I often feel like I won the birth lottery. On top of being part of a loving family, my father is a historian—expert in the history of Aotearoa. This meant that on summer holidays, we would visit pā sites and museums all over the motu. While 11-year-old me probably complained a little bit about these trips, I did come to learn that our history is messy. But not everyone had these same experiences or received the same education at school that I did. At Otago Girls' High School, we learnt about Hone Heke and the flag pole, Princess Te Pūea, wars, and broken promises. It is bizarre that the complexity of our nation is often ignored or oversimplified, with divisions stoked—"iwi or Kiwi"—instead of addressing what happened, why it happened, and how to address it. Because of my upbringing, I have been grateful for my education, and have never taken it for granted. At the University of Otago, as a student politician, I fought against high fees and student loans because I feared that those unable to sustain the extortionate interest rates of the 1990s would be locked out. Without access to education, the social divide can only grow.