The Jobs Challenge: Our readers' views

Striving to be best is key to recovery


In reply to your front-page article on October 11, it seems appropriate to write this on Black Friday.

No, I'm not a doom-and-gloom merchant but I've just heard that another one of my friends is off to Australia with her husband and family. Reasons: more money for similar job, better lifestyle, stronger economy and prospects that equal brighter future for them and their children.

They're very concerned that New Zealand is heading down the OECD scale so fast that Third World status is approaching.

Frankly, so are we, except that life is good here (at the moment) for us, and less than a year ago I would have absolutely revolted against the idea.

Recent events in New Zealand have made me pull my head out of the sand and get more globally orientated.

I wasn't going to mention the Olympics, but it does have some relevance to the psyche that we are encouraging - mediocrity. Just ask John Walker and his sporting mates.

Because my husband worked and studied hard (paying his own way) to be better than mediocre, Labour thinks we can "afford" to pay more tax, and we should "grin and bear it" because when we need that operation in hospital we'll get it, no problems. We'll definitely get it no problems anyway, because we're already paying healthcare insurance, and paying for the private education of our children and ourselves, and trying to set aside money for our own private superannuation fund, but something had to give. Now it looks like they're trying to make it compulsory anyway.

We didn't expect a handout from the Government, as many people we know do, but we didn't expect to get penalised either for trying to do the right thing.

Reading front-page Herald news about children being bashed to death by their - dare I say it - "caregivers;" a woman being raped and killed on her way home from work by a man (not the first time he'd done something like this); and then reading about lax prison sentences makes me wish for the "dark ages" of capital punishment.

There's got to be more of us out there - we can't all have gone overseas. Maybe we should have voted for more law-abiding citizens as members of Parliament.

Being a parent, I'm more concerned for what the future holds for my children and whether their generation will still be trying to settle disputes under the Treaty, especially after Labour suggested maybe a $1 billion would not be sufficient to settle all claims.

I'm pleased to see the National Business Review is trying to rally an investigation of the Tainui tribe for gross mismanagement and losing $40 million of (first, taxpayers' money) their tribe's money?

And just where is all this money going? My family are Ngapuhi and we personally haven't had any "compensation" but then we haven't felt like we ever needed it.

We were always brought up with the attitude that "If you really want something, go for it" - within the realms of the law, of course. That's how I got School Cert, UE, a job, car, house, husband, children - in that order, I might add. Some people go straight from school to kids and are totally unprepared emotionally and financially.

Which brings me to your question - What practical steps should we take to generate enough jobs for those who want them?

First, those who want them, get them (they may have to look further than New Zealand shores as we are not a huge and diverse market), and those who are good at them, keep them and get paid more, or move up to more responsibility or skill required to get paid more - often without union intervention.

If they're unhappy, they eventually vote with their feet and move on, either to another company or country. I did.

Second, unions do not generate jobs, entrepreneurs do. Unions can make companies inefficient, which inevitably leads to many job losses in the long-run, and they can destroy jobs before they've even been invented. We have a friend who employs one person. He'd like to employ another but if he does, the two could set up a union that would give them powers over his company. So he's making do.

Entrepreneurs and large corporates alike need to be encouraged to invest in New Zealand. Motorola, who were considering basing their operations in Christchurch or Sydney, chose the later because New Zealand does not have enough technology graduates and the tax incentives were better in Australia.

Third, a quick scan of the Herald and local papers seems to indicate numerous and varied job opportunities. Some people argue that 5 per cent unemployment is considered "full"employment because you will always have some people in the community who can't or don't want to work. I had a friend who was like this for a while after her marriage broke down. Fortunately, she recovered and is now re-schooling herself and working part-time.

Fourth, we need to encourage and promote our winners or high-achievers (just like any self-respecting business does) to become inspirations and role models for our children. We should be proud of them and put them right up there on the pedestal they so rightly deserve for all the hard work they've put in.

Let's hope Tua is up there next. Snell, Walker, Ferguson, Roe, Baker, Devoy, Kendall, Coutts, Barker, Todd, Waddell (I'm starting to feel better already) are class acts who have had to work extremely hard to get where they are and what they want.

Personally, I remain an optimist and that's why I've taken the time to write.

Having vented this, I feel more positive about New Zealand already.

Let's hope my family get encouraged to stay. I can't promise any medals, but I feel, like my friends who are leaving soon, that we're the sort of people who can make this country a better place to live in.

T. Cropp, Milford


A disaster-in-waiting


There really is nothing unique about New Zealand's exodus of youthful talent: many countries have seen the new free-trading post-modern "thing" produce me-generations of international opportunists.

Globalisation is tending to centralise money and power and, if that's all there is to life, humanity is constructing a fresh disaster-in-waiting for itself.

In fact, other more hopeful forces are at play. Magnets repel as well as attract.

London, for example, repels me as a dirty, self-centred megacity. But it attracts millions and for many, many reasons. Scotland's best authors are drawn there to plug into global distribution networks - hence the worldwide success of Harry Potter.

Many people go to centres like London for self-fulfilment rather than for personal gain, and some go there to hide. I am in Scotland, partly because I was brought up a Scot in New Zealand, but more because awarenesses and interests nurtured in New Zealand led me and my family here.

You wouldn't want me back - I don't make enough money.

Life is harder in many ways in Scotland but for my wife, daughter and myself there is a progression and a number of spiritual, intellectual and expressive resolutions available.

I recently was delighted to be commissioned to do the feasibility study for a Scottish National Youth Pipe Band - the first, believe it or not - and I was resourced in my approach to that task by insights and attitudes I learned some time ago from taha Maori (and not at all from the Roundtable).

Expatriates of all cultures have their own stories, values and motivations.

Not only do expatriates tend to have their own unique experiences of their host or destination cultures, they also have their own unique recollections of their homelands. Homelands become Hawaiikis and quickly mythologise. For some, homelands were places of war, horror, terror and famine. For others, homelands are magical childhoods of happiness.

I suspect that most New Zealand expatriates are inclined to think of New Zealand with affection and pride. Many start wishing they'd bothered to learn more Maori songs and language, many start rugby clubs and join cricket teams. They bang on endlessly about beaches, bush and long summers, fresh fruit and chocolate fish.

If most of them are doing this, there is a good chance that in their own small way they are helping to foster positive interest in their homeland and its exports.

The Irish have been masters of harnessing this expatriate resource, as have the Indians and a number of other groups.

New Zealand should be encouraged to also see its expatriates as a resource to be nurtured. Encourage those who have made their bundles to bring it all home in retirement, yes, but engage others in an ongoing discourse with New Zealand and with the many "New Zealands" they remember with some longing.

Look at the Irish website and give us one like it. Make us aware of export and tourism priorities. Encourage us to keep our links fresh. Most of all, don't join the acculturated, nihilistic, gimme-gimme, fast-money global mainstream that will only make New Zealand as fundamentally wretched a place to live in as London, Tokyo, New York or Bombay.

New Zealand's real worth and long-term value, and its economic security, lie in the values and qualities that set it apart. A good reason to make Maori compulsory in schools is because it is not spoken by the major trading partners of the moment. (In Europe, indigenous languages, from Gaelic in Scotland to Gallega in Galicia, are getting considerable encouragement.)

In the longer-term future of the widening global economy, trading partners will change, opportunities will be radically redrawn, and what New Zealand has will find an appreciating value.

In branding terms, New Zealand has the capacity to achieve strong product differentiation in an increasingly competitive and diversifying marketplace. It may not please the short-term speculators and asset-strippers who, by their priorities, appear to assume that a ship is sinking under their feet, but there is a future.

I see no great harm done if those who want to enjoy that future help the rodents overboard.

It is they, at home more than abroad, and not expatriates at large, who pose the risk to this country.

M. Paterson, Falkirk, Scotland


More incentive needed


It is great to see the boat industry going so well. It has had enormous promotion, including our money sponsoring the America's Cup.

There is little, if any promotion of New Zealand as a business-friendly place to set up business, with incentives including tax breaks to encourage business to set up here.

On most counts we discourage business with high taxation, provisional tax on research and development. Compare that with Singapore's 10- year tax holidays and high-tech Government sponsorships and partnerships. That is why all disk drives are made there and some chip manufacturers have set up shop, too.

Even Australia does more.

The reason Fisher & Paykel set up the plant in southern Queensland was the cheap land rental - I think $100 a year plus the support they got from the Queensland Government.

We have the ability to produce great software here for the rest of the world. We are losing our smart programmers and professionals overseas.

We need to set up a high-tech park in Auckland with fibre-optic connections like they have in Wellington around the tram lines; 10-year tax breaks for new high-tech businesses; immediate write-off of New Zealand-developed software; campaigns to promote New Zealand-made products here and overseas, sponsored by the Government.

We need to improve our education system so that we have a better-educated population, especially our universities, so we can get more revenue from education.

We need to teach more software and commerce subjects, as well as courses like Rich Man Poor Man so we have more entrepreneurs in the making.

I am a 47-year-old consultant accountant businessman who is developing commerce business/internet ventures.

To make sure it is successful I will need to move to Sydney to find some clients, and hopefully develop the software in New Zealand.

C. Middleton, Mt Albert


* These letters have been abridged.

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