Wake-up sprawl has alarm bells ringing.
Like a sleeping-pill-addicted travelling salesperson, New Zealand has been getting a lot of wake-up calls lately. You can hardly open a newspaper or tune into a bulletin without encountering one. Taken together, say experts, this cacophony of wake-up calls should be ringing alarm bells in the halls of power, jolting them awake from their slumber. Heads, many say, must roll over and get out of bed.
The welter of wake-up callery – which some have begun to brand “wake-up callmagedon” – is illustrated by a review of just the last month’s headlines.
Brian Roche, the public service commissioner, said the findings from the inquiry he led into data breaches delivered a “massive wake-up call”. The Otago Daily Times considered it a “wake-up call on privacy”. And the prime minister, Christopher Luxon, said it was “a very big wake-up call”.
The unannounced appearance of Chinese naval ships performing firing exercises off the coast of New South Wales shook us from our slumber on either side of the Tasman. This was “a wake-up call for Australians”, wrote one defence analyst in the Financial Review. “Is this a wake-up call?” asked Newstalk ZB. “It’s a wake-up call, isn’t it?” said New Zealand defence minister Judith Collins.
The episode “ought to be a wake-up call for our investment priorities”, said Act defence spokesperson Mark Cameron. It is worth stressing here, as several recent press statements underscore, that while Cameron enthusiastically advocates getting awakened, he remains staunchly opposed to going woke.
The government’s emphasis on growth, the Listener reckoned, delivered “the coalition’s wake-up call” on the economy. Peter Dunne said the latest opinion polls “send a mighty wake-up call to the coalition government”. The Taxpayers’ Union said that if its poll “isn’t a wake-up call, nothing will be”. The Green Party called last week’s child poverty statistics “a wake-up call for the government”.
The NZ Initiative think tank said the renewed Trump-Putin amity issued “a wake-up call for New Zealand”. Actually, said another defence expert, the volatility of Trump’s White House should leave New Zealand “beyond talking about wake-up calls”.
According to the NZ Herald, “shifting sands” in investment markets are “a wake-up call to diversify”. A burst of overseas measles cases should send “a wake-up call” to New Zealanders, said a public health official. Flash flooding near Lawrence was “a serious wake-up call”, said a local farmer. Ecommerce data showing New Zealanders’ online expenditure offshore delivered “a wake-up call for local retailers”, one market analyst told Stuff.
Recent days have also seen “a major wake-up call on the issue of kids and smartphones”, talk of a “constitutional wake-up call” from the Supreme Court, and a Blues player declaring their defeat to the Chiefs “a wake-up call” (as well as a “good smack in the nose”).
The bigger question is this: are we sleeping too much? Are we a snoozy people? Somnambulating? Narcoleptic? Does the nation have sleep apnoea?
The rooster’s crow must be heard wide and loud. Let us wake up to the wake-up call epidemic. Patriots should not be afraid to blow the whistle. To sound the alarm. To smell the coffee. If we ignore these warnings, the wake-up calls will continue to pile up, eventually unleashing a very rude awakening, and that could reverberate for years.
