Ten years from now, I will almost certainly be dead.

But, if I were to live that long, I would be constantly challenged with the question, “Why did you not warn us about what was surely already apparent – that the globe was heating at an ever-increasing rate, and that – unless we changed our behaviours very drastically – it would rapidly become uninhabitable.”

I would have no satisfactory answer to that question, other than to plead that “I tried. I argued till I was blue in the face, but people wouldn’t listen. They preferred to follow the advice of those who assured them that there was nothing to worry about.”

“They preferred that advice because it offered them the easy way out. And by the time they realised that they had been misled, it was too late.”

“So, they followed the advice of those who said that we could safely put in place special dispensations that would allow us to do what we liked – that we could “fast-track” to a trouble-free future. All that we needed to do was to find three idiots who would bear the responsibility of ignoring the scientific evidence.”

“That trio would take responsibility for decisions that flew in the face of the best scientific evidence we could assemble. The only qualities they needed were unshakeable ignorance, contempt for public opinion and confidence in their own judgment.”

“Our only sin was being too gullible and allowing them to do it.”

I had occasion yesterday to visit our health centre. My doctor had said that I needed a blood test.

The first thing I noticed was that the phlebotomist was acting as her own receptionist. She was handing a number to prospective patients in the order in which they presented themselves. After she had done this for a time, she skipped next door to her little surgery and delivered the required treatment to her patients

I asked her if she was happy, fulfilling this dual role. “There’s no choice,” she said. “There’s no one else. If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.”

When it came to my turn, she expertly delivered the blood test. By this time, the other end of the big room was also a scene of confusion, with those attempting to provide treatments of various kinds becoming hopelessly confused with those trying to organise the process, and none knowing quite what was going on.

“What on earth is going on,” I enquired. I was answered with shrugged shoulders.

After a time, the shruggers elaborated a little.

“It’s the budget cuts” the shruggers said.

I was aghast. If the cuts could disrupt a relatively simple process like the one I had been involved in, what impact would they have on some of the more complex parts of the health service.

Our health service is in more trouble than we might imagine.

Our government is in the course – before our very eyes – of declaring that it has lost confidence in, and is accordingly abandoning, the founding concept of New Zealand. It apparently prefers the path trodden by others.

The world is not short of countries in which an invading population of – usually white – people takes over the government and subjects another group – usually black or brown – to an inferior status. If I had wanted to live in such a country, I would not have returned from the UK to my native New Zealand, but I would instead have sought citizenship of Australia, or the United States, or perhaps even South Africa.

Instead, however, I embraced a country which had, quite deliberately, opted for a quite different model. It is a model in which one civilisation does not assert its superiority over another but where they each agree to live together and to learn from each other. They each understand that they are better off, and lead fuller and richer lives, if they can draw upon their different histories and world views.

We have run New Zealand on this basis for long enough, and with enough success, to prove to ourselves that it is a superior model – that it provides us, not only with a country that avoids the tensions and conflicts that beset other countries, but also with a secure basis from which we can make further progress.

Sadly, however, our current government is acting as though it has lost confidence in what has been the very foundation of our success so far. They seem determined to emphasise what divides us, not what unites us, to ignore the lessons that history has taught us. They look elsewhere for models as to the best way to build a country that owes its foundation to two or more races rather than one.

For the first time in our short history, we are invited to see division and difference, to act on what separates us, not what brings us together. So, the beauty of the Maori language and dance, the subtlety of the Maori world view, are declared to be of no value. The issue of what we can learn from each other is, we are told, a matter of one-way traffic.

I, as a pakeha New Zealander, am left with a sense of abandonment. I am no longer different, because I am a New Zealander. I no longer have something that is different – something that makes me part of the South Pacific. I am just another colonist, bringing my civilisation with me from foreign climes, not learning from where I was born.

We must hope that this attempt to close off our options is given short shrift and that we return to what has served us so well so far.