Oscar Kightley: Bold freeloaders don't deserve the death threats

Saturday, 10 February 2018

Oscar Kightley thinks Kiwis' overreaction at backpackers wanting to forage their way around the country smacks of double-standards.

OPINION: There was a time when a death threat used to mean something.

Remember when it was strictly the domain of genuinely bad people who really wanted to kill someone - but only after warning them first?

Enoch Orious and Anna Karg's dream to travel NZ without spending money has - unbelievably - attracted death threats.

Or those old movies, in which death threats were always serious plot points and you knew the sender was serious because they'd gone to the trouble of cutting out individual letters from newspapers or magazines.

But then the Internet came along and everything changed. Now you could type out your death threat in a font of your choice, push a button and send it.

* [Foraging foreigners eat for free

*](https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/nz/101071529/foraging-foreigners--new-zealands-milk-and-honey-is-providing-for-our-tourists) Fruit thieves unwelcome, but you can always forage legally

* Tips from foraging families on how to get free food**

These days, they're as common as sunrise. Take, for example, the latest recipients of death threats in New Zealand: a couple of tourists whose only crime was to declare their desire to trip around the country without spending a cent.

Anna Karg and partner Enoch Orious, both 25, have already been here for two weeks and reportedly haven't had to shell out any cash thanks to a combination of trading, dumpster-diving and charity. They plan to head to Australia to do the same thing, and then the world.

In the parlance of the old New Zealand school ground, that would be known as 'scabbing', but Orious told media they had a greater calling: 'It's about living our truth, and showing people how much love there is out there in the world.'

Europe must be full of hippy types who see New Zealand as some idyllic environment where life can be lived freely… like in the olden days.

Some people must imagine that our whole country is a kind of real-world Hobbiton and that you can just hike around all day having adventures and survive by living off the land or asking strangers for eggs, bread and lashings of ginger beer.

Generally, we like to think that we're a hospitable bunch. If there's a news story about a tourist being robbed, usually the next day there'll be a story about the kindness of Kiwis who have reached out with support.

It's a throwback to a more innocent time when we thought no one knew where New Zealand was. Back then we had to ensure that anyone who did bother to visit had a nice time so they could say nice things about us when they went back home.

But it's one thing to offer that hospitality freely and another when it's expected as a given. New Zealand is currently experiencing record numbers of visitors and faces a challenge to build an infrastructure that can sustain expected further growth.

We'd like to think that the tourists – even if they have already had to spend a small fortune to get here – should spend heaps once they're here.

But, even so, surely this young couple don't deserve people threatening to kill them. Have we forgotten how expensive travel is? How many Kiwis head to London and then live on two-minute noodles?

Surely people leaving comments on their Facebook page could have dialled back the death-threats to perhaps something like an upside-down smiley face.

Since the social media backlash, the couple have stressed that they never ask people to pay for things, that they do have back up money if required, and that they offer their own labour if it can help.

Theirs is an interesting and bold experiment and I hope it works for them. Although, I'd love to see a non-white tourist couple try this stunt. I imagine they'd get even more death threats.