166,000 loved ones gone to Australia since Key became PM – and counting…
Yet another all-time record has been set for the number of Kiwis leaving for Australia. The National Government just cannot continue with this dishonest head-in-the-sand approach to what can only be described as an exodus.
The latest figures show a net loss of 39,956 people to Australia in the year to August 2012 – the biggest loss ever.
More than 166,000 Kiwis have given up on a future in this country and moved to Australia since John Key became the Prime Minister. That’s the equivalent of three Invercargills and then some!
In 2008 National candidates promised over and over again to reverse the brain drain. But since they’ve gotten into Government they’ve: cut wages, cut access to education, cut services, increased GST on the poorest so they could pay for tax breaks for their mates, and thrown thousands and thousands and thousands of New Zealanders on the unemployment scrapheap.
It just seems National is unwilling to take the steps that New Zealanders know are needed to get out economy moving again. Things like:
- Rebuilding our export and manufacturing heart through monetary reforms that will drive a more stable and realistic exchange rate, instead of heading for dollar parity with the US dollar,
- Creating more local savings available for positive local businesses to grow and employ Kiwis who might otherwise jump the ditch, through measures like universal KiwiSaver and pro-growth tax reform,
- Revving up our innovation engine through R&D tax credits, increased direct investment, and better linking out research institutes, universities and businesses together,
- Building high performance work places that enhance productivity and pay good wages with decent conditions. Finance Minister Bill English actually seems to love the idea of a “low cost” and low waged economy. Everyone else wants New Zealand to be a high value economy,
- Actively partnering with regions and industry sectors to create sustainable growth and strong communities all around New Zealand.
Unless we do these things, unless we have the courage to make changes, then the terrible slide currently underway will continue and the numbers of skilled young Kiwis giving up on a future here will continue to grow. These are not just words. We are talking about real humans struggling through an economic crisis, and unless New Zealand has a government that is prepared to act strongly and decisively to deal with it then we are on a road to ruin.
Ultimately this emigration crisis cannot be sustained, either by New Zealand or by Australia.
There is a terrible hollowing out of young people who want to make a contribution, and this will jeopardise Kiwi healthcare and superannuation in the decades to come.
Even the Australians are fed up. Across the ditch Government MP Kelvin Thompson is working to stop the free movement of people between our countries. If he is successful, without any jobs or hope at home, then the result could potentially be serious unrest in New Zealand.
John Key has had four years and the evidence is clear. National’s dishonest promises are not matched by workable policies. That party need to pull their heads out of the sand and look at how out of whack they’ve gotten New Zealand with the OECD orthodoxy.
How many Kiwis need to head for the departure lounges before this Government wakes up? How much damage has to be done to New Zealand and our shared future before they take off the ideological blinkers?
How much hope needs to be destroyed before National takes the responsibility they promised to take when they were trying to win the election?
Your big problem is that you still believe that capitalists create wealth rather than the community. None of what you say will work simply because capitalism doesn’t work. Never has done, never will do.
@ Draco,but even”community”need sustainable economic policies.The difference with Labour is that it serves the whole commnity,not just their mates.If the exodus continues, there won’t be much of a community left, so it’s a pretty crucial issue being raised here.Thankyou to David Cunliffe for holding the mirror up to Mr.Key, and reminding him of another failed promise.
@ Draco, even the community needs a sustainable economic policy though, the difference is with Labour they are creating it for the good of the whole community, not just for their mates.
The people I know who have gone overseas have all commented on how nice it is to get away from the “small town mentality” of NZ.
Policies that embrace the diversity we have here, new approaches, encourage intelligence, a real clean, green NZ and move away from cliched unthinking prejudices, thoughtless ways of being and speaking would create a lot of benefit for the country and it might become a place that people wish to move back to.
Find out why people didn’t vote and get them on board because in case you haven’t noticed 35% of the voting population are still stuck in boring prejudices, cliched ways of addressing issues that don’t work and hence will continue to vote for the party that represents just that. Which is exactly what they did in the last election.
And good luck with that, I think you are going to need it, and a small miracle wouldn’t go amiss because this country has a huge slow witted-haven’t-got-with the-programme-type mentality that is stuck somewhere in the 50s.
When I landed here, I was advised to set my watch back 30 years.
Not fair I have to live through thatcherism twice.
But like the t shirts on sale at this years TUC conference say
National a Brighter Future for the Wealthy.
The country is in a state of paralysis until the State Assets release some capital for John Key.
What I am most interested in David, is how you guys will alter the paradigm in which people are so squeezed that they either flee or hang around to get treated like scourges. If your reserve banks reforms don’t work, for example, will you try other things? I am much more interested in whether the end is realised than the means (excluding of course disgraceful means) by which you hope to realise it.
“Ought implies can” is an important moral precept in that it highlights the fact that you ought not to oblige people to do what they cannot. Located in Auckland, I cannot be obliged to save a man presently drowning in the English Channel, for example. History shows what disruptions can arise when this precept is not obeyed. Yet we have a government who insists that people have an obligation to work (ought), but that no one has an obligation to provide them with work, lend them money to make their own work, etc, which means a failure on the “can” side of the equation.
That said, I do not see how you are going to tempt potential investors back into industry, even with the changes you hope to make, when they can earn more secure incomes from management positions, and secure more wealth from property accumulation. I would like to see Labour find a way of producing affordable housing and building it on a large scale, in tandem with your promotion of manufacturing, while also capping what you can earn in management positions. Such moves may actually redirect people’s idea of what seems “a good thing to do,” and ultimately end the failure of the ought/can relationship in New Zealand. I am not an economist, so my suggestions are no doubt simplistic, but something really does need to be done to produce that kind of effect.
+1 Olwyn Well said. It would bring great relief and benefit to many to see what you suggest eventuate.
40,000! It’s like East Germany before the Berlin Wall!
Nevertheless National is probably happy with the situation because it means that they can replace all those stroppy Kiwis with docile immigrants. Remember in chapter 18 of “Power” Bertrand Russell wrote:
“But for democracy, Western America, Australia, and New Zealand would be inhabited by a semi-servile yellow population governed by a small white aristocracy.”
I am not sure about the eventual ethnic make up of the two groups but, in the absence of effective opposition parties, National is well on the way to creating a plutocratic tyranny.
170,000 new jobs, yeah right!!!
John Key is waiting for further instructions from Wall St and the Chicago School of Economics on what he should be doing.
National do not appear to have a plan. Key and Joyce are basically snakeoil salesmen putting a spin on “the cause and effect” of what is happening in the economy.
NZRail is a National Cockup, rotting Peruvian Railsleepers and Shonky Chinese Trains. Who can we blame!!!
Hone Key will say what people want to hear whether it is the truth or not.
You may think they have no workable policy, but Labour barely seem to have any policies at all.
What are they going to do to stop the exodus?
Their buddies in the Green movement aren’t doing anything good for the west coast at the moment (although Labour probably WOULD throw the money at the mine even though it’s no longer financially viable, it worked with Kiwirail right?).
That Faustian deal will have to be made, and all of the unionised blue collar disciples are going to suffer for it. The ‘Liberal Elite’ will be okay though, they will have given each other cushy advising roles.
Oh wait – the Hipkins Standard will protect us from troughing and trophy positions.
@robbie s… don’t be silly… this is a “grownup” blog site…
So far, all i’ve seen from the tory twit brigade on this issue is either small minded, badly thought through(or not at all)carping that has no merit aside from displaying a breathtaking ignorance of reality…. Or attempts at childish personal innuendo that exposes the sheer lack of maturity the average incurable reactionary clings to as cover for their utterly self absorbed worldview….
these are the same fools who will be screaming for blood the second the next labour government has been handed the job of rebuilding some sort of viable skills base… The one that we will desperately need once it becomes obvious to all but the terminally tory, that the last national “party”(euphemism for what they call governing) has irresponsibly destroyed our ability to actually do our own work, and make our own tools/appliances/infrastructure(apart from making roads that start to degrade the week after they are built)..
in just a few short years, we have gone from being respected around the world for our ingenuity, drive, work ethic, and our ability to think outside the box, to a nation of second raters that need to import our skills, with “leadership” more suited to running a casino than anything remotely resembling what a government in an egalitarian, democratic country that values the strengths that made us such a wonderful country would concern itself with…
I’m talking about our people… the best attribute this country had was the abilities and “can do” attitudes that we became famous for…. How can a “new zealand” government undermine that so aggressively and still be lauded by rupert murdochs news media as “representative”?. (self interest?)
It can be said(and has been by many)that this “claytons government” doesn’t actually give a hoot about what state they leave the country in as long as the “right” people get their money….
If the best that the tories can come up with is nyaa nya nya naa naa, we won, you lost, now eat cake…then we really don’t need to look much deeper to know that the fears many hold for the future of our democracy have solid grounds indeed….
Grownup? There are definitely some grown up posts, hence why I read it.
Your post is in the style of David Cunliffe, same amount of rhetoric, same burning statements, but not a shred on how it will happen.
You don’t argue any of my points, you just infer I’m not ‘grown up’, and descend into childish personal innuendo by referring to all tories as twits. I can play this game.
Especially pointing out how the Greens/Reds coalition will not be Faustian.
@robby… I’m certain you’re very good at “that game”…. have another read, and this time you can factor in that I’m not an mp, or any kind of funtionary within the labour party….
As such, I’m no more responsible for labour policy than you are….but a quick perusal through these pages alone should fill in a few of the yawning gaps in your knowledge regarding the many ideas, policies, and philosophical approach we can expect from the government that will be tasked with the massive cleanup/salvage operation that johnny sparkle and his merry pranksters is about to run away from..
Same goes for the greens…. mana…. nz first….even the maori party is making an effort….their policies are there for all to see, if they would “choose to read it”.. oops,I forgot reading has become a touchy subject…..
But I’m sure that we will be better off arguing over trivial, meaningless gossip, and specious innuendo while this generations equivalent of the great war carries on unchecked….(how many of our youngest and best did we lose then?)
There is a large, and growing group of people who are starting to seriously despair for the country they thought they knew…. They stand helplessly watching as the future they were led to believe was theirs to shape for their children, is being sold out from under them….
Being forced to accept that to have any relevance in their grandchildrens lives, they will have to leave as well…so we lose experience, as well as skills….What’s that tearing sound?…. Oh nothing really, it’s just a bit of social fabric….
QFT – I left in April 2010 when the writing was on the wall. I had a the difficult realisation over the last few months that, if things continue along the same lines, I will be much better not coming back. I have met so many Kiwi ex-pats around the world who feel exactly the same way. It is a pity.
Yes Tim… You’re absolutely right, it is a pity… And a disgrace…I only came back to nz due to family health reasons, and I have found not much more than the burnt out shell of what used to be my hometown…
Utterly lacking in vibrancy, and soul….being run into the ground by the sort of reactionary freeloaders people should be ashamed to admit they voted for….
If i could put the band i had in Perth back together , I would be gone in a minute…. There really isn’t going to be anything to come back to unless johnny sparkles and his merry pranksters can be removed very quickly indeed…
If it takes until 2014, then I fear that it may be too late, considering the fact that the next govt will have the murdoch fourth estate to deal with, with all the lies they yell repeatedly on our tv’s, and in our “newspapers”, coupled with the loss of most of the tools that would have enabled us to recover in good time….
One could be forgiven for thinking that the “merry prankster” party had no intention of representing new zealanders from the first….
Where are you from BB?