Source — Weekend Herald, 26 March 2005 "Poverty trap snapping shut on children" by Simon Collins; New Zealand Herald, 30 March 2005, "Should we cut taxes or spend more?" by Kevin Taylor.

Source — New Zealand Herald, 30 March 2005 "Anger at $15m family benefit ad blitz" by Kevin Taylor.

Co-author of the Victoria University study Patrick Nolan says New Zealand is even less generous than the United States, something people might find surprising given the US has a "reputation for having a miserly welfare system". Nolan says Working for Families is going to mean that New Zealand will begin to catch up on countries like the United States and Canada, but will still have a long way to go before catching up with Britain and Australia who lead the world in this area.

Nolan: "For a country that has a long history of legitimate pride in its welfare state, the position of New Zealand is disappointing and helps explain the paucity of recent child outcomes. Until there are increases in the level of generosity to families with dependent children, adverse outcomes for children are like to bedevil the country for years to come."

Source — New Zealand Herald, 31 March 2005, "NZ lags behind in family support" by Kevin Taylor.

Minister of Education Trevor Mallard is talking up careers in the trades. Mallard says we need to push the message out there that this sort of training is critical, that a school leaver who opts for technical and trades training is as important as tertiary students who go on to degree programmes. Mallard: "The move away from trades was a societal thing in the 1980s, a trend away from jobs that boys did without ties on and away from working outside. We wanted to have a trend to tertiary education but instead of tertiary we more or less said university. We have pressured our kids into going to university when it could have been better for them to go into trades."

The trend is illustrated by the change in technology classrooms in many schools. Auckland Grammar principal John Morris concedes that hands-on technical work, such as woodwork and metalwork, no longer exist in a recognisable form at the school. Students are now driven towards design with just a small hands-on element. Morris says a lot of the boys are good with their hands but they don't get much opportunity these days. He says a worldwide trend towards improving the percentage of qualified people has been interpreted in New Zealand as pushing more students through university. Morris: "I think a lot of kids who go to university shouldn't. People are going to university and earning degrees and come out with no chance of a job."

Source — Dominion Post 19 March 2005 "Teens urged to fill trades gap" by Martin Kay; Herald on Sunday 27 March 2005, "Trade up to big bucks" and "the shift from blue collar to collar and tie" by David Fisher.

But this could be difficult as Australia faces similar skills shortages and is in a strong position to compete, at least with pay rates, for skilled New Zealand workers. Australians, on average, 25% more than they would in New Zealand.

National Party leader Don Brash says New Zealanders living in Australia will need more than government "assurances and spin" before they contemplate coming home. Brash: "The best way to reverse the brain drain and entice more New Zealanders into coming home is to get incomes moving up. Tax cuts are a good place to start. Over the past five years real after-tax wages in New Zealand have barely moved and over the same period the income gap between the average Australian and the average New Zealander has been widening at an alarming rate."

Source — Dominion Post 19 March 2005 "Teens urged to fill trades gap" by Martin Kay; National Party media release, 14 March 2005, "Expats need more than spin to come home".

NZ SKILLS SHORTAGE THE WORST

Most local businesses told the survey they are more focused on attracting and keeping key staff than they were a year ago. Grant Thornton says the lack of skilled labour is consistent with a strong economy, low unemployment and a skills shortage "hangover" from inadequate training of tradespeople in the 1990s.

Source — NZ Herald 23 March 2005 "Skills shortage big barrier, shows survey" by Gareth Vaughan.

Australia's Youth Commitment is aimed at preventing the systemic marginalisation of a proportion of young people by providing an entitlement for each young person to access a minimum level of education and training in their post-compulsory school years. Under the Youth Commitment community partnership approach, each potential early school leaver is supported and assisted to complete Year 12 at school or with another recognised provider, or obtain an education or training qualification at an equivalent level such as a TAFE (polytechnic) certificate or apprenticeship, or obtain a full-time job linked to education or training.

Six community partnerships were established between 1999 and 2001 to explore the capacity of local communities to deliver the Youth Commitment. These community partnerships brought together a wide range of agencies involved in providing services for at risk young people. The Youth Commitment community partnerships also set out to provide access to independent information and advice so young people could make informed choices about their options to stay at or leave school.

The key finding of the review of the Youth Commitment community partnerships was that identifying potential early school leavers and providing them with intensive support improves the chances of young people making a successful transition from school. Throughout Australia, well over 40% of early school leavers are typically not in education or fulltime employment. But for those in areas with Youth Commitment community partnerships operating, the level was just below 30%. And over the review period only about one-third of early school leavers (in the pilot areas) received intensive support. This indicates that with more resources, greater levels of improvement are possible.

— Local Investment. National Returns. The Case For Community Support For Early School Leavers a report on the National Youth Partnerships and Project by Peter Kellock, the Asquith Group, can be downloaded (54pg, 906Kb) from here The case studies (61pg, 148kb) from here

WHAT DO YOUNG PEOPLE WANT?

But there has been little research into what young people want of their employers, on what can cause the breakdown of such a relationship, and why young people recommend particular workplaces and don't recommend others. The Tresize-Brown has done a study that aims to assist employers to become "youth ready" by identifying the skills, abilities and workplace practices that contribute to employers effectively inducting, managing and retaining young workers, and to be an employer of choice of young people.

Tresize-Brown says what employers need to understand is there are some key differences between the "Builders" generation and their children — the "Baby Boomers" — and the young "Generation Y". The core values of the Builders and Boomers generations includes a strong work ethic, respect for authority, loyalty and commitment, financial conservatism, long-term planning, and delayed gratification. The values of Generation Y are drastically different: flexibility, variety, choice, freedom, pragmatism, and personal leadership. Tresize-Brown says that employers need to recognise these variations if they are to successfully incorporate young people into their businesses.

The categorical message from both young workers and employers about working together is that good communication is vital. Good communication means a focused and complete workplace induction, a recognition of generational differences and good management skills.

Among the key things young people want from their employer:

Tim Colebatch, economics editor of The Melbourne Age characterises Australia's attempt at mutual obligation as having been done on the cheap and is disconnected from the country's skills shortages. He says that sending people off to work-for-the-dole projects does little or nothing for their job prospects or for the economy. In contrast, Denmark has done it seriously and has shown it works. Colebatch points out that Denmark spends nearly four times as much, per capita, as Australia on active policies to help people back into the workforce.

ACT Party MP Muriel Newman has also called for the scheme to be scrapped. Newman: "The workforce is crying out for workers. People should be expected to take on some responsibility for earning a living ... even if it isn't their dream job."

Source — Dominion Post 14 March 2005 "Call for dole artists to get a proper job" by Kim Ruscoe; The Press 21 March 2005 "Brash vows to cuts artists' dole scheme".

To help address the shortage, the government has added dental therapists to the Immigration Service's Immediate Skills Shortage List. This is hoped to help recruit and retain experienced overseas dental assistants by giving them priority when applying for longer work permits.

The deterioration in the overall condition of New Zealand children's teeth, declining dental therapists staff numbers and outdated equipment is forcing the government to plan a reorganisation of state-funded dental services. Details aren't expected for three months but Minister of Health Annette King says she wants new community dental clinics — which may not be situated in schools — to provide for many preschoolers, adolescents and low-income adults for whom state-funded dental services should be, but aren't, available.

Source — Press release, ProudMouth Caring Dentistry, Auckland, 16 March 2005, "Dental Assistants Placed On Immediate Skills Shortage List"; Dominion Post, 23 March 2005, "School dentistry `in chaos'" by Anna Chalmers; NZ Herald, 22 March 2005, "Poor teeth prompt brush-up of services" by Martin Johnston.

Author of the Bill, Green Party health spokesperson Sue Kedgley, says the private member's bill is based on UK legislation which had been extremely successful in changing the work culture and employer's attitudes towards allowing their workers more flexible working arrangements. Kedgley says the Bill would establish a framework in which employers and employees can negotiate reduced or alternative working hours. Kedgley: "It will not only make life better and more enriching for parents and children, but will also benefit employers. Overseas studies show that family-friendly strategies in the workplace reduce staff turnover and recruitment costs. They also reduced absentee rates, improve morale, employees loyalty and workplace productivity."

Source — Press release: New Zealand Nurses Organisation 18 March 2005 "Work-Life Bill Supported by Nurses Organisation"; Press release: Sue Kedgley MP Green Party health spokesperson 17 March 2005 "Bill will give more flexible working hours to parents".

The Council of Trade Unions also believes the minimum wage is too low. Secretary Carol Beaumont says it should initially go up to $11.05 an hour to take it to just over 50% of the average wage — the level it was in 1987. Beaumont: "The government should then set an objective to phase in a minimum wage equivalent to two-thirds of the average wage and phase out youth rates altogether."

Source — Press release, Sue Bradford MP, Green Party employment spokesperson 21 March 2005 "Minimum wage rise far too little"; Stuff website 21 March 2005 "CTU says minimum wage rise not enough" from NZPA.

Opponents to the change fear it will cost disabled people their jobs as sheltered workshops find it uneconomic to continue to offer what some consider to be a service. Former Health and Disability Commissioner Robyn Stent has emailed all 120 MPs warning that many workshops will close if they pass the Bill. She is disappointed the government is to go ahead without ensuring there was provision for those who were the most disabled.

Peter Fraher, manager of Abilities, a Glenfield workshop that "employs" people with intellectual disabilities, says Abilities would lose many of its contracts to China or other competitors if it is forced to pay higher wages. He has told the 81 disabled people at the workshop he cannot guarantee their jobs if the new law goes through.

There are about 3,700 disabled people working in sheltered workshops in New Zealand.

Source — NZ Herald 18 March 2005 "Job fears in row over special pay rates for special people" by Simon Collins and Kevin Taylor; NZ Herald 22 March 2005 "Ruth Dyson: Law change creates better deal for disabled workers" by Ruth Dyson; NZ Herald 22 March 2005 "Sheltered workshops must pay the minimum wage" by Kevin Taylor; Dominion Post 23 March 2005 "MPs split on pay for disabled" by Anna Saunders.

Currently, more than 8 million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. They die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, and in houses that lack safe drinking water. Jeffrey Sachs: "They die namelessly, without public comment. Every morning our newspapers could report, `More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty. "Sadly, such stories rarely get written."

Sachs is also a Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and is leading the UN's plans to reach the Millennium Goal of ending extreme poverty in the world by the year 2025. Sachs: "Since Sept. 11, 2001, the US has launched a War on Terrorism, but it has neglected the deeper causes of global instability. The nearly $500 billion that the US will spend this year on the military will never buy lasting peace if the US continues to spend only one-thirtieth of that, around $16 billion, to address the plight of the poorest of the poor, whose societies are destabilised by extreme poverty..."

His conviction is that everything depends on everything else — for instance, you cannot cure poverty in Africa without beating AIDS, which requires infrastructure, which requires stable government ... and so on. The End of Poverty therefore outlines a far-reaching plan to respond to just about everything at once: from planting nitrogen-fixing leguminous trees to replenish soil fertility, to antiretroviral therapy for AIDS, to specially programmed cell phones to provide real-time data to health planners, to rainwater harvesting, to battery-charging stations. And these are just some of his strategies.

Sachs proposes that the UN Secretary General personally run the overall plan, co-ordinating the actions of thousands of officials in six UN agencies, UN country teams, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The world's richest countries would be called upon to pay for a large share of the costs of implementation.

Rather than a sense of how daunting the world's problems are, The End of Poverty provides an understanding of how solvable they are — and why making the effort is a matter both of moral obligation and strategic self-interest.

The End of Poverty —Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey D. Sachs, (Penguin April 2005) ISBN 1-594-20045-9.

— The Time extract can be downloaded (PDF 11pg, 478kb) from the UN Millennium Project website here. End of Poverty book website is here. Or order from amazon.com here.

Source — Time Magazine "The End of Poverty" exclusive book excerpt 14 March 2005