Michael Bassett: Helping the Underclass and Ourselves at the Same Time

Two bits of socio-economic news this last week collided. The first was that as many as 20% of Maori youth are unemployed, most of them on benefits. The second was the serious shortage of workers that is putting stress on horticulture and business owners for whom temporary workers from overseas have been doing the necessary work in recent years.

Limiting the number of imported workers is hindering our economic recovery from the pandemic. The government meantime seems content to keep the immigration doors nearly closed, believing that employers will be forced to lift wages for low-skilled jobs. Ministers naively hope that that will attract the unemployed to work. However, the government is bumping up benefits big time, meaning that many in the private sector can’t out-pay the state. Firms will probably go under. It’s a case of ill-considered ideology trumping common sense, yet again.

Steve Baron: Waitangi Day and the Growing New Zealand Underclass

In 1875, a year before Col. George Custer fought the battle of Little Bighorn in the USA and after a passage of 114 days on the ship Edwin Fox, my Great, Great Grandfather George Wilcock arrived in the wild, wild west of Wellington, New Zealand. He was one of the growing number of immigrants that flooded into the country under Premier Julius Vogel's immigration scheme, which offered wholly or partially paid assistance to get to New Zealand. He was typical of New Zealand's early settlers, fleeing from Britain's industrialisation and wanting a better way of life for his family—and no doubt for his future generations to come.

Maori and Pakeha didn't get off to the best of starts.