You’d think that this Government would be looking for any opportunity to ensure there is a weighting given to New Zealand job creation in any major project being kicked off that involves public money. In a transparent manner of course.
You’d think that in the current climate coming out of a recession, with New Zealanders still choosing in their droves to head acrosss the ditch for higher wages, where beneficiaries are having the spotlight turned on them and all being made to feel like bludgers, where a job summit held a year ago with great fanfare has produced almost zilch jobs, that this government would be feeling a bit worried that it had to show it cared (because despite the polls people will eventually notice).
You’d think the government would be proactively looking for any job opportunities, to give it a bit of cred. To show the NZ people that they are genuine about wanting more New Zealanders in work, it’s not all for show.
That they’re prepared to put their money where their mouth is and that the rhetoric vs reality line being run by the Labour Opposition is a hollow claim.
And you’d think that in circumstances where it looked as if large numbers of jobs might be lost, head off shore whatever, that this Government would want to show the NZ people that it will do whatever it can to prevent that. Because Kiwis don’t want their jobs taken away from them and given to another country just because they can be done at a lower price.
Watch this space.
LOL
But creating jobs would mean making people give up living the dream 
The previous govt brought in thousands of foreigners and gave them citizenship…many of these people are now unemployed in NZ…possibly 25,000 Asians. The ones who took up NZ citizenship are now finding it impossible to get work in their countries of origin..
Sensible countries like Japan only give work permits to foreign workers and when a down turn strikes they are able to send them home and keep as many jobs as possible for their own kind.
It is a bit rich a labour politican showing concern for NZ workers at this point in time and it is far too late for most of us. We are already on the scrap heap and we have the indignity of watching Philipinos going off to work at our old work place.
Labour for NZ workers…YEAH RIGHT.
I must say Clare, I was surprised to read this without anything more specific about hwere Labour would be looking to for job creation.
@theresaj, you are over-generalising. The facts are:
1. Whichever party is in power, one of the main drivers of immigration policy is the shortage of required skills in New Zealand, thereby having the have immigrants cover the shortage. Whichever the government, in times of need, immigration rises, and in bad times, immigration declines.
2. Not all immigrants are Asians. So, your Asian-bashing is very unfortunate and uncalled for. Besides, a lot of Asians are very entrepreneurial — they set up businesses and employ people.
3. Do you not know that the present NZ government is in fact trying to encourage more Asian immigration? For example, they are trying to get more people from Singapore. In fact, I think it is a good thing, even though I am no fan of National or the present govt.
3. Like Japan, New Zealand does give out work permits. And these work permits are not permanent, they need to be renewed. In cases of permanent residency, New Zealand does have strict rules.
4. The lack of jobs at the moment is not because immigrants have taken away your job. It is due firstly to the global recession hitting NZ in the last year or two, but more importantly and sadly, the present NACT government is sitting on its backside doing nothing to create jobs and develop the economy. Time for them to stop the taxation, mining and other stupid nonsense and have a real economic vision to develop export oriented growth. Come 2011 Election, it’s time for a change of government so that we have a government that knows how to government and will government. Go Labour!
Oops! in point 4. I meant “Come 2011 Election, it’s time for a change of government so that we have a government that knows how to govern and will govern. Go Labour!”
I concur with each and every point you make IDAD
@Tracey. As I said Tracey. Watch this space
I dream a dreammm..I wasn’t asian bashing , I was stating facts. And foreigners HAVE taken jobs which New Zealanders could be doing. The old skills shortage crock is just that a crock. Govts bring in people they see as future voters..the most cynical person to do this was helen clark…Under her regime, every manner of foreign person was pushed to the front of the queue ahead of NZers..This is exactly what has happened in the UK..except that it is much worse there and they haven’t been stopped yet.
You are dreaming if you think Labour will get back in at the next election…Helen Clark is still a resounding nightmare for many people…Even the large ethnic groups she brought in to vote for her , turned against her.
I think we know better than you who took our jobs..Dream on..dreams are free.
@theresaj, I think discussions can be more meaningful if you could stick to facts and avoid personal attacks. Take it easy.
T-aj have you considered that once you ( or your family)were a ‘foreigner’.
I have had a bit to do with Imiigration over the last few years and at present. thereseaj you are talking rubbish. It is NOT fact. Saying it is doesnt miraculously make it so.
Particularly during times of downturn it is even harder for foreigners to get work permits without clearly filling a job that can be proven NO NEW ZEALANDER CAN DO.
Dress it up how you wish, alkthough your dressing is poor, you are being racist.
Can you be specific about what job you lost and the grounds the work permit was based upon?
“Watch this space.”
I’m not sure we should have to. Back in 2008, Labour’s election campaign was to win a fourth term and the party would have had all the plans to manage the country going forward. So we had/are still in a recession, but you knew that was coming in early 2008, Michael Cullen would have told you so. I’m frightened to think that Labour would have hid umemployment in WINZ etc by creating more civil service roles. The incentive for people to go off shore is justified by the lack of jobs here, but there was equally the same number leaveing over the Labour’s nine year tenure during record levels of low unemployment. Is it possible to have it both ways?
High unemployment is good for business as it lowers costs and lowers inflation. Why would National want to do anything? If i was in the export business i would want a nice even 10% unemployment. I pay my staff less and im not overly affected by less money in the economy being spent on consuming.
Strategies like this do make sense in any year other than election year.
W-boy, have to say apart fromt he touted job summit which promised to be a do-fest not a talk-fest, and was a talk-fest, havent seen anything out of NACT about job creation. Exporters are not happy with the UK Euro weakness but job creation appears WAY down the list.
This isn’t surprising and one of the very few positive things to come out of the recession.
Okay – not so good for employment rates, but necessary:
Businesses before the recession were running their businesses with some very silly expenses. My own place of work had a beer fridge that got emptied and turned off eventually and only one case ever finds itself into that fridge nowadays.
As businesses were more and more pressured, they had to make cut backs – either through redundancies or not replacing anyone who did leave (usually to Australia). What they discovered though was that they were still running fine without those excess people.
The culture has changed from “We need a person to” to “Do we need a person to?”. What you would hope this meant was that prices would drop for the end customer – though I think it’ll just result in prices being slower to rise. In otherwords, employment figures are unlikely to return to what they were.
Oh and cut the bollocks about immigration.
Theresaj, if you’re worried because someone has come from overseas, doesn’t know the culture, possibly their English isn’t that brilliant, taking your job, do your job better or go out and improve. Get more training. Upskill. If you were selling a hammer and then some new and improved hammer came out onto the market which diverted sales away from yours, would you whinge about it or come up with some way of improving the product you were selling? It’s exactly the same in the workplace. In my opinion, those who complain about this sort of thing are looking to not actually do anything and blame it on some sort of external influence. Stand up, take responsibility, sort yourself out. The bit that distinguishes someone from overseas doing the work and someone sitting back whinging about them doing that job is attitude. Plain and simple.
Regards,
Nevyn.
@I dreamed a dream
Whichever party is in power, one of the main drivers of immigration policy is the shortage of required skills in New Zealand.
Maybe if they reintroduced the TIA then some of these jobs would be filled. Midwives is an area that NZ is short on yet alot of people that were using the TIA (As well as teachers, nurses etc for some reason these jobs that NZ is short of skills in were popular with Solo Mothers)
Thanks everyone. Later today I’ll post again on the first example of where NZ jobs could be created and where certainty could be provided for an industry which has been very important to our country in the past, and should be in the future.
@A Mother, I wholeheartedly agree.
I think I know what is coming in “this space”, Cunliffe is going to announce if Labour is re-elected the Reserve Bank Act will be amended to change the goal from “managing inflation” to “creating full employment”… Hope it is combined with compulsary superannuation and a capital gains tax…
Old industries that should be important for our future ?
Let me guess?
Flax farming …. a bit too old
Manufacturing could be a goer. Is it Crown Lynn or even Fisher & Paykel or Masport.? Too bad if it hasnt gone its going
All those trendy new industries like education, wine or even gold mining seem to be all the rage
allowingmanufacture involving hemp would be great… Let’s start with Hempcrete.
@ghostwhowalksnz
Globalization is causing all sorts of manufacturing to move offshore. There is no way it is viable to do the manufacturing in NZ when rates in China or Malaysia or India etc. are so much lower. The cost of shipping from those countries back to NZ is minuscule compared to the rate you’d have to pay New Zealanders to do the same job.
Fisher and Paykel seem quite committed to moving their manufacturing offshare. Crown Lynn is a no goer – sold to GBH Porcelain Sdn Bhd of Malaysia after not being able to compete with more modernised manufacturing. Besides which – this is all too small.
Given that we can’t compete on pay scales i.e. the cost of manufacturing in NZ is simply. So trying to rely on manufacturing for creating new jobs in New Zealand is very unlikely and if it does happen, is likely to be a very short term fix.
The more cynical side of me wants to ask Clare how Labour propose to bring about a knowledge based society (when there’s very little incentive to stay in the country. The pay rates are appalling, the tax rates are lousy, the willingness of businesses in NZ wanting to explore other options rather than the “Do as I say” attitude etc.).
While we’re at it – Clare – if you have something to say, say it. If you don’t have something to say, don’t say it. If you are about to say something, wait till you’ve got something to say. In otherwords, this little marketing stunt (I’ve got something to say but I’ll tell you what it is later!) does nothing to impress me. Can you please assume that the people reading your blog are intelligent people, know something about your background and are likely to be insulted by such obvious stunts?
Old industries that need support? Well, start with IT. Rather than blowing vast wads of cash on unnecessary licences from overseas monopolists, how about using Open Source and giving tax breaks for NZ software companies to do R&D on it? The whole country benefits and we can offer installation, customising and support for the same products all over the world.
But look to new industries too. Nanotechnology is a term much abused, but it will develop new materials that will eliminate the need to strip-mine NZ for rare earth elements and give us an industry with a future rather than one limited by scarce natural resources.
Vik :v)
@Nevyn,
Maybe she had a meeting to attend or something and she will write when she finished?
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t think it would marketing stunt.
@ Nevyn Sorry. But I can’t post on it yet, full day, have another meeting to go to tonight and had kids to feed. So, human stuff got in the way, not marketing. Hopefully before I go to bed
@ Nevyn again
The more cynical side of me wants to ask Clare how Labour propose to bring about a knowledge based society (when there’s very little incentive to stay in the country. The pay rates are appalling, the tax rates are lousy, the willingness of businesses in NZ wanting to explore other options rather than the “Do as I say” attitude etc.).
A good question and one we need to address. I believe we can, must, invest in a knowledge based economy. It’s our edge. So far I’ve spent 16 months exploring these issues. Keep read and commenting. And am about to do a post. At last. Busy day.
Clare – I understand it got better, but I would like to see a lot better Carer guidance, and career information available to high schools and adults. Not quite matching student enthusiasm with the skills shortage, but it sound like a good starting point.
P.S. Someone should check the photos on the labor party website (people section). Found two male MPs with female photos.
Thanks Jeremy. Not sure that’s relevant, but thanks. Clare
Tracey..Labelling people is great fun isn’t . Racism isn’t even a real word. I never said anything about work permits. I referred to the previous government’s cynical policy of flooding the country with immigrants who they hoped would keep voting them into power for ever. It backfired but all these people are still here collecting benefits , some of them working and collecting benefits such as Afghan men and others are collecting benefits and dealing P such as the Chinese.
The issue is the very low price placed on Citizenship …it has been given away willy nilly to often unsuitable chararters..Once they are citizens and commit crime they cannot be deported and then they cost taxpayers a fortune. Australia has recently changed its laws in this area.
The issue I mentioned earlier which did not seem to be very well understood was the fact that once Asians have NZ citizenship it is very difficult for them to then go back and get work in their own countries. Unlike NZ , ALL Asian countries prefer their own nationals, that is passport holders. They consider people who have gone and got citizenship elsewhere to be very disloyal and treat them accordingly. So many of these people are caught between a rock and a hard place..unemployed here and not welcome back home…Some even get hassled when they try to enter there previous country for a visit only eg China.
My earlier point was that if people were given work permits instead of PR and Citizenship they could easily be sent home in a down turn..and they would not have the added encumbrance of a NZ passport hanging around their necks and they would not now be aurden to the already overstretched NZ system.
I lived in an Asian country for a number of years,,..I would have needed to live there for about 25 years and obtainned good charater references from top locals in order to apply for PR. I would never have been able to get citizenship in this country. Asian countries put a far higher price on citizenship.. NZ gives away citizenship as if it is a lolly scramble. So…….So foolish when a recent survey says that about 11 million people want to live here.
Immigrants are supposed to fill skill shortages. The problem with the perminant residency scheme where Highly skilled migrants get residency before arrival and have to find there own job. They cant get there job as a brain surgeon so end up competing with kiwis for low skilled jobs. This helps no one it does not help the migrant or the kiwi out of work, Perhaps we need to have a scheme were a job offer must be on the table and offer more short term visas.
Foreign students also compete for jobs with kiwis,On graduation they are given work permits or residency and end up applying for and gain unskilled jobs to gain residency. A school leaver looking for there first job say as a driver or storeman is and should not be competing with foreign students who have graduated from a kiwi university with a double degree. This makes no sense and continues to create skill shortages in the areas that need filling.For every school leaver and kiwi graduate we have 95% of foreigh students also applying for jobs that are in short supply,and as new residents they can choose any job they want and access welfare and vote crazy.
Dan
Deleted a long ramble
(I know you don’t agree with me on all these points). That is almost certainly true. If you want to defame people go back to blowhole site. Trevor