WE have a Pacific neighbor we should know more about. One of the most successful economies in the world today can give us hints from real-life experience about how to break out of our economic stagnation. Lessons for Hawaii
in New ZealandAn example: Since New Zealand abolished mandatory unionism in 1991 it has increased employment by more people than were unemployed at the time of the abolition. Reason magazine quotes its top labor leader, the president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, as saying he wouldn't go back. "Compulsory unionism is why the union movement was so weak here," Ken Douglas said.
Another example: New Zealand has turned government into pretty much of a fishbowl with mandates for openness, standard accounting procedures, and public reports on both goals and results.
It has turned government department heads into real bosses. They can hire, fire and transfer employees, even set fees. It has put these heads on fixed-term contracts and given them measurable goals by which to be judged.
It has mandated government surpluses instead of deficits and succeeded.
It has stopped talking about social welfare benefits, such as unemployment compensation, as "entitlements." Instead it talks to applicants of their "reciprocity" obligations to the taxpayers who support them.
When it sells an asset to private operators, it gets cash used to defray government debt plus future tax revenue on the sold operation.
New Zealand was in a crisis worse than Hawaii's when a Labor government decreed a big-bang shakeup in 1984. It opened its doors to foreign investment, abolished most import controls and tariffs, abolished agricultural subsidies, and let its dollar float on world markets.
Its sleepy Sunday closings are history. The variety of goods and services available to its citizens has increased immensely. A small but illustrative thing: Its post offices now sell greeting cards.
Did it hurt? Yes, unemployment went from 4 percent to more than 11 percent in the first six years, but now is back below 6.
Do the people like it? Election results say yes. The Labor government that started the revolution was re-elected in 1987. National's conservatives won in 1990, repealed mandatory unionism and won again in 1993. A new election method produced a coalition government in 1996 but all main contending political parties, including Labor, promised not to turn back the clock.
Our business, labor and political leaders, plus all of us, need to know more about this. I venture to suggest a way. In the 1970s our tourism sophistication was vastly improved by joint leadership study missions to the South Pacific, to Central and South America and the Caribbean, and to Europe.
ON each mission were top legislative leaders, top travel industry leaders, county planners and a couple of newspaper editors whose presence both helped keep noses to the grindstone and gave feedback to readers here. Much was learned. Mutual trust was built. Better vision was brought to travel planning.
I humbly suggest (assertively, really) that Hawaii's future can be handled more wisely if we dispatch to New Zealand this year a similarly mixed blue-ribbon party of 20-plus leaders to check into what I have just said.
As with the tourism studies, the mission must be well-planned, well-briefed at all stops and probably have another couple of newspaper types along as watchdogs. Broadening our horizons is never a bad idea. Shutting ourselves off from knowledge gained elsewhere is downright foolish.
Recent New Zealand series
