Dialogue: We need social, moral and environmental goals, too

New Zealand must have more ordinary jobs for ordinary people, not just a focus on "centres of excellence" and the IT industry, writes SUE BRADFORD.

I was fortunate enough to attend part of the Knowledge Wave Conference last week. As I walked through the opulent doors of the Sheraton I was struck by the fact that the last time I'd tried to enter a conference on economic issues there I'd been forcibly removed by a large group of police after taking five steps inside the building.

That was in the days of "Beyond Poverty" and "Social Responsibility" when a National Government appointed Christine Rankin to head a newly restructured Winz, and Dame Margaret Bazley led the ideological charge towards the Wisconsin model of welfare reform, with its agenda of forced work for the dole, time-limited benefits and work testing for all sole parents.

So what was different this time? We still have Dame Margaret heading (albeit temporarily) the Department of Work and Income. We have Don Brash still in charge of the Reserve Bank, and this time around promoting - you've guessed it - scrapping the dole, time-limited benefits, no minimum wage and lower taxes for corporates and the very rich.

Of course each of us who attended the Knowledge Wave Conference came with different eyes and a diversity of experience. It was a great opportunity to learn and think and talk with people one might not normally hang out with.

But at the same time I did feel the preponderant weight of the now antique new right culture of the 1980s and 90s. This didn't just come from Dr Brash, but from a whole range of speakers and participants who focused on fiscal goals and concepts such as "excellence" rather than taking the broader view advocated by some of us - that our quality of life depends on taking into account social, environmental and moral goals as well.

Of course I was heartened by perspectives such as those of Yuan Lee, who described Taiwan as moving from a doctrine of economic growth "by consuming the Earth" towards sustainable development.

But at the same time, in all the talk about how to encourage young professionals back from overseas, there was little recognition of the student debt millstone which motivates so many to leave in the first place - and stay away once they're gone.

Speakers about the great expatriate exodus also fail to recognise that the reason so many of the past few generations of graduates have left our shores is their disillusionment with a social and political culture which values greed and selfishness above principles of solidarity and equity.

Rogernomics reborn is not the way to attract our children home again. The original 1980s version, followed by the 1991 Shipley-Richardson rendition, taught people to think only of themselves. We are now reaping the whirlwind.

I don't think our children will want to come home - and stay home - until we have the kind of society in which they want to live. That means not just jobs and dollars, but also things such as a genuinely uncontaminated natural environment and a reducing, rather than growing, gap between rich and poor.

What we do need more of is ordinary jobs for ordinary people, not just a focus on "centres of excellence" and the IT industry. While I commend all efforts to "bridge the digital divide", I believe it is still more important that someone has a proper job with decent wages than that they have access to cheap internet in their local library or cafe while they while away the rest of their lives on the dole.

Not everyone is cut out to be a computer programmer or a biotech scientist, and I don't believe we should cull the biodiversity of humans in terms of how they are willing and able to make their economic contribution. And that first cull takes place when you have, as we do now, a minimum number of several hundred thousand people out of work.

Many of the problems so seriously discussed at the Sheraton would be resolved if we had the moral will as a society to work all together, across all sectors, for full employment as our top priority. I listened hard for this call at the Knowledge Wave Conference and couldn't detect even a tiny ripple.

Another prevailing theme was the call to lower taxes on companies and the rich as a way of creating economic growth. I can't help but wonder why GST is never mentioned as being for the chop while income and corporate taxes are left alone.

Could it be something to do with the fact that GST is a regressive tax which has a disproportionate impact on low-income families and small business people, while income and business taxes are progressive?

Ordinary people have never made up for the 12.5 per cent they lost with the introduction of GST in the 1980s. Once again, it feels as though self-interest reigns supreme, as we focus on benefits for some while others are left far behind.

This week another two people died in a house fire in Northland.

* Sue Bradford is a Green Party MP.

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