Population Shortage

New Zealand has too small a population. That's my view. Many share it but an awful lot of people do not.

Statistics New Zealand estimate the population to be 4,408,227 as of today on their population clock. Let's look at that and the consequences of having a country wide population similar to that of a moderately large city in other parts of the world.

New Zealanders like to consider themselves to be part of the modern world and on the surface that's true. We have new technology, a reasonable standard of living, not too many people that are grossly disadvantaged but we are groaning under the strain of having almost no manufacturing base, no widespread access to services, virtually no public transport system. Why? Because we do not have enough people here.

The campaign 'Buy New Zealand Made' has been around for years so the other night TV One found a guinea pig to visit. This family thought they were pretty good at buying NZ Made but when their home was studied and none NZ Made products removed the home was almost empty.

The fact is that it is impossible to practice the 'Buy New Zealand Made' philosophy and to have any sort of reasonable standard of living. Manufacturing here is very difficult if you have a consumer product. With 4.2 million a decent production run would saturate the market and you are left with no one to sell to unless you can find an export market.

Almost all consumer goods are imported creating a huge trade deficit. We have a strong agricultural sector, some good wine producers and food producers and also a growing sector of IT companies that are doing well on a world stage but it's not enough. Global markets have led to ridiculous prices being paid for locally produced food with the consequent income going to the relatively few producers while a growing percentage of the population see their standard of living in decline.

Access to health care is at worst almost none existent and at best moderate if you should happen to live in a city or one of their suburbs. The best doctors and specialists go overseas where they can get a greater range and amount of experience leaving NZ with what's left. They are no doubt good but not at the forefront of the latest trends.

Some years ago in the early 1970's I was living in Great Britain and had a car accident. An ambulance arrived and took me off to hospital for treatment, all very quickly. Thinking about this the other day I realised that from where the accident occurred the ambulance could have taken me to either of 4 large hospitals within a 10 kilometre radius. From where I live now, on State Highway 1, NZ's major road in the North Island, I could not find 1 hospital within a 60 kilometre radius.

The government needs to make a bold move to increase the population three fold at least. Bring in lots of young people who have families or will do soon. Where are the job? People ask. Well if there is no demand there are no jobs. People create a demand for goods and services and jobs are created. We can't just go on drip feeding the population growth and hoping that we will one day have a viable home market.

The worlds larger economies tend to have large populations that have good local demand, this allows companies to grow and gain a critical mass that enables them to enter the world stage in a strong manner and with credibility. It's all fine and well to aim for niche markets and pretend that all is well but that isn't putting bread and butter onto the table of the average family.

We are highly taxed because successive governments want to leave their mark on the country and continually introduce new laws, new standards, more compliance cost and therefore the demand for more income from the tiny population who contribute via taxes. End result, we continue to get poorer as we struggle to fulfill government and local government bludgeoning expenditure.

New Zealand could follow the Australia lead and open up the country to use the natural resources but unfortunately we have a huge number of Luddites in the country who think that they know best and like all pressure groups the manage to influence government and we end up with the tail wagging the dog.

That goes for the political system too. With MMP we have a system that on the surface looks representative but with half the MP's not being directly elected we end up with the representation the political parties choose and not the electorate. But that is another issue for another day.

Let's grow the country, the economy and make this a place where the best leading edge services and manufacturing can flourish.

Auckland DHB to Consider Not Hiring Smokers

Auckland District Health Board Executive Director of Nursing Taima Campbell, proposed the idea, of refusing to hire people who are smokers saying health workers had a responsibility to be positive role models.

This has come about due to complaints from users of the hospital. One of the main complainants is understood to be a man whose asthmatic daughter - who regularly gets treatment at the Starship children's hospital - had been suffering because of smoke blowing inside the doors from staff, patients and visitors smoking out the front.

I find this statement to be hardly credible, the dilution of any smoke from a cigarette being blow in through the doors is laughable. You would have to hold the child directly in the path of the smoke.

While I agree that smoking is a terrible habit and has shocking health effects on smokers themselves and anyone who regularly is subject to secondary smoking this policy is going too far. We already have legislation to ban smoking in the workplace and in some public areas, surely this is enough.

Let's take this positive role model argument one step further. Health professionals should not be hired if they are overweight. Would this be regarded as wrong?

Comparing the two, smoking and obesity both are very detrimental on your health. US studies list cardiovascular problems, cancers and other related effects of smoking as effecting a reduced life span of 13 to 14 years for smokers and causing up to 443,000 premature deaths annually.

Other US studies on obesity list cardiovascular problems, some forms of cancer and type 2 diabetes being caused by obesity and that the obese tend to have a high level or morbidity. Obesity being responsible for up to 365,000 premature deaths annually.

There is not much difference. So let's not employ obese people in health related employment also.

Finally what looks worse, the nurse or normal build who rolls up having just been outside for a smoke and or the grossly overweight one who rolls up puffing and panting and short of breath due to lugging all that weight around.

You decide! Are we all going to be subject to what is perceived to be the ideal person for our chosen profession or are we going to allow individuals to be individuals and have a mixture of people in our lives.

A New Start

Those of you who have visited my blog will notice that all the old articles have been removed.

Time for a new start I thought.

In New Zealand the whole focus seems to be gearing up for the rugby world cup. A lot of fuss over a game, but that's my personal view. I must say I haven't met more that 3 people who are actually excited about the event and they are all keen participants in the sport at one level or another.

I'm hoping the weather will pick up for the event for over the past couple of weeks the whole country seems to have be deluged with copious quantities of rain accompanied with strong gales.

We currently have a Royal Commission looking into the circumstances around the mining accident that claimed the lives of 29 miners in November last year. I feel a good deal of sympathy with the families of those killed but I can't help but think there is a lot of unrealistic demands to recover the bodies of the deceased.

All the families know where the dead relatives are and it would be more fitting to declare the mine closed permanently and turn the entrance to the mine into a memorial to recognize the dead people inside.

I was raised in a coal mining area in the UK and tragic accidents were relatively common place. Mining is by it's very nature a dangerous activity and the best that can be achieved is to try and make it as safe as possible. This Royal Commission will hopefully determine what could have been done better and what can be improved to help avoid any similar disaster.

I hope the Royal Commission will look closely at the initial response and determine if the NZ Police are the best people to be running a rescue operation in an area where they have no expertise. There role should surely only be to secure the area around the site and to allow the experts to get on with the rescue operation and make the judgement calls as to what should or should not be attempted.

We will see over the coming months.