Mike's Minute: A mindset shift is needed to recapture our brightest

I am increasingly impressed by Iain Rennie, who is the Treasury boss.

He seems to say a bunch of interesting and insightful stuff.

Last year he warned about our growth rate, our debt and our inability to grow our way out of our troubles. He advocated for asset sales.

This past week he was at the Waikato University Economic Forum where he talked about our problem of exporting our best and brightest.

Ironically the latest migration stats came out at the same time.

The worst might be behind us. Our net migration gain is still small, but the stampede out of the door by New Zealanders has petered out.

At Waikato Rennie talked about how it is unique to this country that we export so many young people. His suggestion is the frontier companies aren't good enough and they don’t adapt or adopt or invest fast enough compared to other countries.

The gap between the frontier companies and lagging firms isn't as big as it should be. In other words the rock stars don’t actually rock that much and if you are skilled and bright and determined, offshore seems the place to be.

He also talked of confidence and that, to me, is what's missing in this country.

Of our four kids who are actually working two are offshore. One other could be, but for now, isn't.

We will never be a London or New York. But the fizz we had half a dozen years ago is gone. Immigrants have replaced our kids.

We have been dumbed-down. Our brightest haven't been replaced with America's brightest or Europe's brightest, but from countries like India and the Phillippines. We are exporting scientists and doctors and bringing in nurses and baristas.  

Immigration is awesome. I love immigration. But not if it's not of our choosing. We are being forced into it.

The good news is this happened comparatively fast. Not long ago our net gain was over 100,000 people a year. We brought them in and the good ones didn’t leave.

We can recapture all of that, but a mindset shift is needed.

We need to want to be better. I'm not sure enough of us are of that mindset, hence Rennie's concern.    

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