New Zealand Post-Covid: What Positive Changes Do You Expect To See?

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Geektastic

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#269699 2-Apr-2020 21:32

Now, we all know there will be negative changes following this.

The purpose of this thread is not to hear about those. It is to hear about good, useful, helpful positive changes that you think might come about in NZ. There are bound to be some good things that come from this - every cloud has a silver lining - so let's concentrate a bit on what they might be. I am sure many of the people here will be involved in designing and implementing some of them, too.

To kick things off here are some from me:

Internet/wireless connectivity will improve. I think plenty of people will be frustrated with how things like video conferencing have (not) worked for them over this period and that will drive more investment in strengthening and expanding the network capability for that; rural dwellers who work in large companies will start to expect better capability too.
Online shopping systems will improve and hopefully delivery systems (especially for food) will catch up with the more developed models elsewhere
People will value their local businesses more where this is practical and local businesses that have remained open (such as small village supermarkets etc) will also hopefully invest the money that they were able to make during this period to improve the services that they offer or the methods by which they offer them

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#2453369 2-Apr-2020 21:38

Probably a very long shot, but just maybe people will realise that there is better food than the stuff from the junk food outlets. Would be nice if more home prepared food is eaten.

PhantomNVD

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#2453379 2-Apr-2020 22:06

The environment in general getting a month to three ‘breather’ period is a plus.

I also think both employees and employers will have a much better idea of the possibilities of remote working from home, and many may continue to do so for at least part of their irking week. There’s no really good resin for an office full of workers all on their PCs, and perhaps call centers and number crunchers get to stay home, also freeing up office space and even the traffic.

Lias

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#2453473 3-Apr-2020 07:16

Likely:

Strong growth of E-Sports
Much less managerial/organisational resistance to working from home

Longshots:

The Aussie government might come to its sense for a minute and realise NBN is a dogs breakfast and copy our UFB rollout.

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tdgeek

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#2453475 3-Apr-2020 07:36

Online grocery shopping will be used more, as many have found its a nice option

Kiwis touring NZ will grow, as overseas will be seen as less palatable for a while, helping NZ tourism recover

Govt Pandemic Plan will be overhauled, as this will happen again

WFH capability will be made the norm, so businesses can react quickly to any event

floydbloke

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#2453477 3-Apr-2020 07:48

I have a tiny glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, corporate greed might lessen a bit. That large multi-nationals' focus on people and humanity rises a bit higher up their priority lists and executive salaries, bonuses, share-options etc. become a bit less important. There is only so much money an individual can spend in their lifetime.

(Here's hoping anyway. Heard on the news yesterday that Totttenham Hotspur is still paying its top players their full salary, Harry Kane gets $400,000 a week, and at the same time they've apploed for the government subsidy to keep paying their approx. 500 'rank and file' staff 😡.)

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Kiwifruta

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#2453481 3-Apr-2020 08:07

The birth rate in 9 months’ time will increase.

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Kiwifruta

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#2453487 3-Apr-2020 08:11

More people take up entrepreneurship and start home based businesses

olivernz

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#2453493 3-Apr-2020 08:21

1) We can finally see humanitie's impact on environment (not that anyone will really care)

2) We we can see how little air to breathe there is for people if anything untowsrd happens (not that anyone -who can change this- will ever care.

3) Online shopping will become better

4) WFH will hopefully become more common and better

5) People learn how to actually work together efficiently

6) Introverts have their 1st ever best rest

7) Millions catch up on their ToDo lists

8) We use less Oil

9) This is actually the training run for the big one (mortality rate in solid double digits) that will eventually happen

10) Communities re-emerge, we realise that the individualism we're sold helps us squat when we're in strife.

11) My home office finally makes sense

12) Can sleep in 30min longer in the morning before starting work.

13) We get a good definition of what "essential" means

amiga500

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#2453504 3-Apr-2020 08:41

Malls being forced to reduce rents on their shops, with slightly cheaper prices for shoppers. Up to now anything you bought at a mall had a hefty 'Westfield tax' built into the price.

floydbloke

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#2453508 3-Apr-2020 08:51

amiga500:

... Up to now anything you bought at a mall had a hefty 'Westfield tax' built into the price.

Along those lines, Wilsons Parking must be feeling the pain from this. That's something I won't shed any tears over.

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

networkn

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#2453519 3-Apr-2020 09:14

k1w1k1d:

Probably a very long shot, but just maybe people will realise that there is better food than the stuff from the junk food outlets. Would be nice if more home prepared food is eaten.

I don't really feel this is likely as a big uptake. It might be for a while, but takeaways are quick and convenient. When people have 24 hours day to sit at home and have plenty of time for shopping, food prep, clean up etc, then I believe its probable homemade meals will make up a high percentage of meals, but when people get back to work, and all the pressures of all the things that people fill their lives with resumes, then so will uptake of takeaways.

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2453529 3-Apr-2020 09:33

Any good will be short-lived. The best we can hope for is that more people will start looking that the bigger picture and decisions will be made on fact rather than ideology.

Here's a good starting point Arithmetic, Population and Energy - a talk by Al Bartlett (I may have posted this before, I recommend it to people all the time).

NumPy

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#2453550 3-Apr-2020 09:46

1) Prices of apartments will drop. Nobody is going to want to live in tight urban residential apartments anymore. I certainly don't want to be living in a place like that currently and am quiet happy living semi-rural. Living in Auckland or Wellington city will no longer be attractive.

2) Loads of money will be spent on infrastructure to get the economy going again. Government has already hinted at this and I look forward to more major highway upgrades.

3) Public transport loses a lot of support. I don't see it returning to normal for a long time, if ever. Our perceptions on PT is changing, people are now seeing it as something to avoid. I don't want to go anywhere near a bus or train for a very very long time.

4) Lots of family values will hopefully return. As a family in our home for example this crisis has brought up closer together. I'm thoroughly enjoying my time at home with my kids, and this has so far been my silver lining through this difficult time. Cooking with the kids, and even gardening with them is something they have never been interested in doing with me before.

5) The green party may be losing a lot of support after this, I saw an interview with James Shaw about creating a sustainable future. This stuff looks foreign right now in the current environment, I'm certainly not interested in hearing about saving the planet right now. I'm more interested in hearing how we going to save lives.

6) We now appreciate the value of borders. I think this has brought a lot of people together in NZ, previously we have been very divided on this one.

7) PM Jacinda Ardern will go down as either the best PM in NZ history or worst. I don't think there will be many people undecided. Currently I am leaning towards her being the worst due to her inability to act early, and the impeding disaster which is now looming. We are currently unprepared, and we have had months to get ready. The silver lining here is that the current government may be dissolved before the end of the year. A new government can focus on rebuilding the economy, and paying back all this debt that is currently being created.

8) Maybe this crisis will bring us Kiwis closer together. Many kiwis have been very divided for a long time.

kobiak

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#2453556 3-Apr-2020 09:52

I would certainly hope NZ's IT sector will grow. Giving the absolute nightmare situation going on in US/Europe, this is huge potential for NZ to become outsource hub for all the IT development. Remote location, fast internet, english speaking country, with high skill level (need to attract more) to build IT export services.

helping others at evgenyk.nz

dt

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#2453560 3-Apr-2020 09:59

I hope that people will continue good hygiene practices post covid

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