I don’t understand. In a time when we are doing everything we should to encourage & develop our industries, we are awarding major contracts to overseas business.
On the one hand we continue to raise standards of living in New Zealand through wages, holidays, significant occupational safety requirements and an array of other benefits which employers pay. Well actually the consumer pays!
Yet on the other hand, we or certainly the Government places significant orders with suppliers in places like China. Employee welfare is not exactly high on the priority list of Chinese employers – if at all. Neither is safety for employees or consumers for that matter.
New Zealand manufacturers therefore are way behind in the opportunity to price competitively, despite their best efforts.
So here we are with a Government borrowing millions of dollars every week to buy stuff from China and similar manufacturing environments. By ignoring our own industry we are jeopardising their ability to keep operating in New Zealand, or at all.
Of course when this productive sector closes down, the ranks of the unemployed swell and all of the attendant social impacts inevitably increase. The Government then borrows even more money to pay for the enlarging non-productive sector.
How does that work toward an economic recovery? Go figure.
Good observation Geoff
ReplyDeleteI wonder too at our decision making when millions are spent relocating and restoring a building, a dead object, The Bird Cage, when we have a far more pressing need to educate our people.
However after seeing how much attention Dr Kana is receiving by following a simple process I realise that all that finger pointing has no effect. In fact it could be perversely encouraging a trend for New Zealanders to think less of our magnificence. It's the age old adage we can't improve a situation with more of the same thinking.
The simple process Dr Kana has adopted is;
1 Become Clear ... on a vision of a better way
2 Become good ... work on it, refine the delivery
4 Then become more visible.
Ghandi changed the mindset of a billion people by being the change he wanted to see and then being highly visible.