
By Chris Trotter*
Having wooed the world's investors, what, if anything, has New Zealand won? Did Christopher Luxon’s guests board their private jets fizzing with enthusiasm for a little country palpably eager to embark on a new national adventure? Or, did they depart in a more sombre mood, disappointed by New Zealanders’ lack of spirit? Will institutions with billions of dollars at their disposal invest them in a country so obviously in a deep funk?
Or will they, like Michael Corleone in Godfather Part II, take note of more than the sales pitch of the gangster asking him to invest in the Mob’s Cuban casinos in 1959?
MICHAEL CORLEONE: I saw a strange thing today. Some rebels were being arrested. One of them pulled the pin on a grenade. He took himself and the captain of the command with him. Now, soldiers are paid to fight; the rebels aren’t.
HYMAN ROTH: What does that tell you?
MICHAEL CORLEONE: They could win.
It’s a safe bet that the real global investment community pays at least as much attention to what’s happening inside the countries asking for their money as the fictional Michael Corleone. After all, they pay a great deal of money to secure the most accurate and up-to-date information about their hosts. Not just the raw economic data, but information concerning the general disposition of the nation. Not only about the mood of the men and women seated around the boardroom table, but also about the mood of the men and women thronging the streets below.
Interviewed on Radio New Zealand, Tainui strongman, Tukoroirangi Morgan, boasted that he had told the global investors not to waste their time talking to the Crown, but to approach directly the iwi engaged in growing the Māori economy.
Though he gave it his best shot, Christopher Luxon’s pitch to the assembled global investors is unlikely to have resonated as loudly as Morgan’s. New Zealand’s prime minister, as they would have been well aware, leads a state whose outgoings far exceed its incomings, and a beleaguered government desperate for economic growth. All the corporate jargon in the world cannot disguise the brute fact of Luxon’s political need.
By contrast, Morgan and the many other iwi leaders presiding over the burgeoning Māori economy, would likely have struck Luxon’s guests as loud, proud, and hungry for the capital needed to keep their tribal enterprises growing. Māori businesspeople are not begging to be bailed out, they are asking to be built up. Because, as they were no doubt quick to remind these trillion-dollar tauiwi, the only place tangata whenua can succeed is right here. They have to win.
Were Luxon’s guests able to travel back in time 150 years they would have encountered Pakeha with almost as much skin in the burgeoning enterprise of “New Zealand” as the Māori of today.
These were immigrants who had travelled 16,000 miles, leaving behind everyone and everything they had known, and betting all they had on their ability to wrest a future from these distant islands. And what would have impressed today’s big investors – just as it did the big, mostly British, investors of the Nineteenth century – was how much these settlers were willing to wager on the proposition that New Zealand had a future, and how confident they were of winning the bet.
That confidence was crucial to securing the capital investment necessary to make a nation. Fortunately for the colonisers of New Zealand, the Nineteenth Century was awash with confidence.
In his book “Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-World, 1783-1939” (Oxford, 2009) the New Zealand historian James Belich examines the extraordinary racial confidence that fuelled and underpinned the breakneck economic development, demographic conquest, and cultural domination of North America and Australasia:
“Though somewhat unmilitary, they were dangerous people, especially when in full-frothing boom frenzy. When they had the help of their trusty oldlands, as well as massive boom time numbers and the fanatical ideology of the colonising crusade, hardly anything could stop them. They destroyed, crippled, swamped, or marginalised most of the numerous societies they encountered. They also built new societies faster than anyone had ever done before.”
Certainly, it is hard to argue with that final sentence. In the century that followed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the Pakeha population of New Zealand exploded from around 2,000 to nearly 2,000,000. The four main centres grew from a few hastily erected wooden structures to substantial cities of stone and brick. Railways and roads linked rural villages and provincial towns to the major ports. Industries grew and flourished.
The cultures and politics of Belich’s “Anglo-World” were shaped by what he identifies as the boom-bust-recolonisation phases that created and then consolidated it.
In this regard, the history of New Zealand conforms very neatly to Belich’s template. First came the great investor-fuelled rush for land and resources; drawing in tens-of-thousands of immigrants and driving off the Māori tribes. This initial speculative and extractive economic boom was succeeded by a period of contraction and retrenchment – the “bust” – which was followed by a second, much less anarchic, surge of immigration and investment – both prompted by the nation-defining technological innovation of refrigeration.
The question to be decided by Luxon’s guests is whether or not Belich’s three phases are still driving the economic and social history of New Zealand, and, if they are, which phase is the country going through in 2025 – boom, bust, or recolonisation?
It is difficult to sustain the argument that New Zealand is in the middle of a boom. In terms of metrics and mood the nation would appear to be situated squarely in the middle of a bust. Equally difficult to sustain is the argument that New Zealand is now, or ever likely to be again, driven by the “fanatical ideology of the colonising crusade” which underpinned its first 100 years. Booms seldom follow the mass emigration of the dominant culture’s best and brightest. Nor are the chances high that Mother England, or even Uncle Sam, will come to the rescue of the Anglo-World’s most remote outpost. Only in te Ao Māori is the cultural confidence of which booms are made on display.
What does that tell us? What should it tell the world’s big investors? Possibly, that the best returns are likely to come from backing the most daring and innovative sectors of the fast-growing Māori economy.
They could win.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
16 Comments
They will invest if they perceive they can extract, over time, far more back out of NZ than they put in. The world is set up by the elite to extract as much as possible from the majority, while minimising ta obligations and liability. Does this sound positive for NZ? If we can have significant profit extracted over time through investment, then the government need not pander to them and give any special tax treatment to fill their pockets more.
They're out of lead-time.
And the question is: Can the elites maintain cohesion without the legal apparatus of governments (which boils down to a property-rights boondoggle loaded towards the rich)?
Note that both CT and the quoted Belich, are energy-blind. Conquest is almost always done by those bringing more energy to the fray (throwing cannon-balls instead of spears) although disease can augment that.
We are further away from anywhere than anyone, longer supply-lines need more defending (as every General can tell you). And all Maori have to offer, is perhaps an easier path to resource extraction - except when greed ups the ante.
And 'canon-balls' appear to be the renewed currency of 'investment'.
interesting1234,
They will invest if they perceive they can extract, over time, far more back out of NZ than they put in. That's exactly what I was thinking before I read your post. We need their capital far more than anyone of these global investors need us, so the terms of any PPPs will be be tilted heavily in their favour, though they will be promoted as great business deals by the government.
For those who didn't see it - a brief article on the Māori economy;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/544464/new-report-highlights-…
Not what some on here expect to hear, their thinking is more around unemployed, gangs and "the treaty gravy train".
Thankfully Maori tend as a whole to take a long term view, so unlike the rest of us they will tend not to sell to overseas "investors" which may save us as a whole.
Interesting stats on the skilled jobs. My current position means sitting around a table with 7 other committee members, all Maori of varying ages. Their day jobs are all skilled and well paid. They're a real joy to work with, great discussions with a real respect of opinions. Quick and easy meetings.
But I guess my interactions are not those that make headlines.
Maori owned enterprise or not, what do we have that the rest of the world wants/needs?....and how much of it can we provide at the needed price point?
Those are the questions that will determine investment, either from within or without.
Something of a clue in that two of our largest export meat processors, Silver Fern Farms and ANZCo , have largely overseas ownership.
And with that offshore investment comes the extraction of both real and financial resources no matter the domestic holder of the resource.
If 'policy' means a reduced/ceased extraction then the investment will not come....from anywhere.
The holder of the resource is not the deciding factor.
"Māori business people are not begging to be bailed out"
Doing well courtesy the majority of NZ taxpayers?
Do tell?
Not necessarily directly at the expense of the tax payers, but the Iwi authorities and other bodies Like Ngai Tahu Holdings are set up as charities with all the tax benefits that entails, despite owning very substantial commercial interests - and that practice extends to other organisations like Sanitarium, which is owned by the Seventh Day Adventists.
How is looking for investors, who will want a return, not in conflict with the status of a charitable organisation?
The criteria for what constitutes a charitable organisation needs to be reviewed to create a more equitable environment.
Luxon is an unimaginative pimp and all he's got is pimping us out to abusive johns. Why can't we fund our own infrastructure? Why can't we procure our own tenders? Why do we need blood sucking vampires to do it for us?
Because it's not FUNDING that is the problem.
And right there, the Left are as blind as the Right.
It is the obtaining of resources and energy, which is crucial. If you cannot - and in the future cannot - guarantee access to those stocks/flows enough to parry entropy, they you're building a white elephant. Our social format - cities, suburbs - is largely unmaintainable even in the near term - but.... FUNDING.
As silly a word as investing...
Infrastructure may come down to a shared plough and an ox but they will still need to be acquired, fed, maintained and replaced. FUNDING and investment will be part of human society until there isn't one.
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/30510-briefing-for-the-incoming-mi…
it might happen faster then most think... IMHO get some solar panels now and perhaps a few spares.... I am also doing wind
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