New Zealand

Reflections on the growing depression in New Zealand. 
It could be read in conjunction with THIS

Looking for work

Seemorerocks

A young Maori man pulled into the farm gate this morning on his bike. We were there to check on our horses.

“Hi. I've just come down from Hawke's Bay,” he said. “ I was wondering if there were any goats on the land, and if it would be OK if I shot the odd one?”

“Sorry, we're just grazers here. But ask the folk at the farm cottage – they go hunting.”

I asked what brought him down to Welliington.

“Work,“ he said. “I'm a builder, but work's drying up in the Bay”

“Thought about Christchurch?” I asked. “Ted from here went back down there a couple of weeks ago to work on the reconstruction.”

“Not much better down there,“ he said.

“Mmm... No wonder, with so many overseas workers being brought in on 90-day visas”, I said.

“Yeah. They can pay them a lot less.”

Conversations with my mother come to mind about what it was like on her family's farm in Taranaki during the 1930's Depression, when 'swagmen' would turn up asking if they could do a bit of work in return for a feed and a bed for the night.

With it comes a sinking feeling that the time has come around again, and that we'll soon be seeing a lot more people on the road, looking for work.