Mike Hosking: On industry, hand-wringing elites, and paying the bills

Opinion

I have a lot of sympathy for the international education sector at the moment. Its history is not good: its reputation has been up and down for years.

Governments mess with it, in terms of requirements both visa and language. The past government put a tremendous amount of work into restoring its reputation and luring people back, and we appeared to be at last back on solid ground with robust numbers and a half-decent outlook.

Enter Labour, with their view that too many courses are shonky, and visas need to be cut.

Politically, there is some traction in this.

Not necessarily on the courses, but on the work aspect of the visas. The claim is made, refuted by the industry but nevertheless made, that a lot of these students get work in the holidays and after their studies, that take jobs off locals.

The industry says that's not true - the students take jobs that locals don't want to do. Having seen the shortages in an ever-growing variety of industries, I believe them.

But back to the courses.

Let me ask this: if a person wants to spend thousands coming here, and helping our economy and the education sector by signing up to a course that they want to study, who are we to tell them that's a bad idea? Or that the provider shouldn't be doing it?

Now this is a $4 and a-half billion dollar industry, that under new policy will see campuses shrink, if not close, and jobs go.

Why would you want to do that to a massive income earner?

There is a theme here. Dairy is our biggest income earner, but we don't like cows or farmers any more because they pollute the rivers and ruin the environment. Tourism is our next biggest earner, but we don't like visitors any more because they cause the road crashes, use the toilets and block the walking tracks.

Now it's education - we don't like students because they steal jobs and study things the hand-wringing elites don't deem acceptable enough.

Just how is it we want to make a living? Just which industry is it we want to support and nurture and grow? Or is our default position one where everything eventually becomes a hassle and a problem and needs taxing or closing?

The fundamental equation is not that complex.

As a small, isolated nation at the bottom of the world, we sell stuff. A holiday, some milk, education. We give the world what they want. That's how the bills get paid. Why are we going out of our way to find reasons to make that equation so problematic?