I wrote all of that out at work during a down period, and realised you were in fact talking about education/teachers. My bad. From a recent chat with a friend of mine who is currently a teacher, he was explaining that the salaries go up slightly every year or so, not usually in line with inflation but a boost nonetheless. Looks like the base rate for a fresh primary school teacher in NZ is: 2019 = 48k 2020 = 49k 2021 = 51k Secondary starts slightly higher, but taps out similarly at 90k even with an MA/PhD - so you're left having to tack things on like being a Director or Principal to have extra allowance. As to the government involvement in pushing for higher pay in any kind of educational institute? I think we're often left bouncing between Labour and National - one will stay in power for one, two or three terms (National managed 2008 - 2017 before Jacinda kicked the fuckin' door in). But eventually a switch happens and the first year or two is spent either undoing or repealing whatever they can of the previous administration. As a result, I can't recall much effort being expended to really make education a lucrative and enticing career. People seem to do it because they really want to be teachers, or lecturers. Shit I was going to go back to uni to be a teacher, I'm young and male, they'd snap me up. But if you were to ask people off the street who the most underpaid people are in the country, it's a tie between nurses and teachers. Both are undervalued, both have been at breaking point through the pandemic, and very few people want to fill the gaps. At the uni I work at, I don't know if this is common elsewhere, the academics are expected to operate on a 40/40/20 split. 40% teaching, 40% research, 20% service. That 40% research is where everyone higher up wants you to focus, as it brings in the moolah. So teaching becomes a necessary evil to get access to research time, so you can pump out publications which you can attach to your performance review, for the upcoming year. Apologies if I'm waxing lyrical about shit you already know, just trying to paint the picture of the NZ education world, you could be quite familiar with how it all looks. In the end though, people are underpaid, overworked, and NZ ain't cheap to live in so many educators feel they are working almost out of the good of their hearts. Eventually many fuck off to Australia for more money and opportunities. Brain drain is real!
I was talking in general, actually, so I welcome both perspectives. It seems I'm not wrong about my understanding of New Zealand, which is always pleasant to discover. It is a part of my personal cosmology that unfucking your elections in 1992 has led to governance that more closely matches the makeup of the country than does our United States. I will say this: there was a girl in my Humanities class in high school who was one of the three of us graduating on the half-year. Me and this other girl piled up classes to graduate a semester early, the girl in my Humanities class was graduating a semester late. I didn't know why at the time but when I ended up dating her for a while, fifteen hundred miles away and six years later, she told me that Christchurch Grade 13 did not meet the graduation requirements for 49th-in-the-nation New Mexico Public Schools standards thus she was basically required to repeat everything. That would have been 1991, in the opinion of some of the worst schools in the world, and I think says more about different approaches to education than it does about educational rigor. After all, we also made these sons and daughters of Nobel-winning scientists take a four-hour course on the history of Conquistador New Mexico, including the future president of Croatia.
As much as politics frustrates and fascinates me, I enjoy our current election system. It does allow for a more accurate reflection and some smaller parties being able to swing some weight around, like the Greens. A more flexible and reflective power structure has had plenty of positive effects - I learned to count in Māori before English, but, gun to their heads, my parents could maybe manage 'hello' and 'goodbye' in Māori. So yeah, definitely on the right track, largely for the reasons you suspected. We do seem to be engulfed in that "American" style of politics from time to time though. There's a better descriptor I'm sure, and I doubt it's a strictly American thing, but it's all I could land on at the moment given how much American media we consume here. Divisive. Aggressive. Attack plans, but offer nothing of your own. Change topic before you can be adequately questioned. Right now the 'Opposition' doesn't need a plan, they can operate on just being 'not Labour' and it can get them votes. However, those voters are quick to forget that John Key campaigned in 2007 on fixing the housing crisis, and upon getting into power in 2008-onwards referred to the prices as a 'challenge'. In 2021 we bought our 1940 era house for just under $600k. Sorry, I'm wanking on. I agree with your assessment, and I think we're in a better place than most!