"So what is striking about contemporary Auckland writers - make that New Zealand writers - is their detachment from the matters of social justice or the fundamental political and social freedoms and concerns of their fellow citizens. Poets and novelists, both realists and satirists, have their scrutinising place in Britain and America but most here show indifference to dealing with the live issues of public concern, not only in their work but as writers within the community.
Apart from a few satirical journalists, the quarrels with the world of our contemporary writers and their fictional characters seem mostly confined to stories of middle-class bickering and angst; and among themselves they expend much energy on silly, internecine spats... Are too many current writers unwilling to offend the establishment in the way their 1930s forebears would have done? A question that must be asked is whether this lack of engagement with the world is because they have been lulled by the largesse of too much patronage?"
Gordon McLauchlan Auckland Our Story - August 2010
