A GOOD KIWI YARN
2 versions ….. Two different morals.
OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
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MODERN VERSION: 2022
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

TV 1 & 3 News, Sky News, and Seven Sharp show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The country is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Sue Bradford appears on Seven Sharp with the grasshopper and everybody cries.

The Green Party stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome’.

Green Party Leader James Shaw condemns the ant and blames John Key, Rob Muldoon, Roger Douglas, Capitalism and Global warming for the grasshopper’s plight.

John Minto exclaims in an interview with TV News that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, to gain votes to win an election, the Government drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to consider how his hard work and preparation has affected the Grasshoppers Mana; and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated under the Government Land Repo Act and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government confiscates the house he is in; which, as you may recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, which has crumbled around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared to Australia, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drugs related incident. And the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of Homeboy spiders who terrorise the once prosperous and peaceful neighbourhood with drive by shootings and the like.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2023