Nick Cater and the Lucky Culture Come to New Zealand

Nick Cater and the Lucky Culture Come to New Zealand

Nick Cater, Chief Opinion Editor at The Australian newspaper, thinks that a new ruling class is threatening New Zealand’s tradition of egalitarianism.

The New Zealand Initiative is bringing Nick Cater to New Zealand to launch his book The Lucky Culture on 15 July in Wellington, 16 July in Auckland and 17 July in Christchurch.

The Lucky Culture and the rise of an Australian ruling class, published by Harper Collins, is a bold and provocative book about Australia’s national identity and how it is threatened by the rise of an aspiring ruling class.
This controversial book has been launched by former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, Australian Labor Treasurer Chris Brown, and is being launched in Queensland by Australian Prime Minister, The Hon Kevin Rudd, on Friday.
The controversial new book argues that since the 1970s a new tertiary-educated class of people have emerged. Cater claims that they form ‘a new ruling class’ who genuinely believe that they are better equipped, intellectually and morally, to tackle the problems facing society. Their views are now shaping public debates from climate change to poverty alleviation, genetic engineering, aspiration and even the notion of progress itself.

Though his book is written in an Australian context, many of Cater’s observations have resonance in other countries, including New Zealand. And his questions are as relevant here as they are on the other side of the Tasman: Are we witnessing the emergence of an exclusive political class with little experience outside of university and politics? What does this mean for our social and political debates? And are we losing our egalitarian spirit?

Cater is not afraid to tackle many sacred cows head-on. He takes on the environmental movement, the ABC, the human rights industry, the cultural producers and an increasingly remote political class, the renovators, the technocrats, and most of all, the group he terms ‘the bunyip alumni’. What he writes sometimes makes for uncomfortable reading.

To cover one of the New Zealand launches and/or to request a one-on-one interview with Nick Cater, please contact Brigitte Masters.

ENDS

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