National Business Review

There is a paradox: New Zealand would welcome skilled migrants, and there are a growing number of mobile high-potentials. But these people are not coming to New Zealand and are moving elsewhere instead.

Comparing Germany’s historical experience with New Zealand’s current dollar discussion, a few things become clear. A rising exchange rate certainly poses a challenge to exporters and manufacturers. But that does not mean that they will go out of business.

Today’s graduates are brought up and educated to believe that their imagined intellectual brilliance and personal exceptionality will make up for everything else they are lacking.

As our political and economic circumstances are among the best in the world, we need to fill them with life. The opportunities to create growth and prosperity are there, we now have to embrace the idea of a growing population to seize them.

Given Germany’s experience, it is high time New Zealand starting thinking carefully about the future of its electoral system. Has MMP cured the ills it was meant to or has it just made the system more complex?