Sir Paul Callaghan
A wonderfully provocative address from the 2011 New Zealander of the Year; Alan MacDiarmid Professor of Physical Sciences at VUW.
e are 100% pure hype… the John Key interview was an embarrassment. Callaghan challenged and provoked us from the start.
He says we are worried about Indonesians chopping down their rainforests – Kiwis say “we’re not going to eat your products!” We kind of forget what we ourselves have done – but if we hadn’t chopped down so much of our rainforest we wouldn’t have the prosperity we have today. Who are we to take the moral high ground? There is such hypocrisy here!
Our journalists don’t help much either. An example is the story of the Ady Gil – what a wonderful thing this “eco-boat” is. But look closer at the sustainability issues….the story is told in an extremely famous book – “Sustainable energy without the hot air” – David McKay, UIT, 2008. Our journalism is very soft.
Lack of prosperity means income disparity. The Christchurch earthquake damage is huge for the NZ economy – business and infrastructure not insured – we have to pay for that. Prosperity matters.
The story of Paul’s lifetime: he recalls “we used to be sorry for the Australians” – our dollar was worth far more, in the 1970s. Now there’sa huge disparity. Maybe the problem is that we have such a great, relaxed lifestyle – maybe we don’t work hard enough? The French have the highest productivity in the world; USA not far behind. We are the 2nd hardest working, but (almost) rock-bottom in productivity. Two countries are below us – Turkey and Mexico. We have ample resources; yet we are poor.
WE ARE POOR BECAUSE WE CHOOSE TO BE POOR. We choose to work at low-wage activities. Oour PM believes something quite different. He made himself Minister of Toursim. It brings in less than dairy… NZ has 1.3 million FTE. Average revenue per job is $120k. What does tourism earn? $80k. It employs unskilled people (we have a lot of them). Tourism is of course very important to us, but it’s absolutely not a route to prosperity.
Why do we have any prosperity at all? The food industry does ok for us; but it’s Dairy that is the most important – in terms of contribution to the economy. Fisher and Paykel also does well for the economy ($500 million a year). The main difference: dairy cannot be scaled up, but there’s no limit to how many Fisher and Paykels we could have.
What about “you can’t manufacture in NZ”?? Not true!! – it’s bigger than dairy for NZ – 12 billion; dairy is 7 billion (year ended Dec 2008). Tourism is 5.5 billion.
So what are we actually good at? Weird stuff – electrotechnology, high tech things like sleep apnoea monitors.
Turning things on their heads is really helpful! “The words of truth are paradoxical” – Lao Tzu. Turning conventional thinking completely around – common sense often drags things down.
Paradox: if it sounds unfamiliar, it may stand a chance.
100 companies, and 100 inspired entrepreneurs can turn this country around. An additional $45bn per annum in exports (double our present exports) sustainably into the future.
Ask the question: why would a company stay in NZ?
They could be anywhere – but they want to live here – like Peter Jackson. So the whole business case is – a country where talent wants to live. What’s central to that is a pristine environment, safe streets, social justice, commitment to education … this has to be a country of choice for entrepreneurs to live.
Why talented people want to live here/ can we attract others to come and live here?
Here’s the country where you can be a leader. We need to start celebrating the geniuses that take on the world from here (yes, it’s harder). We should start to grow up.
Film and fashion industries are great examples. Young NZers are not matching their educational aspirations with what’s out there. Climate change will come; ploiticains are not preprared for it.
What have we got? We are well placed for the future:
Water
Renewable energy
Mulitple climatic zones
Abundant outdoor and natiral environments
Excellent education
Civil society.
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I love that Sir Paul ended with (the fuller version of) my favourite quote about leadership:
When the best leader’s work is done, the people say “we did it ourselves” (Lao Tzu).
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