One man's poll: Debt, poverty and the brain drain

By SIMON COLLINS

Amid the neoclassical glory of Tim Shadbolt's remarkable renovated Invercargill, radio marketer Mark McCarron worries about the brain drain.

Despite the no-fees policy of the local Southern Institute of Technology, backed by Shadbolt's city council and local trusts to attract students to the city, the chilly winter streets of Invercargill are almost deserted.

Young Southlanders who have gone to university or to do other training outside the province have had to pay fees and take out student loans to pay for them.

"We are losing a whole generation of people flying off to pay off their debt," McCarron said. "We can't afford that. We are isolated. The ones we do have need to stay here.

"If we are losing them overseas, we'll be like a second-division rugby union, a feeder to the big players in the world markets."

At the other end of the country in Auckland's Aotea Square, psychology student Laura Sheppard is worried too.

"I don't think things are going as well as they could," she said. "The Government is not spending enough on things that are important, like hospitals and education. They could do a lot better."

Even at this time of relative economic prosperity, many of the 600 New Zealanders interviewed for this series are concerned about deeper underlying trends.

Education, the basic entry ticket to participation in the modern world, is becoming a mounting financial burden to families forced to fork out for school fees and save for university, and then to young people who enter adulthood with debts averaging $12,831.

Then, once they embark on their careers, many can earn more in Australia, East Asia, America or even Europe, where real incomes have grown faster than in New Zealand for 40 years now.

Politically, no one seems to be successfully capitalising on this unease to win votes in this month's election. That is perhaps because there are no pat answers.

Most of the people who mentioned education in the survey were thinking first of all about the teachers' pay dispute. Almost all thought the Government should pay teachers more.

The next biggest concern was about the costs of tertiary education. In students' minds, debt worries often crowded out all other issues.

"I'm going to end up with a massive student debt. That's such a huge thing on my mind at the moment," said Renee Menzies, an 18-year-old arts and law student from Torbay.

Adrian Downey, studying business at the Universal College of Learning in Wanganui, said: "I think something could be done for student loans. I have a $12,000 loan and it's increasing."

Naomi, a 36-year-old English language school worker eating her lunch beside the Avon in Christchurch, is thinking of taking her family to Australia because her daughter is coming up to university age.

"The student loan thing is a real worry. My daughter is going to need one in three to five years," she said.

"I've been in Australia. No one there gets less than $15 an hour. Here people come out with degrees and can't get work for more than $10 an hour."

Terry Tyler, a 47-year-old electronic serviceman from Napier, said: "I do feel that we can do something more to make it easier for students. We don't ask the unemployed to pay back their benefits."

The next most common concern was a general lack of finance for schools. There is still a widespread view that education should be totally taxpayer-funded.

"Why shouldn't education be free again? Where has all the money gone that used to be there for it?" asked Hamilton photographer Rob Carter, 50.

A Kumeu farm labourer who gave his name as Chris said education was free up to and including university in his home country, Croatia.

"Included in the taxes which you pay is education, and still you could survive. An ordinary factory worker could afford every year two months' holiday."

Perhaps surprisingly, only 15 people mentioned concerns about the actual quality of education, including large classes, declining discipline and a loss of values.

Deon and Stefanie Thuynsma, a couple in their 40s who came from SouthAfrica to Howick two years ago, saiddiscipline was not strong here.

Stefanie, a social worker, said it was "a disgrace" that New Zealand schools were recruiting students from overseas without organising local families to look after them.

"Small kids are allowed to come here without supervision, and it's all for money."

Napier secretary Lenore Johnson, 55, said the education system was not working. "There are too many kids who can't speak properly and can't write."

Bert De Jong, a high school teacher in central Hawkes Bay, said the system was "not up to teaching all New Zealanders - still teaching just the top layer of society".

But Papatoetoe mother R. Harris, 41, disagreed: "Things are okay. My kids are being educated well."

Five people urged more apprenticeships. Mark, a primary schoolteacher from Hobsonville, said the Labour Government's "modern apprenticeships" were "not as practical as they have been in the past".

But he said the real problem was that "for those who go out and seek employment, there's no jobs there".

"We are getting a group of people coming through, rightly or wrongly, who have been inducted into the unemployment syndrome.

"In my opinion there should be one-eighth unemployment. It's damn near a quarter in my opinion at the moment, and by that I mean meaningful employment, not just putting them into any job that is going."

Although the official unemployment rate is only 5.3 per cent, the total of people aged 20 to 64 who were on unemployment, sickness, invalid or domestic purposes benefits, accident compensation or pensions at the time of last year's census came to 22.4 per cent of the age group. Many of them would work if they could.

Even though most people who mentioned the economy in this survey regarded it as positive, a significant minority were still struggling to find work.

Darrin Tawharu, 33, a Palmerston North jobseeker who has spent 16 years in jail, said he was going to Work and Income NZ (Winz) looking for work nearly every day.

"They just write me out an appointment: 'Fill this out and come back in two weeks'," he said. "I took it back yesterday and they said, 'Come back in two weeks again. I think they just sit there and do nothing."

Graham Coffey, 42, worked in an Invercargill woolstore for 10 years until it closed down. He went to Wellington looking for work, but has returned to Invercargill and has a gardening job for just three days a week.

"It's getting worse. All the jobs are getting lost," he said. "You could walk into a job years ago."

Duce August of Rotorua's Pl@net4 cafe said: "A lot of my mates worked in forestry; there were jobs there. Now there is nothing, they are unemployed. Most of them are trying to live off the land."

Once on benefits, many people feel trapped. If they get work, it can cost them so much in taxes, reduced benefits and the costs of clothing and commuting that they end up no better off.

Mandy, a 29-year-old working solo mum in Tauranga, said that after allowing for petrol and parking, she was just $15 a week better off than on the DPB.

"I do it because I want to," she said.

Monika Maynard, who has a computer business in Manukau, said a friend of hers was better off staying on a benefit than she would have been taking a part-time job.

"She would have to get a fulltime job, and even then she wouldn't get enough," Maynard said. "It's unfortunate. Who wants to live in a social welfare state?"

Tauranga computer consultant James Igglesden, 21, said his partner and her child could not afford to move in with him because, with a new business, he could not give Winz a proof of his low income that would let his partner get a partial benefit.

"I have a very small business. The system doesn't allow me to use it for a year or two until the business becomes stable."

Wanganui nurse Celia Holm, 50, said beneficiaries should be allowed to earn a lot more before losing the benefit.

"I don't think we really need higher wages, but we do need commensurately lower tax for lower income earners."

Some people agreed with Finance Minister Michael Cullen in placing the blame for unemployment on the Reserve Bank.

"We just start to look like we are picking up, and interest rates rise," said Tauranga pulp mill operator M. Brott, 30.

Retired Southland farmer John Morrison, a former Act candidate who is voting Labour this year to stop the Greens getting the balance of power, said National list candidate Don Brash had been "the arch-interventionist" during his term as Reserve Bank Governor.

"Every time he opened his mouth the dollar went up, and of course the exporters paid for it," Morrison said.

"He believes that he knows what is right for our dollar and for interest rates. I always maintain the interest rates should be sorted out between the borrower and the lender."

His successor as president of Southland Federated Farmers, Don Nicolson, said the biggest barrier to growth was the cost imposed on farmers and other employers by the renationalised accident compensation scheme, local body rates and Government spending.

"People need to learn to value what we've got left of the productive economy."

Several recent immigrants from Asia suggested that New Zealand could learn from countries such as Singapore, which has achieved one of the world's fastest economic growth rates by attracting foreign investment with measures such as five-year company tax holidays and low tax for expatriate workers.

"Your tax system is too high. The Government is not pro-business," said a former Singaporean executive.

An engineer from India, Mr Rojya, said New Zealand should attract jobs by adopting Act's policy of cutting taxes to 18 per cent.

"There is ample land. Why don't you want to bring in the information technology industries, where there is no pollution?

"Let the big companies come and invest here with lower amounts of tax. All the big companies are ready to come here."

The problem for any Government after the election, of course, is that all these ideas are contradictory. It is hard to see how we can spend more on education and cut student fees, while at the same time cutting taxes and being more generous towards beneficiaries who get low-paid work.

Teacher Bert De Jong said every New Zealander needed to take responsibility for finding the right answers.

"This is not a country of revolution," he said. "This is a country of, 'Let others do the job, we will wait and see and criticise.'

"New Zealand needs to wake up and say, 'Hell, we are still so far behind people in Western Europe in terms of economic development, technology, educational development.'

"It's taking responsibility. Each individual should take responsibility for the goals which he or she commits to achieve, and have more national thinking."

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