World of possibilities on our doorstep

As physical borders diminish, SIMON COLLINS meets New Zealanders making the most of the opportunities offered by the shrinking global village.

Ringed by cows and pine trees, Helen Baxter checks into work three times a week by e-mail.

Physically, she is enjoying our rather liquid summer in an old farmhouse on a lifestyle block south of Auckland.

Virtually, she is on the other side of the world, doing the same job she did before leaving Britain in September - managing the European Commission's "knowledge management" website, www.knowledgeboard.com.

Meanwhile, in the far north of the Japanese island of Honshu, Gisborne-born Corrall Jimba is organising a kapa haka group of young Maori and Pacific Islanders to entertain Japanese audiences.

Mrs Jimba, who has been in Japan for 16 years, is sending her half-Japanese, half-Maori daughters back to Gisborne when they reach high school because "that's where their roots are".

"I want them to live Maori, feel Maori, be Maori," she says.

The two women are different faces of the "Global Kiwi" - one living in New Zealand, but connected to the outside world through her work and social connections; the other a long-term expatriate, but still committed to the land of her birth.

Statistics NZ estimated this month that 800,000 NZ-born people and their children now live outside this country, 80 per cent of them in Australia.

In 1995, New Zealanders emigrated at a faster rate (1.3 per cent a year) than people of any other developed country for which the United Nations Demographic Yearbook provided statistics, except for tiny Luxembourg (1.4 per cent).

By October this year, emigration had risen to 1.9 per cent.

Immigration also added more to our population (2.1 per cent) in 1995 than in any other developed country except Luxembourg.

This year immigration is around 2 per cent, of whom just under a quarter are returning New Zealanders.

Emigration this year (0.9 per cent of our population) and immigration excluding New Zealanders and Australians (1.4 per cent) are among the highest in the developed world.

But our 77,000 immigrants this year are nowhere near the numbers moving mainly from poorer countries to richer ones. Germany alone received more than 1 million immigrants in 1995, Canada 300,000 and Australia 253,000.

Free movement among the 15 member states of the European Union has been a major impetus to relocation. Relaxed emigration restrictions in South Korea and Taiwan have also increased the traffic.

People are also moving because jobs have been available. Through the long computer and internet-led boom of the 1990s, the United States imported hundreds of thousands of software engineers and other skilled people each year from China, India and elsewhere to fill job vacancies. Other countries followed suit to keep up.

The costs of moving have plummeted. Even measured in New Zealand dollars, international air fares rose by only 24 per cent in the 20 years to September this year, compared with a 185 per cent rise in consumer prices generally.

International communication has improved even more spectacularly. The average cost of a toll call has halved in those 20 years.

Helen Baxter and her husband, Chelfyn, are classic examples.

New Zealand-born Helen moved to Britain when she was six weeks old.

Here they plan to fly people from Britain to learn how to run dance parties, and to visit Britain themselves for a month or two every year to keep in touch with the dance scene.

Helen continues to do her "day job" of managing the website, while Chelfyn produces music and e-mails it to Britain.

"The charge for a week's training, accommodation and flights will be £2000 ($7000). At the end of that you will have more knowledge than spending £10,000 putting on your own club night."

The Baxters believe young Europeans will jump at the chance to escape the high-pressure and pollution of Europe.

New Zealand has many advantages, says Helen Baxter.

"You can employ two Kiwis for the price of one programmer in London, so the Government has a golden opportunity to promote New Zealand as an IT hub.

Another expatriate who was back recently, Nortel Networks vice-president Andy Lark, says he was "blown away" by globally-oriented New Zealand businesses such as the web-based travel booking company Bookrite and Argent Networks, a new venture started by Telemedia's Chris Jones which Mr Lark believes "has the capacity to be the next Nokia in New Zealand".

Mr Lark plans to return to New Zealand with his American wife in two or three years. But he wants to make sure New Zealand businesses also make the best use of the international network of expatriates, just as the Baxters are keeping up their networks back in Europe.

His "Global Network of Kiwis" is just one of a growing number of connections that the internet is making possible. Others include Stephen Tindall's Kiwi Expat Association, advertising executive Kevin Roberts' website nzedge.com, a Waikato University-based project called 'Kiwilink' aimed at linking entrepreneurs to experts and various Kiwi clubs linked through a travel agency-run website nz.com.

A group of expatriate academics proposed last year that these initiatives be supported by state-funded websites to link expatriate networks and give job information for skilled expats keen to come home.

A Government-business taskforce has been working on these ideas, and action is expected in an "innovation package" due to be announced by Prime Minister Helen Clark in February.

The growing "circulation" of people around the world is not necessarily beneficial to those who stay in New Zealand, because we "waste" many of our immigrants. The 1996 census showed 35 per cent of people who had been here less than a year were unemployed.

Also, it is no accident that we lose population to areas that are richer than us (Australia and North America), we are in rough balance with Europe, and we gain people only from poorer places, chiefly Asia, the Pacific and South Africa. This suggests that the richer places have the first pick of skilled workers.

But Treasury researchers Megan Claridge and Sarah Box suggested last year that what you think of this all depends on your perspective.

"Do we care about the welfare and living standards of all New Zealand citizens, including those outside New Zealand? Or should our policies be aimed at New Zealand residents?"

If our goal is to earn higher incomes in New Zealand, then replacing our talented people with less immediately useful foreigners is a negative.

But if we want all New Zealanders to achieve their goals, we should support and celebrate those, like Corrall Jimba and Andy Lark, who follow their dreams to other places, as well as those like the Baxters who come here. fuweb ON THE WEB

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