It’s time to come home

by Jake Quinn

Jake and Liv on Nananu-i-Ra, Fiji

Olivia and I are soon to move back to New Zealand. Moving home will conclude what has been a two-and-a-bit-year-long “OE” that didn’t involve living in London’s Clapham Junction. Rather, it begun in Kosovo, then shifted to Australia and Fiji. It’s been an incredible journey and I am so glad we did it. There really is no greater way to learn to appreciate your country like living aboard.

I have missed New Zealand. It is the things you miss that make you realise why your country is so special. Most of what I miss doesn’t have a dollar value. Much of it is simply about family, connectedness, a sense of belonging to a place and people. I care about my home, the places I have lived; The Waikato, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, I feel like I – in some way – own part them. You don’t get that anywhere else.

We need to talk about inequality

by Jake Quinn

Letter to the Editor of the New Zealand Herald submitted earlier this month. Unsuccessful I believe, but I haven’t been following the letters section. 

We need to talk about inequality as it’s something we can choose to manage

Martin Robinson (5 January) mischievously tries to link the salaries of All Blacks to the debate about the social consequences of increasing inequality.

He claims redistributing AB’s salaries to all other NZ rugby players would ruin the team – sure it could, but no mainstream commentator is suggesting that, nor are they suggesting a purely equal society, which is the ‘strawman’ Robinson is arguing against.