Earthquake damage to state highway one near Ohau Point following the Kaikōura earthquake in November 2016 (Photo: MARK MITCHELL/AFP/Getty Images)

SocietyMay 16, 2020

Another kind of isolation: Reflecting on a quake-induced lockdown

Kate Hicks

Guest writer

Earthquake damage to state highway one near Ohau Point following the Kaikōura earthquake in November 2016 (Photo: MARK MITCHELL/AFP/Getty Images)

New Zealand moved into level two on Thursday, bringing on unexpected, overwhelming feelings for many of us. Kate Hicks has lived through this before.

As we’ve navigated Aotearoa’s wild and unexpected lockdown, I, like others, have enlisted a few coping strategies: Skyping with friends, watching crap TV, consuming copious amounts of coffee and chocolate (though, to be honest, as a full-time mum that’s a regular occurrence). Since being slung into the Covid-19 deep end five weeks ago, we’ve adapted, created a new normal and got on with it.

These five weeks, cut off from physically connecting with the people and places we know and love, has reminded me, vividly, of my time following the Kaikōura earthquake.

We were living in an incredibly beautiful, and reasonably remote, high-country station. My partner, our eight-month-old, my visiting mum and me. There was 40 minutes of scenic dirt road between town and home. In a matter of a couple of minutes, our access to the outside world slid away with the many landslides that trashed our road. Being at the top of a saddle and snug between two mountain ranges, that road was the only way in or out – helicopter access only for the foreseeable future.

So that was it. We were in an earthquake-induced lockdown, much like we’ve had for the last month in New Zealand. We got groceries by helicopter – and somehow the odd care package, too – thanks to being directly under the most direct route between Kaikōura and Blenheim; choppers were passing anyway, so were often happy to drop us food and supplies.

So, as humans can do so well, we adapted, created a new normal and got on with it. I hand-washed our usual cloth nappies until kind people donated disposables (525 of them!), we got a system going of cutting the wood to light the fire to heat the water to make a cup of tea, we went to bed when it got dark and up again with the sun, we completed a daily pilgrimage to “the top gate” to check cell phones, we created new safety schemes for when we went out on the property and we mastered cooking on the barbecue.

Kate Hicks during her earthquake-induced lockdown

We don’t really have an idea about how Covid-19 will impact our day-to-day life to come, or how long we’ll be at each level. These decisions are out of our control. Similarly, we had no idea how long it would take for our road to be fixed.

When we finally got word of a small fix for our road, the relief was massive. We got power first – an amazing Christmas present – and then a four-wheel-drive-worthy road a few days later. We could finally get out to civilisation, six weeks after the quake stranded us.

Oddly, I felt nervous. Would it be the same as it was? What if I saw someone I knew, what would I say? What will the land look like? What if we got stuck in town because of an aftershock?

We got out three days before Christmas, and it was a relief to think we could get a few special things to celebrate after being stuck for so long.

I don’t know if it was because it was almost Christmas, if because everyone else had been experiencing almost-normal life for so long already, or if it was simply being among others and that almost-normal life after so long stranded at home, but whatever it was, I lost it.

A complete, blubbering mess in the dairy section of New World.

It struck me then what an odd and somewhat extraordinary time we’d had over the previous six weeks. I had lived through the Christchurch earthquakes, but hadn’t experienced the isolation that the Kaikōura quake delivered. While we were so very lucky and grateful in so many ways, coming out of six weeks solo was just as stressing as going in to it.

In the dairy section of New World, my partner gave me a squeeze and a passing friend gave me a hug. I dried my tears and went on to quietly buy some Christmas treats.

My message to those coming out of this lockdown: be gentle with yourself and others. Be just as gentle as you (hopefully) were at the start of, and during, this weird time. Everyone reacts differently and we’ve heard so much about being kind to one another – please be as kind and as gentle coming out of this time as you were going in to it.

We can be so grateful to get freedoms back but we can also feel completely bowled over again.

And if you find yourself a blubbering mess in the dairy section of your local supie, reach out to your nearest and dearest or indeed other support services.

Kia kaha Aotearoa.

We know you know it’s tough out there. We are writing regularly about the economy, the price of butter, local business closures, and the cost of being a person in Aotearoa in 2025. We’ve seen the price of everything go up, cinemas are using off-brand Jaffas, and Hayden Donnell says everything is “rooted”. Sometimes it feels like things are hopeless, but there is still a meeting place for like-minded New Zealanders and a home for local stories, well-researched journalism, humour and hot takes. That place is The Spinoff.

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Photo: Getty Images

SocietyMay 15, 2020

Teachers outraged as registration fees more than double

Alice Webb-Liddall

Contributing writer

Photo: Getty Images

Amid the budget hype on Thursday, the New Zealand Teaching Council announced it would be increasing teacher registration fees twofold. Teachers and teaching groups say the decision shows their opinions aren’t valued.

The Teaching Council’s move to more than double registration fees is “unacceptable” and amplifies teachers’ mistrust in their professional body, Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Jack Boyle has told the union’s members in a scathing email.

An email sent to teachers on Thursday afternoon by the Teaching Council announced the new fee of $157 each year, a rise from $220 every three years, which will be introduced in February 2021. The email said the council was committed to “better demonstrating their value as the professional body for teachers”.

In January this year, the Teaching Council entered into a consultation period with teachers from all over the country, receiving feedback from more than 24,000 about fee amounts, payment periods and teaching council services. The PPTA says the decision to increase registration goes against the feedback that was collected, and attempts by the Teaching Council to say it had been taken on board weren’t accepted by teachers.

“They claim to have listened to our feedback that teachers want to be able to pay annually – twisting it to mean annual certification,” said Boyle’s email. “[The] announcement of a 115% fee increase only serves to amplify the mistrust that teachers feel in a body that claims to represent their best interests while ignoring their concerns.”

The Teaching Council is an independent statutory body with a board of 13, appointed to represent the more than 100,000 registered teachers from early childhood to secondary schooling in New Zealand. After the latest move, Boyle called into question whether the body does indeed represent those it claims to.

“On top of the massive increase and shift to annual certification, they have completely failed to acknowledge the heart of teachers’ concerns… The Teaching Council does not speak for teachers, nor does it listen to them.”

A petition started on Thursday night by early childhood teacher Anna Hamilton at the time of writing had more than 13,000 signatures from those concerned about the price hike. Hamilton says the increase in fees is a sign teachers aren’t being valued. She says she doesn’t believe the Teaching Council listened to the feedback it received at all.

“If you look at the result of a survey and the percentage of people who disagreed with the things that they were proposing, we haven’t been heard. For example, with the late fees, they’ve increased from $50 to $100, which is a 100% increase, but 69% of people disagreed with that in the survey, and they still went ahead with it.”

The findings report published after the consultation process showed teachers were in fact more likely to want the fee decreased, and many thought it was unfair that teachers were having to pay for registration from their own pockets.

NZEI Te Riu Roa president Liam Rutherford told The Spinoff teachers were concerned about the timing of the announcement, coming as it does just as schools prepare to welcome students back on Monday following the move to alert level two.

“The main feedback I’ve had is around the timing of it. Teachers across the country have got their heads down in schools and early childhood centres and making sure what they do in class next Monday can be done with a health and wellbeing mindset. The timing of the announcement due to the budget is something that’s not overly consistent with that.”

Rutherford says the NZEI will be taking teachers’ concerns to the Teaching Council, and the PPTA will be meeting to “decide an urgent response” to the price increase.

Hamilton hopes this time the Teaching Council really does what it claims to already have done – listen to teachers.

“I’m hoping that they can look at it and say, ‘yes, we haven’t put the fees up for 10 years but that’s our fault, we haven’t accounted for increased costs, we’re not going to lump that on teachers in one go’.

“Us teachers took our time to respond to that survey and it really feels like we haven’t really been listened to at all.”