Editorial: Time to tell ourselves it is our turn

Double meanings attached to the name of the series that has been carried in our columns for the past week was intentional. "Our Turn" means that it is high time this country grasped its opportunities to gain a place in the sun. It is also a recognition that we will not reach that position without a fundamental change of direction.

Writer Simon Collins and photographer Paul Estcourt went on an odyssey through seven countries in search of lessons that could help this country redress its declining performance and place in the world rankings. They went armed with the certain knowledge that they would find no single country, no single initiative that could provide a cure for our woes. Their quest was to find an opportunity here, a lesson there that could help to light the path to a different future for New Zealand.

They have seen how countries have approached common problems in different ways, ways that reflect their social and economic character. This suggests that New Zealand's solution to those common problems - and we face most of them in some shape or form - will reflect our own values and our own capacity.

Some of the lessons are, however, universal. The first is that there must be a common resolve by both Government and the private sector to bring about change. In no case has a success story been born of an unpopular decision imposed on an unwilling private enterprise by a Government that has not listened.

The second lesson is a commitment to well-focused education, be it in school and university or in the home, as a common thread running through each of the successful economies examined in the series. From learning flows the research and development plus the intellectual capital that can move small countries to great things. As today's concluding episode of Our Turn indicates, that intellectual capital may leave a country's shores but that does not spell disaster. The challenge is to provide an environment that either encourages return or transforms brain drain into a powerful and influential diaspora.

In all of the thousands of words that have been written in the series there were no aspirations that seemed manifestly beyond the abilities of New Zealanders. Indeed, a surprising number of our intelligent and inventive people were already involved in implementing solutions for other countries. If this country has any problem in reaching such goals, it lies not in ability or potential but in resolve.

Each of the areas visited in the series had as its foundation a determination to bring about change and improvement. In many cases that resolve was born of necessity, a realisation that economies, and therefore social structures, were in jeopardy. Nothing leads to action faster than the realisation that you might be staring disaster in the face. In Queensland, Taiwan, Singapore, Ireland, Denmark and Israel it has worked wonders.

In New Zealand, by contrast, we are told that "things are not too bad," that the only change we need to make can be gradual or incremental. Such sentiments are not only wrong, they are dangerous. We are faced with impending crisis, a slide down most of the "good" global indicator scales because we are failing to develop at a great enough rate.

Let's frankly acknowledge our fragile position and summon up the courage to transform ourselves, to embrace big ideas such as a free trade agreement with the United States. Membership of Nafta is a big idea that could secure our future. With sufficient resolve and leadership that galvanised the nation, New Zealand could match the achievements of the countries we have examined.

It is our turn.

Our turn

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Simon Collins

Letters to the editor (newspaper)

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