John | Glen Innes

“I’ve been in New Zealand for quite a while now, and I’ve just come back from Australia. I went there for a holiday. What I saw in Australia was a lot different from here. I spent a fair time with the Aboriginal.

You’ve got all different nationalities here. Got Māoris, Asians and everything. I get to know all these other nationalities. It’s easy for me, but the first time when I met the Aborigine, it’s a lot different. Well, the heat is the main thing. The heat and life. When they talk about the work, and the money, there seems to be a lot of work over there on the farms and everything, and they seem to be getting a lot of money when they’re employing foreigners, and they’re getting that much money, but here in New Zealand you don’t get that. You have to go and bludge from WINZ to get something, but in Australia, you go to the farm and work, and then you get paid. To me, it’s worth it. You don’t get that over here. Not in Auckland anyway. Don’t know if they have many farms in Auckland. 

When I came to New Zealand, I was only about 12 years old and, and I grew up in Ōtara nearly all my life. But in the 1980s things were very, very open for the young people like me, when I was in my teens. I mean drinking, playing sports, and drinking and partying around, and I wasn’t even thinking about the future until a few years back when I turned 60. Then, I realised what I should have done in, in those younger days. I should have bloody saved money and should have bought me some houses. It was cheap then, but now you can’t. The houses are all half a million dollars’ worth now. It wasn’t like that before, and I realise now what I’ve done. Because I had a few friends, my brothers, they all own houses now, but me, I don’t and I’m living in a unit in our apartment, and I’ve got my family. They don’t live with me. 

I’ve got my grandchildren, and that’s the only thing I’m looking forward to now. I know I’m not going to be rich, only if I win the Lotto. Well, what I’m saying is, I really don’t know what the future would be. I hope it’ll be a lot better than what I experienced the last 18 years. But it’s all electronic now, and this virus is going down and the sickness going around, the heat, the storms, the climate change. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in about 10 years’ time. Hopefully I’m still here when they all grow up. I’ve been telling my sons, in my days, in the 80s, everything was cheap. There was a lot of work. There wasn’t as many people as there is now. If you don’t have money, you end up on the street. When I was working and then when I did my apprenticeship, it wasn’t like it is now. Now, I don’t think there is an apprenticeship now. They’re computerised now. If you don’t know anything about computers, you’re nothing. You can’t just walk down the road, and get a job. You have to have experience with computers. When I did my apprenticeship there was nothing. No computerised nothing.I was working with my hands. Now, he doesn’t need those anymore. All the things these days are plastics, all done by machine. Our days, when we used the machine, when we made a cabinet, we got the timber off the pile, and then put it through the machine. We cut it ourselves, but now all you have to do is use the machine, and the robot does everything for you, and everybody is getting lazy now. Don’t walk down the road, they hop in a car. They don’t hardly walk anymore. Well, only the people that want to be fit. It’s just hop in the car, hop in the traffic, and go. And there’s no rugby parks. In the ‘80s you go down there on Thursdays, you see little kids running around, in the wet and everything. They were there training. You don’t get those. No, you go to the rugby clubs and you don’t see nobody. It’s all deserted. And cellphones? We never had that before. I don’t even know how to use a Smartphone. Everybody is just going around buying things.”