New Zealand Listener

Fool’s paradise

Are New Zealanders voting with their passports? The message in a slew of recent stories about people moving overseas is that the government is failing so badly, they have no choice.

The mantra seems to be getting through. “The health system’s completely stuffed. It’s Third World. I’ve got this mole my doctor says looks a bit odd and I need to see a specialist but there’s a two-month waiting list on the public health. So that’s it. We’re going to move to Noosa. Everything’s better over there.”

This monologue was recently shared at high volume in a Napier restaurant. Let’s hope the mole turned out benign and the move to Noosa and a superior health system was accomplished within the two months it might have taken if the speaker had hung in here.

Leaving aside questions about the advisability of exporting a dodgy melanoma to a place where, according to a Queensland tourism website, “The sun shines … more than most other places in the world, with an average of seven long hours …

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