I’ve been handing out pieces of paper and banging on doors deep in the King Country. In parts of Jim Bolger’s old electorate it would be fair to say they haven’t changed their stripes much.
It’s common to find cheerful and welcoming people wondering why this handsome stranger is walking up the driveway, and then I tell them what the leaflet is all about and their eyes go down, and there’s a politely clipped “thank you”.
Then there are people who have had enough. “I think they’re all bastards,” they say. Sometimes it’s easy to agree.
And then there is a single issue that gets every head nodding: how are we going to create enough jobs to give our young people a future in our small and not so small towns?
In the heartland everyone is worried about opportunities for our young.
There are countless sheds stacked with bales of wool ready to be trucked away for processing. But you seldom see businesses that develop that wool into high-value exportable products - uniquely New Zealand, design-led successes like Icebreaker and Swazi that create beautiful products out of Kiwi materials.
Our dairy, timber and meat industries must have similar opportunities, but we have too few examples of success.
When thousands of Christchurch homes are desperately in need of rebuilding, we have mountains of unprocessed wood being shipped out of the North Island as unprocessed logs, and kids sitting around in hoodies with nothing to do.
Yet we are pouring tens of millions of dollars a year in benefits into many of these towns.
If it’s possible to spend money on welfare, it must be possible to spend it on creating skills and providing the capital kick start for new enterprises. If we can have academies of sport in every town, we can have academies of development.
Orthodoxy in Wellington says it’s wrong to try to prop up the economies of these towns.
Bill Clinton once gave a speech before he won the US presidency, dramatised by John Travolta in Primary Colors. He went into an American town like our Raetahi or Taumarunui right after a big plant had closed, and told the workers, “I can’t bring your jobs back. No one can.” They cheered his honesty.
It’s not about turning back to days of the past. We need to create new industries and businesses in the towns that grew up as service centres for our agricultural industries. It can’t just be tourism. We need to be more imaginative. But it can't be about abandoning them either.
One side of politics believes in hands-off government that sits on the sidelines and lets the markets decide the fate of small towns. The other side sees it as government’s role to get involved and try to make a difference.
There’s a strange disconnect going on where people want government to make a difference, but don’t believe it can.
One side of politics is telling them their communities are depressed, while the other is saying there is nothing to worry about. Both sides risk missing the point.
The heartland needs partnerships with government tailored to individual towns and building on the special strengths that draw people there in the first place. They need hope, not descriptions of problems, and they need a reason for families to stay, not leave.
Until they get it, they’re going to keep screwing up leaflets.
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How about making any town under 5000 population a tax-free zone? That would sure get the economy going! I'd move to a small town tomorrow and start my own business if that happened, and so would a lot of other people. Problem solved.
Then again, you could make the whole country a tax-free zone and get the same effect nationwide.
Good point. And if the Gov stopped just trying to sell everything off to the highest bidder - guarranteed to bleed the economy to death ( 13-15 billion p.a. going offshore now ) as the International """"Market Rules"""" , then they could do something about it. I've sent them detailed suggestions before, largely ignored, and frankly could draw up a summary plan that would have NZ racing out of the doldrums and into the prosperity the country deserves....just looking at our resources .
In fact we should be asking how on earth did we get to this bad state , when you look at the country-side. Well , selling off everything to put the economy into liquidation-and more debt-didn't help. But now Nats will ramp up that failed agenda to suit their masters. [ So more poverty is guarranteed as the Neo-Lib agenda is enforced .]
The solution must involve public banking, merging Reserve, Treasury and Gov and full nationalisation of our money supply.....currently controlled from New York, London, even Tokyo.....and soon China.
The economy has to be stabilised and developed by regional Work and Infrastructure funds , co-ordinated from Wellington - with local councils - which release money into the regions , and can co-ordinate various work schemes [( stand alone, or 'work for dole' or a part dole -part wage system, or part dole/apprentice system , etc . Likewise, work schemes , incl part time , for older folks who want to. )].
Public Insurance - at lowish rates - would play a big part , and CHCH now shows why ( and QLD floods ). Private Insurance is inadequate , and just avoids paying much of the time.....especially when Brownlee and co let them do as they want. We had public insurance till it was all sold off.
I couldn't agree more. As a traveling salesman I have got to spend a lot of time in "Heartland NZ". It makes me wonder about the futility of out of touch politicians who merely pass over the smaller cities and towns at ten thousand feet every week to think they have any idea of what is really going on below. Studies in Australia show that simply maintaining and operating railways provides employment in smaller centres, but we are hell bent on "mothballing" our railways. Marsden Point sees a procession of trucks to and from everyday, tearing up roads all over Northland and Auckland whilst a beleagured railway is bagged as being old fashioned and uneconomic. Before the port of Whangarei closed and the rail link never built to Marsden Point the rail was carrying six million tonnes every year. That now all goes by truck. Tourism as our second biggest industry attracts something like 1,000,000 visitors a year ( correct me please if I'm wrong ) those tourists come from countries that have trains and good public transport. Instead many buy cars and hire camper vans and share the roads with big rigs carrying logs and raw materials to ports all over the country. Better to employ kiwi labour in rail and tourism and value added industry for milk timber wool etc and keep the jobs here, especially in small towns and centres. It's easier to live at home and hunt and fish on your weekends when you live in your home town. Youth and families stay connected and everyone has a better quality of life. We are the ones who'll get to see riots like London has recently seen if we don't invest in our youth and small town NZ
Maybe we can create a new govt department for each town, so they can add to the beaurauracy.
Whats the point wasting your energy in Bolgers old stomping ground? Old farming communities will always vote for the farmers party.
Nationals current mantra is to send orders to Asia or any where else the purchase price is cheaper than made in NZ. Nationals employment record is abysmal, National excels at dumping workers on the scrapheap.
Its the biggest myth that National supports business. What would a bunch of corporate led monkeys know about real jobs.
If any young person wants the opportunity to take up an apprenticeship or someone wants the prospect of a skilled job they will have to look to Labour.
Crash Carter #4
Better duck CC, I can hear the keys being pounded with anti socialist rants coming over the hill!!
As always, John, well-reasoned and coherent.
Unfortunately, in about an hour, a dozen or more Nat/ACT supporters will be posting here, rubbishing your ideas - but offering no real constructive solutions.
At least Sam (#2) had an idea to propose - though making all of NZ tax-free might not be practical. (Someone has to pay to fill the pot-holes in our roads.) But he has a kernel of an idea; giving tax/rates incentives to set up businesses in small towns and hire locals? It's a start...
Personally, I would use Phil Goff's idea of using the dole to put people into training and apply it nationwide. As the economy picked up, and unemployment went down, and more opportunities arose; make the plan available to more and more people. Reinstate the TIA. Do whatever it takes to train people and have them work-ready.
National's solution of giving 16 and 17 year olds Purchasing Cards, to stop them buying booze & baccy is just plain dumb. Especially when it's alreadsy illegal for shopkeepers to sell these products to 16/17 year olds...
It's a shame that the right-wingers who will shortly infest this messageboards with their cynicism; Labour-knocking; and juvenile derision won't be so positive.
I grew up in a rural area that has changed hugely over the past 20 years - the school is gone, the local rugby team no longer exists, shops have closed, long standing family names are gone. So I certainly understand the issue. The reality is that the world has changed in many ways - globalisation, environmentalism, regulations, required economies of scale - all are working against small towns and small town residents.
But chucking money at make-work schemes, despite the good intentions, won't work; it has never worked. If you are really serious, how about allowing more mining in NZ, how about limiting Fonterra's monopoly powers to allow greater competition in the dairy industry, how about scrapping (or at least overhauling) the Resource Management Act to reduce compliance costs.
And if you really want to chuck public funds at the problem, do it in the form of education (business, technology, trades, etc.) rather than thinking up crazy schemes that will make a few politicians feel good for 5 minutes.
"people wondering why this handsome stranger is walking up the driveway". Maybe if you got rid of the goatee? Seriously, it is globalisation that has caused this situation. sending jobs offshore happened under both Labour and National, so your criticism of central government is deservedly mooted. Amalgamations of local bodies, local drainage board and power boards has decimated the local jobs market. But the RMA has also meant that companies won't go and set up smaller operations in country towns anymore, just like they all want to hub in larger centres and clog our country roads with 50 tonne trucks. The demise of local delivery railways has also contributed to this hubbing in larger towns, instead of local carriers delivering to local shops, we now have JIT deliveries by these 50 tonne monsters to the large corporate owned supermarkets. Sam #2 - I tend to agree about tax breaks, that would force some Auckland centred organisations to move out.
For example - why are SKY and TV3 based in Auckland? They could easily move into say Taumaranui and broadcast from there. But the egos of the CEO and "on air personalities" do not allow this, they want to be seen in the "trendy" restaurants and bars because they think that is where they belong, not in the Tamarnui RSA. This is just one industry and I am not singling them out, just using them as an indutry that does not need to be in Auckland or any of the bigger cities.
Not with a bang or even a whimper
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I don't really believe it can either.
This isn't just a New Zealand thing. It's a global thing. Once upon a time the small town was the heart of trade and commerce. Each town could look after itself. Now it's the big city that controls everything.
I'm not sure I understand how there is a disconnect between wanting the government to help, but feeling like there is nothing it can really do. This seems to me to be true?
You raise a problem, but not really solutions. How can we be more innovative in this area? Have things been tried that have succeeded in other places? Have things been tried and failed. It's very easy to agree with your overall ideal here, but it's harder for me to see how to achieve it.