Contrasting with a discursive resource of merit that argued hard work will result in a
person “getting ahead”, was a discourse that presented access to wealth as more structured in New Zealand. Although the idea of “class” was not always expressly identified as a dividing factor in the interviews, it was inferred that educational levels and individual ability were both a stratifying and structuring force in New Zealand society. Therefore, even when the word “class” was not used, notions of worth and status attained through educational level (what do you know?), employment (what do you do?),
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appearance (what do you wear and consume?) and especially geography (where do you live?) and how these factors serve to divide us, are incorporated in a structural discourse. This quote articulates the status that education is given in New Zealand and how it works to structure:
I do think there is such a thing as cultural or social capital and that people who have it, who have been born into it, have a much easier time
to stay in a place of privilege than those who don’t. So if you have been born into a situation where you don’t have that, where you are outside
the privileged, educationally particularly in New Zealand, I don’t think
we are so much a classed society as an educationally classed society.
Habits and lifestyles are becoming increasingly well-defined and it is becoming more difficult for an individual to move out of the socio-economic “class” that they are born in. Class terminology was drawn on repeatedly in the interviews to refer to the habits of poor people:
The lower class of family seem to live on fish and chips.
The expression “white middle class” was also used often. This was a term that reinforced a racialised notion of poverty and wealth and those using it assumed that I knew what they meant by this term:
….Because of the whole “white middle class” thing, there is huge assumptions made about this end of the Shore and how well off it is.
Participants drew on this discourse to argue that there is a general lack of awareness (or even a denial) of disparity in wealth and of class present as a structuring force in New Zealand communities. The argument constructed here was that although New Zealand is seen as a classless society this is a myth and that this is obvious when viewing where the rich and poor live and the difference in their lifestyles:
Okay well there is a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor in this
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of the whole issue of New Zealand as being a great country for thinking that there is no class. We have no class definitions in this country but there is a class system and that is where the wealthy and the poor thing comes in. But because most New Zealanders say there is no class system
they don’t see it. We suffer from collective blindness in this country. We are able to ignore or act like sheep and ignore major issues that are
coming out of the “have and the have not” issue. Like abuse of all kinds,
crime, lack of education, abilities and health provision …
The argument that wealth was structured and staying in the hands of a few was not
limited to “Pakeha” New Zealanders as the following two quotes illustrate:
I would just love to have access to more of the wealth that I know is in
this country. I don’t know how to access it and that is both as a Kiwi and a Maori as well. They say Maori have got special this that and the other, no not even (laughs). We are trying to get our family up and running and
united and together ‘cos it is very fractured at the moment as a Hapu and
an Iwi, but there are certain people in our tribes who are getting all the money. We are not getting it. There is definitely no way that we are getting it. And we believe that it is only a few special select ones that are getting it and those families that are benefiting. There are those within Maoridom that are favoured within the tribes. I just wish it could come down to us little people. As far as just New Zealand society in general the wealth needs to be distributed more evenly. And the government is awarding themselves increases. Why not give us poor people down the bottom something too?
But social justice, New Zealand wasn’t very good at social justice from the start. The Treaty was an agreement between the white man and the brown man back in the day. It was unjust in a lot of ways. Basically, they
brought the land at last year’s prices but they want to charge what they think it is going to cost next year. That’s wrong. There are good and bad
things in the Waitangi situation. I feel we have banged our heads against
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guess what? Although I am Tainui I have not had a black cent of that
money. Who gets it? The CEO’s and all the guys at the top. What about
the bums like me? No way. That is unjust.
The wealthy have greater level of access to services such as healthcare and education, this reflects how having large gaps in income levels works as a structuring force in the community:
Sheryl So is there a gap between the rich and the poor?
Participant Materialistically, definitely. I think the biggest way that there is a gap between rich and poor is in education and getting access to good healthcare. The one thing I would like is to have enough money to say,
“Well I can have an operation.” I can go alternative without having a
thought. And if my kid was very clever they could go to university and I could give them some support financially. To me I think that is where you
notice it. Yeah, being able to access things. What’s the saying? "Life’s
hard but it is made less miserable by having money". In some ways if you can access things and not have to worry about how am I going to afford that, you can just.... you have more choices….
The children of the wealthy have better access to participation in social activities such as sport. Those who have a chance to compete are not necessarily the most talented or hard working children:
It does matter because the poor people have less access to things that the rich people have. If they had the same access I wouldn’t care that much but having money makes it possible for you to do things. I know kids who are in representative teams not because they are good but because they have the money to be able to pay to be there. And that makes me really
angry because my daughter is good at sport but the thing is I can’t put
her into a programme. I would love to put her into it but I don’t have the money. My son is good at basketball he got into … sport academy for basketball. But it makes me angry that I couldn’t put him into holiday programmes for basketball and things like that the other children have
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access to. And it is not their fault because I can’t afford it and that makes
me angry. The children are affected by the inability of parents to be able to provide certain things for them….
A structural discourse contains the argument that hard work does not necessarily get everyone ahead. Where a person is positioned in the workforce determines their rewards, it is not related to the amount of effort they exert. People who for some reason are not the
“movers and shakers” are penalised by social and economic structures. These social constraints in the form of limited access to fair and reasonable working conditions highlight the effects of power structures as an individual is often left with little choice but to accept what is offered:
Sheryl So when it comes to income and wealth do you think New Zealand
is a fair society?
Participant Laughs...no no no. I think our wages are incredibly low for
working people. I think that our wages are just shockingly bad and though there is redistribution with the Working for Families I think it is a
too complex system and I don’t really like it. Yeah, so we have got
incredibly rich people and incredibly poor people, so that is shocking too. I mean most people work a genuine forty-hour week and really what they earn is just a pittance. It is not enough. We need to pay better wages and it should be in their hand not through these incredibly complex systems