Dialogue: To succeed, we all must have the right to choose

New Zealanders must embrace the values of freedom and choice if they wish to build a successful future, says National Party leader JENNY SHIPLEY.

New Zealanders want to be successful but the knowledge of how to do so seems elusive as we begin this new century.

The major problem for us is that there is a growing realisation that New Zealand's place in the world is slipping. With it has gone our sense of confidence and well-being.

That concern and sense of loss were heightened last year by a number of factors. Our dollar was at its lowest ever against the American. That has made us realise how insignificant New Zealand has become in the global scheme of things.

The strong migrant outflows over the past 15 months and, in particular, the loss of skilled and talented Kiwis has continued unabated. Many New Zealanders realise it is a long time since we've seen so many of our young people leave, knowing that the earning power of their skills will be so much greater if they go elsewhere.

When voters elected this Government in 1999, there was a clear expectation that people would be better off in New Zealand. Seventeen months down the track, hard-working families are poorer in real terms, both in their assets and their purchasing power.

New Zealanders know in their hearts that to be successful again, to meet their aspirations and dreams and to make them come true we have to go back to our core values.

New Zealanders above all else value freedom. They also value the right to choose what's good for them and their families. They want to believe that if they work hard, become skilled and make an effort both opportunity and reward will be theirs.

They want to be able proudly and unashamedly to celebrate that which is Kiwi without being stifled by politically correct notions, and they want to both acknowledge and reward excellence where they see it, whether it's in the sparkling eyes of a child who has learned to read, or in our Olympic gold medallists attaining their peak.

National's values lie at the heart of this. We don't seek to dictate what is good for people or direct how they must run their lives or spend their money. We believe in creating opportunities based on a clear set of values that will allow New Zealanders to flourish and to experience reward and success.

For National the cornerstone of those values lies in the concept of wealth creation. We have to have people who are both able to create wealth, and believe that they will be rewarded for creating it - wealth in jobs, in investment and in returns - so that we have something to share and to redistribute to those who we believe are in need of our support and care.

No matter how many ways the left in New Zealand politics seeks to cut up the pie, the pie will not get larger. Kiwis have to believe in making an effort with their own capital, their skills and their time, otherwise nothing is going to change.

It is no use talking the language of the knowledge economy when you create disincentives for our innovators and entrepreneurs by putting up tax, reregulating the labour market or narrowing people's options for accident cover for their workers.

New Zealand is so distant from our markets and so small in population that we need to embrace the opportunities that exist in a flexible and highly responsive way. Just about every country that we aspire to be like in terms of our standards and quality of life and affluence is going down the path towards smaller government and lower taxes. New Zealand is swimming upstream against that trend.

In reality, we now live in a mobile world and young people's skills are transportable. Unless New Zealand embraces these values of freedom and choice and makes them a reality at home, it is very unlikely that we will be able to reverse the trend that we've seen so visibly under this Government.

At the heart of getting this right in the long term lies education. When National was in office, we recognised this by undertaking a range of far-reaching programmes. Our reading strategy that would have seen every child being able to read by the time he or she was 9, with our target date of 2005, seems to have slipped into the gloom under this Government.

Under National, we progressively removed the restrictions on schools so that communities and high standards were the characteristic. This Government is imposing one-size-fits-all and is bringing the top group down to the middle, rather than lifting all students to their highest possible levels of attainment.

In the tertiary sector, we have the threat of central control and central direction, as opposed to tertiary institutions retaining their autonomy in their pursuit of excellence.

With the complexity of the world increasing and time frames condensing, New Zealand's education system must rise to the challenge. Every teacher, every parent, every student and every child needs to understand that if we are to be a successful people, all of us will have to lift our games. We need to be international in our outlook, open-minded and forward-looking.

International relations, trading relations and social relations between countries are critically important to our future. They must be nurtured and developed constantly in order for us to do well.

While all of this is critical, our close attachment to the land and our environment lies at the heart of our future success, both in terms of who we are, where we stand and what we can offer the world.

Our unique position and distance from markets, which has so long been perceived as a disadvantage, may well be one of our key comparative advantages for the future. It allows us confidently to state a new set of values concerning our jobs, the value and character of our products and their worth to the world.

The next general election will be a debate about which parties will genuinely be able to allow New Zealanders to unlock the sort of future they seek for themselves and their children. It is about a sense of prosperity and well-being based on a core set of values that are believable and deliverable.

In the spring, National will be sharing with New Zealand our insights and strategies as to how we can do this. New Zealanders want to succeed. We intend to see they have that choice.

* MONDAY: Helen Clark, the Prime Minister.

Herald Online feature: Common core values

We invite to you to contribute to the debate on core values. E-mail dialogue@herald.co.nz.