The extent of the migration from New Zealand
Last weeks Stats NZ released their latest monthly migration statistics, and the permanent and long-term departures for the last 12 months were up 11.9% from a year ago.
This issue is only getting bigger with the Fairfax page one stories on their poll results showing 10% of Kiwis are considering moving to Australia within the next 12 months.
The Standard is trying to do a King Canute and convince everyone there is not a problem, and you are all wrong. I think this is a classic example of why the Government has failed so badly in the last couple of years – it ignores the issues concerning average NZers and even worse lectures them on why they are wrong. Anyone who doesn’t live in a cocoon would know that the gap with Australia is a major concern, and that more and more families are getting divided up as people leave. Just talk to anyone not in politics as a day job, and they will bring it up as an issue.
But you do have to congratulate The Standard for the audacity of putting on the same graph axis the proportion of people staying and leaving, so they both look like flat lines.
They also keep pointing to net permanent and long-term migration, to claim there is no problem at all, but in doing so they confuse two semi-separate issues.
The level of inwards migration is effectively set by the Government. Yes there are factors such as NZers returning home (and that has also been dropping) but the Govt can and does adjust the requirements for migration with the points system, language requirements etc etc.
If the Govt wanted to, it could have 150,000 or even 200,000 migrants a year coming here. As a non third world country there is almost no limit to how many people would move here if they could.
So while the net migration figure is of some importance (if one does not have positive net migration then the population probably shrinks) the outwards migration figure is much more important.
As an example there is a big difference between say losing 40,000 people a year, and having 44,000 people migrate here and between losing say 200,000 people a year and having 204,000 people a year move here. There are also economic costs to losing people who have embedded in the local economy as opposed to having new workers from overseas. That is not an argument against immigration – I am a fan of it, but that simply replacing someone in NZ, with someone else is not the same as retaining them in the first place. A bit like an employer would rather keep staff longer than have say 30% staff turnover annually.
So while net PLT migration is a useful indicator for some things, it is one which can change dramatically by govt policy as there is near infinite demand from people to live here. And even if policy does not change, it is better to retain people than replace them.
So what has actually been happening with all the different stats. Let’s look at them one by one. First external migration:
Departures from NZ declined in the early 1990s and stayed fairly flat until 1995. From 1995 until 2001 there was a steady increase. September 11 reversed that trend as NZ looked so safe and secure, and for two years it dropped away. But from July 2003 it started increasing again and has just about reached an all time high for a 12 month period – the record is 79,328 in the 12 months to May 2001.
Now adjusting for population growth shows a slightly better picture, but the trend of the last few years is still marked.
Next let us look at PLT departures and arrivals for New Zealand citizens. As I mentioned above arrivials of non citizens is simply a function of how liberal or conservative your immigration policy is. But with NZ citizens it is appropriate to look at how many return home. So below are the numbers of NZ “nationals” who leave or arrive permanently or long-term.
The net PLT migration for NZ nationals has gone from 10,000 in 2003 to over 30,000 in recent months. As one can see the number of NZers leaving is increasing, while the number of NZers returning home has in fact been falling – has dropped 5,000 in the last few years. And considering the massive number of NZers now living overseas, you would expect the number returning to be growing.
Finally we look at migration with Australia, as that is where so much of the focus is. The level of people coming from Australia to NZ has dropped a bit since 2003, and increased from 1999 to 2003.
The big mover has been people going from NZ to Australia. It has almost doubled in the last four years, and net migration has more than tripled.
Now you can say, like Labour and allies do, is there a problem? Hey we are only losing 20 people per thousand residents per year? Well look at the implications over a generation of say 30 years. Over one generation 60% of the population will have left NZ. And it looks like only one in three nationals would return. Now that is a massive degree of economic and social dislocation.
Is it all the fault of the Government of the day? No, of course not. But should the Government be exhibiting a determined focus to implement policies that will lift NZ’s overall national income, that will make people want to stay or at least return to NZ? Hell, yes. And have the current Government’s policies been working? Hell, no.
For those who want to check the data. The population figures are from Stats NZ de facto population series until 1999 and estimated resident population from 1999 onwards. The migration figures are from Stats NZ also – series S2FEAUZ, S1GEAUZ, S2EETZ, S2EETA and S1EETA.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:34 am
What posters on The Standard have done is provide some perspective – only 0.67% of New Zealanders actually emigrate each year, and these are more than made up for by skilled migrants. There is no exodus.
Of course I’d rather the numbers were smaller, but the fact is we have a 30% wage gap with Australia that was largely caused by National’s policy on wages. Under Labour wage growth has been reasonable (though obviously not as high as I’d like) and the gap has stopped growing.
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=1522
Now I’d like to see some policy from both major parties on how they plan to close the gap. Labour and the Greens have told us they’ll continue to strengthen work rights. National won’t tell us what they’ll do differently from last time, except that they’d slash rights against unfair dismissal and make collective bargaining harder.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:35 am
When they come thro Aust. quarantine control, there’s a machine these days that scrapes the dead hand of socialism off their shoulders and puts it in the bio hazard bin.
Thus refreshed and ready to be responsible, they set forth.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Yes we do have a problem with people leaving. But I don’t think cutting taxes will keep people here. Australians basically earn 40% more than us BEFORE tax. What we need to do is increase people’s before tax incomes. They lagged so far beind in the 90′s with the ECA that we now have such a gap. Road Oram wrote an excellent post on how we need to forget about being a low wage economy and start increasing our productivity. http://stuff.co.nz/4498505a1865.html
April 28th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I’ll just add, we’ve published a range of graphs on migration to and from New Zealand, so making a big deal about one in isolation is somewhat disingenuous.
This one here might look familiar:
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=1469
April 28th, 2008 at 10:54 am
There is another “suburban” analogy.
Follow the history of San Francisco and Houston.
SF is one of the most beautiful cities and used to attract migrants from around the world and from the US States.
Houston was a hell hole.
Then California adopted climate alarmism and Smart Growth in a big way. The Bay Area in particular adopted policies which drove house prices through the roof, and government did everthing they could to prise people out of their cars and to use public transport.
Houston has no zoning and definitely no Smart Growth and you can buy a house for 2.7 times your household income. Population 5 million and growing fast.
The planners used to say that Houston was the worst planned city in the US.
End result. San Francisco is loosing US citizens to Houston. Houston is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the US. And has just been declared the most successful urban economy in the US.
SF continues to attract overseas immigrants but even they move on very quickly when they add up their rents and taxes.
So you can prise people out of their cars and single family houses but they simply go where they can enjoy both somewhere else.
Silicon valley is now losing business start ups to Houston as well.
It’s called killing the goose.
Planning destroys urban economies. So yes, Houston is the worst planned and that is why it is doing so well and why people are flocking to live there.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:06 am
as I have previously posted I am trying to persuade my daughter and her fiance to come back to NZ ifrom the UK nstead of settling in Oz after they finish their OE.
The latest figures on food prices aint helping when added to the income differentials and housing costs.
Yes NZ is a great place to raise a family but Oz aint that much worse. The future Oz tax regime is so much better than anything either the Socialists or the Nats can afford and this will only go to increase the gaps.
Apart from the dollars the big issue in the vision of the leaders and how they sell that to thier people.
Rudd for all the criticisim he has had has sold a vision far better than Clark has.
Rudd portrays the go ahead anything is possible positive Oz mentality.
As outlined in Wisharts book Clark is the opposite A negative ‘glass half empty” personality Always looking to punish those who dont agree with her or dont perform to her standard even thou she has ankle btapped them so they cant.
She shows no trust and had to micromanage every situation.
Perhaps the most telling moment was at the recent Labour Party conference when the fire alarms went off when she was speaking.
She immediately asked for advice. A REAL leader would have instinctively taken charge of the situation and asked the audience to proceed quitely and orderly to the fire exits.
She didnt Now a qualified medical person will be able to explain it in more detail but to any thinking person the moment displayed the real Helen Clark.
Not a leader that can act intutively and ‘do the right thing” but a person who need to be surrounded by ‘advisers” who needs to weigh up ‘whats in it for me” before making any decisions.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Tane: What posters on The Standard have done is provide some perspective – only 0.67% of New Zealanders actually emigrate each year, and these are more than made up for by skilled migrants. There is no exodus.
Imagine this.
You own and operate a business. A valuable staff member that has been in your employ for a number of years decides to up and leave for Australia. This person knows your processes, knows your customers and is a valuable asset. When they leave, you replace them with a new, skilled migrant.
Does the new, skilled migrant know your processes? Do they know your customers? Over time, yes, they will likely become a valuable asset as well.
This is fundamentally why we need to reverse the trend of losing New Zealanders across the Tasman by having a sensible government capable of managing this process.
All you bring to the table Tane are attempts at obfuscation and more made up allegations that National will do X and Y. I’d rather we faced the problems and worked on solutions than falling into the age old “Labour can do no wrong” trap. Eventually the house will burn down around your ears, because you’re insisting that playing with matches is really not a bad idea – look it even makes fire.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Saying that wages need to lift to close the gap with Australia is exactly the same as saying employers are being stingy and holding this country back by taking a higher proportion of their turnover in profits. Some may see that as an effective way of deflecting criticism but that’s all it is – deflection away from where the true problem lies.
It would be interesting to see some data on what proportion of revenue NZ companies take as profit as compared to Australia. My guess is that they will be very similar. That means that productivity growth is the key to our long-term fortunes not scapegoating employers as a group. The responsibility for the creation of a growth environment rests with government – ironically by getting themselves out of the way as Owen McShane has just suggested.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Pascal, staff retention is an issue for any business, especially in a tight labour market, but the 0.67% turnover in population each year (and that’s emigrating to any country, not just Australia) is insignificant compared with the staff turnover most businesses experience anyway.
Of course, if you really are concerned about your employees leaving for Australia the answer is simple – pay them more to keep them here. It’s the market at work brother.
And I’m not making up National’s policies. They’re firmly on the record advocating removal of protections against unfair dismissal and further restriction of workers’ ability to bargain collectively.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I could have written Tane’s response for him.
“its all lies”..”nobdy that matters is leaving NZ”..”net migration is what really matters”
When will these lefties work out that Helen Clark style lies and half truths no longer work?, when Kiwi families start losing their loved ones to Aussie then it does become a big issue, yes some Kiwi’s will always travel but we have not seen this type of flight since the 80′s, there is only one person to blame and that is Helen Clark.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:40 am
It wouldn’t be the first time that The Standard has been wrong. Typical mis-analysis in order to prove a point.
April 28th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Improving productivity is the only way wages can go up. Our productivity has been declining for the term of the Labour led government : http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/01/28/chart-productivity/ The best thing any government could probably do for productivity is to do less. Less intervention, less red tape and less tax.
Helen Clark could probably lead the way by sacking 8 of her 9 PR staff.
April 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
mawgxxxxiv, your on to something. Surely we all agree that the easiest way to close the wage gap with Australia is to increase productivity? So then the question becomes: how do we do that? Increasing productivity requires providing workers with better incentives to work harder. Those incentives are just not provided in a government solely concerned with offending the least amount of people possible. As a result government departments and government controlled professions are tremendously inefficient. Take teaching for example, instead of tying their wages to their experience, why not pay on how well they do their job? Providing an incentive for teachers to work harder. Good teachers will be paid more, bad will be paid less, a good thing in my book. Also this idea that National are going to move protections against unfair dismissals is key (excuse the pun) to improving efficiency. Currently employers can hire an employee for a ‘trial period’ except they have exactly the same rights as a normal employee. Employers are forced to keep inefficient staff on board. But is it wishful thinking to believe any of this will change under National?
April 28th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Increasing productivity requires providing workers with better incentives to work harder.
I think you’ve got that all wrong. Participation rates are high and New Zealanders are working longer hours than ever. The issue is the lack of investment by business into skills and machinery. It’s a very complex issue, but I don’t think making people work even harder is the answer.
April 28th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
It’s a very complex issue, but I don’t think making people work even harder is the answer.
Shit Tane that aint even what he said.
April 28th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Well, speaking as an employee who already “works hard” 9 hrs a day in private enterprise, I’m not sure that “incentives to work harder” are going to be a very attractive alternative as long as “Go to Australia and get paid better for doing the same thing” is on the table.
Unless those incentives you are talking about are pay rates comparable with Australia???
April 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Shit Tane that aint even what he said.
Well, it is. He argues the way to increase productivity is through people working harder and that we should provide incentives to make them do so. I’m arguing people are already working about as hard and as long as they’re gonna, and that it’s time employers invested in skills and machinery.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
He argues the way to increase productivity is through people working harder and that we should provide incentives to make them do so.
No Tane, offering workers incentives if they work harder is not forcing them to work harder as you have tried to make out. You are being very dishonest by trying to push that line. Again, here is what you said in case you have forgotten:
It’s a very complex issue, but I don’t think making people work even harder is the answer.
And heres what the original poster said:
Increasing productivity requires providing workers with better incentives to work harder.
Even a blind man could see the difference between the two.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I never said forced. My point is clear – you’re not going to squeeze much productivity out of having people work longer or harder because we’re already doing that. The key to higher productivity is investment from business.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
It’s a very complex issue, but I don’t think making people work even harder is the answer.
Again Tane, Ive quoted it for you as you don’t seem to understand the language you are using to subtely change the topic. WTF do you think making someone do something is if not forced? Hint: You can’t make someone do something of their own free will…
April 28th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I think, Bevan, you’re playing semantics and being a jerk.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I think, Bevan, you’re playing semantics and being a jerk.
Wow Tane you really can’t handle being called on your bullshit can you? Gee Im just pointing out how you are trying to spin the arguement by falsifying what someone else has said – if that makes me a jerk, then I’ll wear that badge with pride.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Alas Tane, a very skillfull attempt to divert the issue of NZ’s poor performance back onto employers needing to invest in more skills and machinery.
The problem is miles away from your hollow fairytale.
The cost of doing business in NZ is increasingly high in compliance issues alone let alone the poor tax payer getting his hard earned money taken off him and redistributed to some pathetic study on greenhouse gases or being used to putting more bureaucrats into the Health System.
Your theories would evaporate if you actually went into business and tried some real work!
April 28th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Tane: Of course, if you really are concerned about your employees leaving for Australia the answer is simple – pay them more to keep them here.
You’ve failed to make the connection once again. Losing trained, entrenched people from NZ because of a government’s strict adherence to political ideology is a bad thing. You can keep on trying to paint this as “good” or offer utterly useless suggestions like “pay them more”. But what does that benefit us in the end?
I’ve asked you this before:
“What happens to the workers when those pay rises have pushed their employer into running at a loss?”
The golden answer is not to simply “pay them more“. What we need is a government willing to look sensibly at the issues facing New Zealand and not simply sticking to ideological dogma. Reasonable tax relief, sensible foreign investment decisions, management of government expenditure and thus strong control over inflation.
Not the “No tax cuts, they’re inflationary – we need to spend more – what invest? That’s strategic” nonsense we’ve had over the last few years.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Forget compliance costs for business. I see that one of Helens shitbag bureaucrats from the festering Labour Dept. had so much spare time on his hands he went up to Raumati to shut down the little kids train at the park during the weekend, ostensibly for safety reasons though it has been running for thirty years without problems. I bet the little turd claimed penal rates for working on a weekend. No wonder we are all hopping over the ditch.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Don’t underestimate the desire of migrating Kiwis to have their kids grow up out from under the thumb of (nearly) the earliest immigrants to NZ.
So much time, energy and forelock tugging devoted to a failed culture makes an expat dizzy.
The kids thrive outside the Kiwi environment ……where they were guilty when breathing.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Anyone who has read about our fall in productivity knows that Tane is right.
On a country by country basis, our labour productivity is OK, but our capital and innovative productivity is poor.
But where a Frenchman is pressing a button to make a machine go faster we are doing the work of the machine!
But perhaps the factor that’s really missing is an unspoken national desire to get on with it to become wealthy instead of using our innovative skills to find ways to make the top producer pay for the low or non producer. The ironic result has been to actually extend the gap between the haves and the have nots under Labour.
People note with contempt that under Muldoon we had hundreds of thousands doing non productive work in Railways, forestry or farming etc, but now we accept a WFF package that makes 370,000 households wards of the State. That’s over a million people working in low paid jobs that are topped up by the State.. but never mind, it gives us low unemployment.
Every time we lift the minimum wage or subsidise people to work in a low paid job or decide to use cheap labour to do work that a machine could do faster and better we encourage an outcome of low productivity. Every dollar we divert into social spending instead of infrastructure, education and training increases our dependence on low productivity and less capital for innovation. Every day that we ignore our worsening export performance, our need for deep water ports and 4 lane highways on major transport routes is another day back to an insular NZ.
In the golden years of 1900-1950 NZ was near the top of the OECD.. getting back there means a real effort of national will, an uncompromising goal of innovation and of getting our costs down. We’ve got some great national carbon assets in coal and cellulose and we need to be extracting hundreds of products from them, not just tonnes of semi raw products.
JC
April 28th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
DPF – you know enough about statistics to know that in this instance it would be more appropriate to use “percentage of population that migrated” rather than the raw numbers. This analysis is just deliberately misleading. Sad.
[DPF: Which I did do on the second graph. Idiot]
April 28th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Don’t worry Tane – you’re out of his intellectual league. Don’t even bother with him.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Nome – I’d say you both were. Well and truly.
G
April 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
DPF:
“That is not an argument against immigration – I am a fan of it, but that simply replacing someone in NZ, with someone else is not the same as retaining them in the first place. A bit like an employer would rather keep staff longer than have say 30% staff turnover annually.”
But you can’t compare NZ to Aus in this way – they have better working conditions and higher wages because they have a system of centralised collective bargaining – virtually identical to the one National scrapped in 1991. I bet their workplaces have lower staff turn-over as a result as well. Now is National going to reinstate this proven system (We had it for 60 years before National scrapped it – along with the productivity-increasing apprenticeships schemes which were part of it)? Hell no.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
they have better working conditions and higher wages because they have a system of centralised collective bargaining
Really? So is every worker in Australia on this system?
April 28th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Don’t worry Tane – you’re out of his intellectual league. Don’t even bother with him.
No no Nome, remember the phrase:
If you are under 30 and not a liberal – then you have no heart, if you are over 30 and not a conservative then you have no brain….
I’m over 30, so clearly I have a brain…
April 28th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Feel like I have to take my own, and Grant’s advice.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Well max alluded to Rod Oram’s article http://stuff.co.nz/4498505a1865.html
I find it pretty hard to believe that making someone work harder is going to somehow transform the economy, like Oram says, that isn’t going to close a 40% pay gap! Investment in technology and skills – like the ‘Fast Forward’ fund(?) would seem to be heading in the right direction…
and all that…
April 28th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
JC says:
Actually, while I do think Tane is trying to divert the debate with his argument, I also happen to agree with him. NZers are generally working to the limit of their capacity and productivity gains need to be made through investment in innovation and technology.
So let’s look at Labour’s record on fostering this, shall we? After almost a decade in power doing nothing while Australia offered a 150% tax concession (and up to 175% in some cases) on approved R&D and attracted and retained productive and future-focused businesses as a result, Labour finally moves and indicates it will offer 15%. How brave! How bold! How innovative! How utterly, utterly pathetic.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
The Independent had an article on emigrants a while back too http://www.stuff.co.nz/4407251a24135.html
“did not record an occupation on departure cards” could be significant though…
April 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Also im not saying people leaving is a good thing
April 28th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Rex W
Its worse than that….
R+D had to be paid for as a capital expense, i.e. one was taxed for being as wicked as to innovate. It’s about to improve to a pathetic 15% tax deduction.
And every other day some new regulation, expense and requirement.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Like making some foods GST free…
April 28th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Leftist systems are always better. Its why all the Haitian refugees boated right past the socialist paradise of Cuba on their way to that den of capitalist inequity, the US.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Feel like I have to take my own, and Grant’s advice.
Wow Nome, if you and Tane are examples of intellectual giants than damn this country is fucked.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Rex -
“So let’s look at Labour’s record on fostering this, shall we? After almost a decade in power doing nothing while Australia offered a 150% tax concession (and up to 175% in some cases) on approved R&D and attracted and retained productive and future-focused businesses as a result, Labour finally moves and indicates it will offer 15%. How brave! How bold! How innovative! How utterly, utterly pathetic.”
Productivity is more a question of capital deepening than anything else. Here’s the argument for you.
http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-new-zealand-needs-its-unions-back-5.html
Australia, because of their compulsory super-savings scheme also has a much higher savings rate than us, which also causes capital deepening and productivity gains. With kiwisaver this looks set to be turned around, though of course ideologically National can’t stand it and would scrap it if it wasn’t electoral suicide to do so.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
What a pity it is likely to be national voters who are leaving.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Barnsley
“What a pity it is likely to be national voters who are leaving”
And Labour voters arriving in their hundreds every week, no wonder Tane is so happy about net migration.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Rex – the following two links place the productivity question in perspective:
http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-new-zealand-needs-its-unions-back-4.html
http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-new-zealand-needs-its-unions-back-5.html
Three other things that have been limiting our labor productivity growth:
1) Lack of savings: Australia has had a compulsory super savings scheme for a long time now, which has meant increased capital investment, and increased productivity -NZ has finally jumped on board with a voluntary savings scheme, which of course we wouldn’t have had it been left up to National.
2) Telecom’s monopoly, resulting in poor investment in internet infrastructure/speed, resulting in poor investment in information technology, resulting in less efficiency gains.
3) Lack of a compulsory apprenticeships scheme (as Australia has, as we had prior to 1991), meaning apprenticeships enter into labor-cost competition, resulting in disincentives to invest in apprentices, resulting in poor investment in labor skills.
The one thing you can’t blame it on is lack of allocative efficiency within the labour market (the market-fundamentalist position), because we’ve got one of the freest labour markets in the world – meaning that all the productive incentives are there for workers to work harder and up-skill to get more money i.e. there are huge wage differentials between unskilled and high-skilled workers.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Rex – the following two links place the productivity question in perspective…
http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-new-zealand-needs-its-unions-back-4.html
http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-new-zealand-needs-its-unions-back-5.html
Three other things that have been limiting our labor productivity growth:
1) Lack of savings: Australia has had a compulsory super savings scheme for a long time now, which has meant increased capital investment, and increased productivity -NZ has finally jumped on board with a voluntary savings scheme, which of course we wouldn’t have had it been left up to National.
2) Telecom’s monopoly, resulting in poor investment in internet infrastructure/speed, resulting in poor investment in information technology, resulting in less efficiency gains.
3) Lack of a compulsory apprenticeships scheme (as Australia has, as we had prior to 1991), meaning apprenticeships enter into labor-cost competition, resulting in disincentives to invest in apprentices, resulting in poor investment in labor skills.
The one thing you can’t blame it on is lack of allocative efficiency within the labour market (the market-fundamentalist position), because we’ve got one of the freest labour markets in the world – meaning that all the productive incentives are there for workers to work harder and up-skill to get more money i.e. there are huge wage differentials between unskilled and high-skilled workers.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Rex :
Four things that have been limiting our labor productivity growth:
1) Lack of savings: Australia has had a compulsory super savings scheme for a long time now, which has meant increased capital investment, and increased productivity -NZ has finally jumped on board with a voluntary savings scheme, which of course we wouldn’t have, had it been left up to National.
2) Telecom’s monopoly, resulting in poor investment in internet infrastructure/speed, resulting in poor investment in information technology, resulting in less efficiency gains.
3) Lack of a compulsory apprenticeships scheme (as Australia has, as we had prior to 1991), meaning apprenticeships enter into labor-cost competition, resulting in disincentives to invest in apprentices, resulting in poor investment in labor skills.
4) Low labor unit cost/wage growth due to lack of collective bargaining, resulting in a tendency of employers to source increased output from increased labor hours rather than investment in capital, resulting in a low capital to labor ratio.
The one thing you can’t blame it on is lack of allocative efficiency within the labour market (the market-fundamentalist position), because we’ve got one of the freest labour markets in the world – meaning that all the productive incentives are there for workers to work harder and up-skill to get more money i.e. there are huge wage differentials between low-skilled and high-skilled jobs.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Redbaiter:
“Leftist systems are always better. Its why all the Haitian refugees boated right past the socialist paradise of Cuba on their way to that den of capitalist inequity, the US.”
I struggle to beleive that even you’re stupid enough to believe that particular extremely reductive argument – it’s something you might hear on “fox and friends” – seriously, just moronic.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Now we are getting around to what is probably the real reason most leave (after income and family). That is, they just loathe Clark and Cullen and can smell freedom offshore. The finer points of difference pale when faced with no more of this lot. Cant ask those leaving of course but it would be interesting to know.Its certainly a factor in our decision.
I really hope National has got plans to woo overseas voters and get them to vote.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
There is a widespread malaise which has been encouraged by the interpretation and corruption of the RMA.
Most of you will have noticed that whenever a newspaper (especially a local community newspaper) carries a story about someone actually wanting to do something productive that will generate wealth, create jobs and ensure the supply of vital materials, the editorial and the response will be from a whole bundle of people and groups who are determined to stop the project in its tracks and who promise to use all the tools at their disposal to do so.
Furthermore they will apply to the MfE for funds to oppose the project and provided they have something like “friends of …” and “protect the ….” in their names they will get them.
It is virtually impossible to process our own timber in New Zealand, and soon we will be importing sand from Asia to make our concrete.
A run of Environment Court decisions decided that “competition” ( As in consent authorities shall not have regard to trade competition) means “price competition” and that serious innovation must be taken into account because it is a threat to the community because it puts existing investments in natural and physical resources at risk. So had this law been around when aircraft started to compete with ships the Courts would have closed TEAL down because so many ships would be made redundant. And as for computers – think of what they have done to the slide rule industry. But never mind – we cannot make the wood for them anyhow.
And have you noticed the widespread assault on the only sector making real money and whose products are commanding high prices overseas and reducing our current account deficit? Its called the Dairy Industry and is now public enemy number one.
In the Bay of Plenty farmers are being required to apply for a resource consent to farm. Farming is no longer a permitted activity. This is following California where they have decided that extra cows require consent under the Clean Air Act. And so California farming goes down the tubes. And in Oregon there is a campaign to stop trees being chopped down to make room for vineyards.
The New Puritans are all around us.
Who is for New Mexico – a good friend and entrepreneur is the marine industry is chucking it in here and heading for New Mexico. He will be welcome there and the scenery is wonderful.
We may as well all pack up and leave.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
“There is a widespread malaise which has been encouraged by the interpretation and corruption of the RMA.”
More self-interested spin from property developer and oil company flunky/propagandist, OwenMcNoshame. Only 1-2% of prospective developments are weeded out by the RMA, and usually for good reason. What Owen’s crying about is the cost to businesses to prove that they aren’t going to destroy our environment. Bo-hoo!
[DPF: And once again he smears the persons instead of debates the issue. ]
April 28th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Redbaiter
“Redbaiter:
“Leftist systems are always better. Its why all the Haitian refugees boated right past the socialist paradise of Cuba on their way to that den of capitalist inequity, the US.”
I struggle to beleive that even you’re stupid enough to believe that particular extremely reductive argument – it’s something you might hear on “fox and friends” – seriously, just moronic.”
Looks like you have well and truly won that argument mate, when fuckwits like Philip John resort to abuse you know the game is all over.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
So is the Oram column useful or not? Roger nome’s argument, as opposed to just abusing Redbaiter, might have something to it…?
April 28th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I am an architect and the only properties I have developed have been for my own use and enjoyment.
Get your facts right.
And I suppose you say I am an oil company flunky because I received a Harkness Fellowship from the US COmmonwealth fund which was founded by the Harkness family who owned Standard Oil (now Mobil)
My fellow flunkies include Shane Jones, Karen Poutasi, Wilson Whineray, the late Alistair Cooke, the late Prof Beaglehole, and of course the New York Ballet and even Yale University.
Flunkies all.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Not like Redbaiter never resorts to incoherent abuse as an ‘argument’…
April 28th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
“More self-interested spin from property developer and oil company flunky/propagandist, OwenMcNoshame.”
And there we have exactly what we’ve been talking about. *Property developer* and *oil company* are evils in the socialist/green world because they add value and make the wheels of commerce, trade and freedom go round. And every turn of those wheels take us further away from the politics of envy, superstition and control of the masses.
JC
April 28th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Hi Nome
“More self-interested spin from property developer and oil company flunky/propagandist”
Does “property developer” now feature in the “Doctor Cullen Lexicon of Insults” along with “rich prick” If so what is Helens standing on the ladder of evil rack rent landlords seeing she has just acquired property number six while many of us filthy capitalist bastards only own one.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I might also add that we paid for them by working for a living rather than getting the tax payers to buy them for us.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
oh yes my apologies Owen, it’s your son that’s the property developer, not you. No conflict of interest there.
“And I suppose you say I am an oil company flunky because I received a Harkness Fellowship”
No owen – unfortunately for you, today there will be no hiding from the truth.
.
http://weblog.greenpeace.org.nz/climate-change/kiwis-paid-by-exxon-funded-groups-to-attend-climate-sceptic-conference/
There is how ever some good news for you. The oil companies aren’t the only ones supporting you!
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=1759
April 28th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
And on our last property we planted over 80,000 trees and plants, created and restored five wetlands, cleared the Esplanade reserve of pampas gorse and opened it up for use, all the houses I designed and built had solar water heating and used recycled roofing and recycled shelter belt timber on the decks and the bird population increased hugely – and of course we cleaned out the possums etc.
We did interfere with agricultural production when we found five marijuana cages which explained the objections by some of the neighbours.
But we planted olives, grapes and truffles and extensive vegetable gardens.
Now tell me Roger Nome what have you done for the environment lately?
April 28th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“Now tell me Roger Nome what have you done for the environment lately?”
He has just invented the worlds must efficient composting toilet—He has opened his mouth and shat straight into it!
April 28th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
John – genius mate, you need your own stand up show! Brilliant!
April 28th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
nome
“AW DIDDUMS”
April 28th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
What planet does Greenpeace live on?
$1,000 to speak in the US is a generous fee? Hell, I have been frequently paid three times that as an afterdinner speaker and 5000 for a weekends course on innovation at tertiary institutions.
I have been paid $9,000 to write a paper for US conference over ten years ago – that was about triibal marketing.
But surely Greenpeace should have noted that Al Gore was offered his standard fee of $200,000 to speak at the conference but would not accept the condition of “question time”.
Anyhow, when we received the invitation to speak and attend we were assured by Heartland (who know Greenpeace’s tricks from old) that the conference would be specially sponsored and no corporate funding be involved and the project would be funded by sponsorships from trusts etc from all around the world. And it was – one sponsor was the Chairman of the US Congress of Racial Equality who provided a speaker Roy Innis who presented a paper within the economics stream. My paper was in the Policy and Politics stream and dealt with the impact of climate alarmism on housing affordability. I do no know of any climate scientists qualified to speak on such a matter.
And the photo story reported by the NY Times simply shows how low the NY TImes has fallen.
But do you really think that I developed all my thinking on this matter once Heartland turned up and it turns out received six hundred thousand dollars from Exxon since 1998. The Environmental Defence Society received over 200,000 from our MfE in one year and a large part of that was to sponsor THEIR climate change conference.
So go away and stop boring me with such rubbish. How about focusing on an argument for once in your life. And getting it right.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
The bloody RED chinese have taken over the electricity system in WGTN (vector), (it wont be blocked) they are chinese remember, this by the traitors, in the govt so could the ar**hole liarbor supporters tell us, those who post , SHOULD WE LEARN MANDERIN OR CANTONESE , to talk to the helen davis/clarks LONNNNG time best friend,the ruthless communist chinese. Good bye my New Zealand , my country , PS did you love the parade of communist chinese flags flown by the parade of red communist officials children,STUDENTS,protesting ,more like the communist party line ???????? in Wgtn and Auckland protesting, their supporting of the ruthless communists WHO ARE NOW showing their dominance in our country , New Zealand is the first pacific part of china THANKS clark AND liarbor
April 28th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Owen McShane:
Well first I bought several SUVs and sold my soul to the oil companies. This made me feel a little guilty, so I bought a lifestyle block and planted some native trees on it as well as some delicatessen food plants. I then subdivided it and built an “eco-hippy” house on each plot. Apart from attenuating some of my guilt, and earning myself a whole bundle, I plan to use these efforts as PR for my business activities, in which I attempt to crush small, well-intentioned community groups who are trying to protect their local environment.
That’s the short version any how.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I don’t think $200,000 for Al Gore is unreasonable after all other famous novelists would probably want more, J.K. Rowling for instance and don’t forget that would only pay his electricity bill for about three months. God we are so lucky to have such dedicated eco-warriors in the forefront of the charge to save the planet.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
McShane – I don’t believe a word that comes out of your climate-change denying mouth. Your credibility is zilch.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
The answer is: more bobbies on the beat and more prisons. If we lock people up, they can’t emigrate.
Mmmm… Send me children :-p
April 28th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
You post under a pseudo name and you’re telling someone using their real name that they have no credibility? I think your real motives came out earlier
Your jealousy and inflated ego defeats any real points you may be capable of making.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
And who is this son of mine who is a property developer?
I have a principle of not calling people liars because we disagree but you do stretch me to suggest that you are being economical with the truth.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
“You post under a pseudo name and you’re telling someone using their real name that they have no credibility? I think your real motives came out earlier”
He is really the Ayatollah Woger Knomey appointed by the prophet to spread light upon the darkness of the non-believers to whom climate change is not the one true path to eternal truth. Failing that he is a sad little leftie apparatchick who earns his living sponging off the real workers in this once fair land.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
roger nome says:
Agreed. I wholeheartedly supported NZF’s compulsory super proposal which was neatly torpedoed by being put to a referendum. If Australians had been asked at the time their scheme was started whether they wanted to take home 9% less each week of course they’d have said no. But try and take the scheme away from them now. The “let’s have a referendum on it” move was one of the most gutless pieces of political gamesmanship I’ve ever witnessed.
Agreed again. Though both Labour and National seem remarkably reluctant to break it. Need I remind you who proudly showed off his carved-in-polystyrene “Kiwi Share”? A symptom, I guess, of the wafer-thin difference between Labour and National on a lot of issues.
Very much agreed.
Agree to a degree… depends whether you’re talking about the ability to opt to be part of a collective agreement or negotiate for yourself. Again Australia (with the exception of the building industry) generally offers a choice, and benefits from that.
Can’t agree with you there, roger. If you leave school with no qualifications and get into a low-skill, low-wage job where’s the mechanism by which you “up-skill” without starving to death in the process and incurring a student debt? It ties back to your point about apprenticeships. Those who don’t do well at school academically get trapped into a cycle which it’s very hard to break. Apprenticeships for the hard working ones and perhaps micro loans for the entrepreneurial ones would go a long way to giving a hand up to those who want to improve their lot, but again successive governments have done nothing. A cynic might say that one side wants a pool of cheap labour to exploit, while the other wants a pool of disaffected underpaid workers and beneficiaries all dependent on government hand-outs to exploit.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Don’t worry Owen. We all know about your credibility, unlike some failed economics student who comes here to troll.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Roger nome you are yet another example of a left winger that refuses to argue on the merits of the points made but resorts to personal attacks. What does it matter if he’s a property developer or any other what not. This has no bearing on an intellectual argument. Also you say “climate change denier” as if it is akin to holocaust denial. Should Owen be criminalised?
April 28th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Anyone who denys climate change is a criminal and should be sentenced to a severe punishment such as cleaning out the filters of the 15 aircon units in Al Gores mansion.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Phillip “Downs Syndrome” John/Roger Nome (have you no shame?):
I see you choose to attack Owen Mcshane personally – yet again – instead of intelligently debating the issues he raised. Not a good look for someone who aspires to be a highly-paid academic! I believe you’re widely regarded as the Kiwiblog village idiot. So your comment that “[Owen's] credibility is zilch” is probably water off a duck’s back as far as he’s concerned.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
There is a way to defeat the adult forms of rog that rule you.
A single currency based on the AU$ will remove most of their economic power.
That means much automatic mirroring of the Aust way.
The comrades then get to control what park benches go where.
You know it makes sense.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Normally I ignore Dodger except to comment occasionally about how embarrassed his mum must be, but…….
not this time.
As POC points out, Dodger continually defames Owen McShane from the safety(?) of his anon name, at the same time showing all of us what a complete twat he is (again).
Why?
Mr McShane appears to make a lot of sense.
His posts are clear, concise, polite and to the point.
You can only assume that Dodger is threatened by Mr McShane. Or Dodger is threatened by Mr McShanes knowledge.
His only reaction seems to be to smear Owen as much as possible.
I for one have had enough of Dodger.
I think DPF should have a open thread on the ‘banning forever of Mr Rodger ‘Downs syndrome’ Nome’.
Let the people decide.
Its DPF’s site but we have to live here.
Dodger adds nothing and continually diverts threads with personal attacks.
An open thread (open for a week) consisting strictly of yay’s or nay’s.
We could even give Roger a vote.
I’ve been coming here, under various id’s, since late 2003 and I am struggling to remember a commenter as negative as Roger.
Most trolls lose interest over time (Sonic etc), but I fear this is all Roger has, hence the continual bad smell.
If I’m out of line please let me know, the continued defaming of a seemingly innocent man is really starting to piss me off.
***Disclaimer – I have never met, talked to, or communicated in any way whatsoever with Mr McShane. I have no idea who he is except through his comments here. Also I have never received money from an Oil company – but will take petrol vouchers
***
April 28th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
rog’s happiness is elsewhere for sure….
Dave may think that only leaves a few, including my personal favourite phil u and the “about to sell his house to save starving African children” Sony. You didn’t know? He’s very modest and wants no public recognition.
Certainly Blair would send the rog back to his comrades on “waste of time” grounds.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Roger posted this over at KBB on the 27th – yesterday.
Let us judge him by his own words -
The real humor to come out of this post is matt’s thinking he can come onto someone’s blog and call them a “moron” and “mind numbingly stupid” and not be banned (I assume he doesn’t want to be banned because of the amount of time he spends posting here).
Zoster – if you don’t ban this silly little hot-head you’re a more tolerant person than 90% of bloggers that I’ve seen.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
The socialists couldn’t give a toss about who leaves NZ or who comes here to live.
They are all just IRD numbers to them.
Workers to fund their $50 billion social experiments and their rich prick lifestyles.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Yep, that little vignette, roger nome vs. Owen McShane, is the EPITOME of what is going wrong with the whole world today. Leftist lies, propaganda, and smearing, versus advocates of freedom who are finding it harder and harder to get the truth out.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Tragic, too, that roger nome is so close to the truth of the problem: low productivity, low investment. But he falls over in the traditional socialist manner from that point, I. E., he won’t admit that these things are best achieved, AND WILL BE, by free people with the gummint OUT OF THEIR FACES, not by 5 year plans or 10 year plans. NO business actually WANTS to underinvest and be uncompetitive with the rest of the world and rely on unproductive low paid workers. The perpetuation of these things, whether in Bangladesh or NZ, is the fault of bad government policy, end of story.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:23 am
As a Kiwi who left NZ with their family and then returned and has now left again perhaps my perspective is somewhat different from most here (although I’d be please to be proven wrong).
I left NZ relatively naive and returned in the middle of the Labour hegemony of NZ politics. What a shock, NZ had been turned into a tree hugging mardi gra of feminist PC bone carving apologistic minority pandering socialism. It quickly became apparent that anyone who actually contributed economically to NZ was viewed as a capitalist pig who’s role was to provide wealth redistribution to the friends of Helen.
And Labour had a done a grand job of bribing the guilty middle classes in suburban areas by convincing them that there was social kudos to be gained by being ‘thought leaders’ in social engineering (not just locally but globall) of course the rest of the world just blinked and kept moving not really paying much attention to NZ’s pathetic attempt to suck up to the UN via Kyoto and ridiculous immigration and refugee concessions a la Ahmed Zaoui).
While the Housing and economic boom being enjoyed by the global neighbourhood continued rocking on the chattering classes didn’t think too much about ‘donating’ their disposable income to Helen and Mikey for redistribution to Wellington and the less inclined to get of their arse and work.
But things have been getting progressively shakier over the last 12 months or so and Ma and Pa middle class/middle income have been noticing it – bit by bit it’s been worrying them.
It bloody should do too – we sold up and got the hell out to a real economy, one that hasn’t been raped by the socialists. Thats the interesting point, we could afford to stay or go and made a rationale economic decision to get out – the people that make that decision are likely to be well educated and highly skilled. The dross being pumped into NZ are more likely to be poorly educated, unable to speak English and of low skill.
What does NZ need need, low skill cannon fodder? (well yes when you look at the bludging socialists who refuse to work in a high employment economy, well it is now…)
But more importantly NZ needs highly skilled workers who can raise the country out of the third world, which is where NZ is perilously close to being.
Wonder why those who can, do leave.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Chicken Little: As POC points out, Dodger continually defames Owen McShane from the safety(?) of his anon name, at the same time showing all of us what a complete twat he is (again).
No, he’s not anonymous. It’s known that Dodger is actually Philip John Mason. Which makes for interesting Googling if you look over Kiwiblog only – he gets smacked down quite regularly for his insults to women, intellectually impaired people, homophobic and racist remarks, etc. A real paragon that man. Ayuh.