Dialogue: On the way out, note what we could be

The drain for the brains is actually a fine shopping mall known as Auckland International Airport. I wonder if it pulls them up momentarily with the realisation that New Zealand has quite a lot going for it.

Most of us will see the international terminal much less often now that the dollar has fallen and nothing short of a genuine economic upgrade is likely to revive it. But if visions are needed of a country paying its way, there is one at the airport.

Around the departure lounge there are more interesting things to buy than are usually found in shops outside. But a boarding pass opens the way to a cooler and classier place - New Zealand as it could be.

There is a thoroughfare of shops selling books, booze, art, perfumes, sweatshirts, CDs, knick-knacks - the usual airport things, except that there is something quite distinctive about ours.

It's quiet, woody, inviting. The colours of the surroundings and the merchandise are rich and earthy. There is texture. Maori are at home here. The clothing has character and even the junk, All Black letter-lancers and the like, is cast in a style of its own.

It is as though New Zealand waited until the very last minute to spread its true quality before the tourists, trying to fulfil the promise it gave at their arrival - for the arrival at Auckland Airport is even better. The deep blues, the earthy tones and textures, the smaller scale of everything, bright signs, ferns - it all feels comfortable, cool, tasteful and fertile. For newcomers, I suspect, it feels like a discovery. For a returning native it is a revelation.

You wish that the guiding hand behind it could be given the whole canvas of New Zealand, to design the country in this image. He or she (somehow I think it is she) might tap the booming rural economy to change those charmless towns that blot the countryside, set better standards of service, show us how to produce distinctive quality that can be sold at the prices we need now.

This is not just about tourism or any particular industry; it is an attempt to look to culture - the word encompasses everything we do and can do - for economic survival. Well, survival at the living standard to which we have become accustomed. Nobody, with the possible exception of the Green Party, is anxious to lose that.

The idea that we might look to our culture for top-shelf products is not new. Jenny Shipley was onto it, as is Helen Clark, both of them well acquainted with New Zealand fashion and design.

Kevin Roberts' proposal for a global marketing campaign last year was all about it. And the Tourism Board's preferred theme, 100% Pure, has an essence of it, though the image of old boots does not quite fit.

The same idea prompted the new Government's Heart of the Nation project. In March, when it set up a panel of entrepreneurs in creative industries, Helen Clark said the aim was to "rebrand" New Zealand.

"We want to be defined as a country with a leading edge, sophisticated, talented, that deploys high technology, has a modern design and is innovative."

Roberts could have written that. His project fell victim to the campaign to drag National down. Heart of the Nation had everything going for it - new Government, renewed national spirit, high hopes, clean slate.

Yet it failed. The panel's report so disappointed the Prime Minister that the words heart of the nation did not pass her lips in an hour-long speech at Auckland University last week on the arts.

The reason, I suspect, is that Helen Clark realised soon after she launched the project - to the great joy and heightened expectations of arts devotees - that the meaning of culture could get seriously mangled.

Not long after the launch, she delivered a bounteous increase in grants to the national orchestra, the ballet and other institutions that are not expected to pay their way. If that was to put minds at rest and let Hot Nation follow its economic brief, it did not entirely succeed.

The panel's report acknowledged that creative industries included the likes of design, fashion, advertising, film, broadcasting, multimedia and the recording industry but, summing up, had little useful to say about them.

It remained just as interested in the cultural welfare sector, urging more secure sustenance for the orchestra, the ballet, museums and galleries, and suggesting it was time that Santa Clause came to unappreciated artists in their garretts, too.

The Government was not persuaded that it needs a Creative Resources Foundation and a Creative Industries Development Agency, the latter to foster careers, products and markets for recorded music, film, broadcasting, literature, urban design and architecture, fashion, crafts and product design.

The list is not exhaustive. The cultural route to economic improvement is even wider. It includes all the clever things that could be done with our farm products, horticulture and forestry.

If all had gone according to another plan, the dairy industry would have been deregulated this weekend. The plan cooked up by dairy leader John Storey and Finance Minister Bill Birch a couple of summers ago would have seen the Dairy Board lose its statutory export monopoly once its constituent companies had merged for market dominance. It was to happen by yesterday.

But the mega-merger was rejected by farmers and it could be a while yet before the country is open to competitive investors in fine chocolate and boutique cheese.

We can see the value of kiwifruit and wine. We could make a name in much else, too, if we put our minds to it. The quality at the airport could be writ large.