29 January 2016
Our statistics are not so good

Taranaki is economically depressed and under-developed. Last year we went into recession for two months. Poverty here is worse than elsewhere in New Zealand. Our children are more obese. Our people have lower levels of school and university qualifications than the rest of New Zealand. Boys particularly get little from their schooling. Fewer Taranaki families have the internet in the home than the New Zealand average. Those in work in South Taranaki and Stratford, often work longer hours than people in other parts of New Zealand. About 5,000 Taranaki people cannot converse in English. So what enables our Members of Parliament to claim we are doing well? The short answer is that our statistics are a bit odd.

Need to see us right
The first step in solving some of Taranaki’s problems is to see us right. In the jargon, we need a “Business Environmental Analysis” for Taranaki. It means you look at your whole living situation in an objective way. The word “environment” here includes things social, economic and political, not just green stuff. Unless you know in detail about the situation in which you operate you cannot produce a strategic plan. So it is with Taranaki. But, our Members of Parliament show no signs that they actually see us right at all. They have come to believe their own propaganda.

Brilliant reports
Congratulations to Statistics New Zealand and the TSB Community Trust. You fund work that begins for us the process of a Business Environmental Analysis. Your reports reveal the truth about Taranaki. Local people – those with their eyes open and who want to see – see the poverty and need, and your analysis confirms their observations.
            A worthwhile report is entitled “TSB Community Trust: A Child Centred Profile of Taranaki Children and Services”. Clear, direct and helpful, it was a joint collaboration between Louise Tester, Guild Research and Consultancy Services (working on behalf of The Bishop’s Action Foundation); Donna Provoost & Kathleen Logan, Office of the Children’s Commissioner; and, Rachel Roberts, Philanthropy New Zealand.

Our statistics mislead
To understand why Taranaki statistics do not give a true picture of our situation you need to grasp a few facts about our population. Our demographics are a bit odd. A report by Professor Natalie Jackson, Professor of Demography at Waikato University and Bry Kopu of the BMK Group Ltd, helps us to see our uniqueness.  

Small numbers
Taranaki is tiny. I mean there are very few people in Taranaki. Just 109,608 people in a 2014 report. This is about 2.6% of the total New Zealand population. Personally, I like that, it appeals to my anti-social nature. It is nice for me that the shops are largely empty and there is not much traffic. But it is not nice for us as a whole – it makes it hard to run a business, make money and get your children educated. Quite small groups can make our statistics look good or bad. Little things can have a big percentage influence. In some cases, just one business can make our numbers look better but unfortunately still have little real impact on people.

Age distribution
Taranaki is full of children and old people. We do not have many of the middle-aged workers who generally do the hard graft and produce the economic base for the community.

Rich boys
The people with money are the boys. Our young males in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs earn high wages. This effect lasts until they are about 30 years of age. These boys – and there are plenty of them – push up the mean income of Taranaki and make us look good. That is not to say the boys are richer than the rest of us, just that they are richer than their counterparts in other parts of New Zealand.

Truth about Oil & Gas
Our industries are not ideal. You have to understand that the oil and gas industry is bad for Taranaki. Yes, I say it again; the oil and gas industry does not help Taranaki. It makes us poor! It provides a small number of unskilled and semi-skilled temporary jobs. It provides work for a host of small businesses for short periods. The industry generates unemployed people, it and it imposes environmental costs on us (particularly the land based operations).

Good for NZ
The oil and gas industry is good for New Zealand, not for Taranaki province. It provides export earnings for New Zealand which help the country as a whole. Taranaki helps the whole country and pays the price. We subsidise the more wealthy parts of our country.

Skills
The oil and gas industry does not provide in Taranaki for the development of advanced skills for the boys who earn high wages for a few years. Once the boys start to wear out, hit their thirties, they are out of work and they find they do not have skills that enable them to contribute to Taranaki. Their departure from the industry is most likely to occur when oil prices are low. The company retains its income level by cutting production costs (that is, it sheds workers).

Cost on Taranaki
Unemployed workers who have young families, often ex oil & gas workers, become a cost to the New Zealand taxpayer. But the government has pushed to force people off benefits often for administrative reasons (such as missed meetings). These people will transfer to being unemployed and unsupported. Unsupported by our taxpayer money – but still they, and their children, have to eat. This transfers the burden from the New Zealand taxpayer to the Taranaki neighbour.

South Taranaki
South Taranaki is worse off than the rest of Taranaki. A report entitled “TSB Community Trust: Research Overview 2014” makes this clear. On page 55 they say: “South Taranaki has the lowest proportion receiving New Zealand Superannuation or a Veterans Pension, reflecting its relative youth and relatedly higher proportions Māori. South Taranaki also stands out in having higher than average proportions receiving either ‘No Income’, or a ‘Sickness Benefit’, ‘Domestic Purposes Benefit’, ‘Invalids Benefit’ and/or ‘Income Source Not Stated”. To make things worse, the South Taranaki population is shrinking. The loss was over 8.5% for the past 15 years to 2013.For comparison, New Plymouth gained about the same percentage (7.6%). This is the real reason Hawera is so dead.

Information
If you want to find out what is happening, talk to people in pubs. Bit-by-bit you can piece together their stories and then relate these to the economic situation of Taranaki. Social scientists call these chats “ethnographic studies”, but they are also a good excuse to drink beer.

Political challenge
Members of Parliament become complacent when they are in power for long periods. They fall into bad habits of thought. They stick to catch phrases and glib answers. They do not think for themselves. They believe the Party line. This means no-one fights for Taranaki.

Winston Peters
Winston Peters was smart enough to see the same situation in Northland. He was able to capitalise on his access to the national media, particularly television, to hit home to the people their true situation. National deserved to lose the Northland electorate because of its years of neglect.
            In Taranaki, National will win again next year because the opposition parties are weak and there is massive political complacency. In Taranaki there will not be anyone with the access to the media that Peters commands.

Specific targets
The goals for Taranaki are clear: new industry to widen our economic base, pave the hidden highway to begin tourism, develop the port, Maori development, fund obesity and diabetes strategies on a grand scale, restructure tertiary and secondary education, increase funding for struggling schools, and strengthen local government. Our Members of Parliament need to deliver on at least some of these goals. But before they can do that, they will have to admit there are problems and be prepared to fight their own political party.

Robert Shaw
robert@porirua.net