Choice, bro

The definition of what it means to be a New Zealander is changing. Jane Clifton looks at the seven characteristics of the new us.

By Jane Clifton In Commentary

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3rd July, 2010

Some days, it can be hard to recognise ourselves. As a nation, we are used to being told from on high that we are over-indebted, big-spending, house-mad, underpaid, insufficiently productive, over-eating, sports-obsessed, underinvesting, alcohol-abusing, nuclear-free, child-beating carbon-emitters. In our kinder moments, we prefer to evoke older notions of New Zealandness: Kiwi ingenuity, anti-materialism, tolerance and, above all, egalitarianism. But a recent study conducted at Massey University shows we are not as egalitarian as we used to be; racial tension flares regularly, ...

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