have it here

I'm gonna say thank you to the Police Commissioner, Richard Chambers, for maybe reminding us to be grateful for what we have.

He gave an interview to the Herald today and he said he thinks there is a fair bit of punching down on New Zealand going on at the moment. And he thinks that's unfair.

He says: "With the world going a little crazy, I count us lucky that we are where we are."

Now, given how much doom and gloom there is at the moment, it may surprise you to know that the accompanying poll in the Herald article actually agrees with him - as unscientific as it is.

Most people rate their experience of living in New Zealand as 8 out of 10. 20 percent of people say they have an 8 out of 10 experience. Then the next one up is 10 out of 10. That's 15 percent. 7 out of 10 comes next, and 13 percent of us say that. 

So, 7, 8, 9, and 10 out of 10 account for 58 percent of the votes. Way more than half of us think that we are living in a pretty great place.

Now, as I say, it's not scientific, but it is a nice reminder that actually most of us do know how good we've got it.

It's really easy to fall into the trap of thinking the grass is greener on the other side, which is why so many of us are leaving and heading off to places like Australia.

Actually, if the other side is Australia, once they get there, they are going to realize it's not that much greener. 

They're gonna go through the same stuff with the economy that they were going through back here in New Zealand.
Life over there is expensive as well.

And if the other side is Europe, it's definitely not greener over there. It's actually tens of thousands of refugees arriving on your doorstep. It's huge unrest over migrants in the UK. It's the threat of war just across the border. And it's cost of living problems there too.

Now, I'm not Pollyannaish at all about New Zealand. I know life is expensive, I know there are people who have never had to budget who are now having to budget. I can see that the Government books definitely need tidying up, and we're completely overdue structural economic change.

But at least most things are headed in the right direction.

Education for our kids has been sorted out, red tape is being cut, the economy is turning around, the days are getting longer, and we live in a safe place with a good work-life balance where our kids can grow up fairly healthy.

So thank you to the Police Commissioner, of all people, for reminding us of that.

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