Imagine living in a single-income household earning $50,000 a year with bills of $55,000.
Mum works three jobs to keep the family afloat, but the bills keep mounting.
There’s $70,000 on the credit card with no realistic hope of paying it off. Then there’s the house.
The roof leaks, the wiring is unsafe, the plumbing is failing, the hot-water cylinder needs replacing, and the car is on its last legs.
Even a million dollars wouldn’t fix everything. Did I mention Grandma and Grandpa are living there too?
There’s an unemployed nephew, a disabled niece, an auntie with cancer, an uncle who refuses to work, a son with a toothache, a daughter who needs a school uniform and three more kids on the way.
All supported by this hard-working mum. Can you imagine trying to run that household?
Imagine no more, because this metaphorical household is New Zealand, and Mum represents every hard-working New Zealander getting up every morning just trying to survive.
Then every election, another fancy-pants suitor comes down the driveway promising our family the world. “I’ll fix the house, look after Grandma and Grandpa, help the kids and make everyone’s life better.”
There’s just one problem. He never has any money in his pockets.
One week into the marriage, it’s always the same. We have to make cuts. But cuts to what?
Did you not read the part about the house falling apart and the serious challenges we’re facing? The problem isn’t what we’re spending.
The problem is what we’re earning, and someone needs to say that out loud.
What I want this election is someone brave enough to sit the whole family around the kitchen table, spread out the bills and tell us the truth.
Tell us the size of the problem and what we actually have available to fix it.
If we’ve got $100 billion worth of problems and only $1 billion to spend, say so.
Explain that spending a dollar to save a child with cancer means a child with an equally harrowing problem dies because the money simply isn’t there for both.
These aren’t numbers on a spreadsheet. They’re choices between real people who all deserve our help.
Once that reality smacks you in the face, stop pretending you have all the answers. You can’t fix this on your own.
Bring businesspeople, farmers, scientists, teachers, nurses, economists, entrepreneurs, iwi, community leaders and ordinary New Zealanders around the table and ask: how do we solve this together?
How do we grow the pie instead of fighting over smaller slices? What are we good at? What could we become world-leading at?
I don’t want another politician promising to fix everything. I want one brave enough to tell us the truth, show us the size of the problem and ask all of us to help solve it.
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