2014 Election: the ongoing disengagement of the electorate

I haven't posted anything on the politics of Aotearoa NZ in the lead up to this election - there are more informed Maori researchers than myself who are posting on this - but the following graphic paints a stark picture of disengagement.

The seemingly endless revelations of sleeze, corruption and bullying may contribute to this malaise but I have a sneaking suspicion young people were disengaging way before the scandals.

It's become a trait of my generation (born in '65, tailend of the baby boomers) to bemoan 'young people today...'

Well, they're our kids, our nephews and nieces, our employees and our students. Did we expect them to follow in our footsteps as civic-minded citizenry?! Other than voting and paying our taxes, what did my generation do for the country?

I think we've all become complacent. We took our clean-ness and green-ness for granted and now face massive costs to retain what's left of the environment. Education is increasingly costly and uneven in its quality. Kids are eating shit food, racism and sexism are ingrained, the mainstream media is peddling trivia and its just getting harder and harder to believe in government and the corporate sector even like us.

Hard rain's gonna fall...