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InterviewsJuly 1 2003

Out with the sheep, in with the skilled

Prime minister Helen Clark wants New Zealand to be a price maker, not a price taker, she tells Karina Robinson.
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There was a certain piquancy in interviewing Helen Clark, New Zealand’s reportedly priggish prime minister, just as brash rival Australia successfully floated a Melbourne brothel on the stock exchange. It is difficult to imagine that happening in such a far-off, conservative land where the sheep still massively outnumber the population (40 million to 4 million).

Wearing virtually no jewellery and a khaki-coloured business suit, Ms Clark laughs when asked whether she would call herself a Calvinist, with her hard-working, disciplined and frugal traits.

“I am all those things but I also have a lot of interests that would not necessarily mark me out [as a Calvinist],’’ she says, mentioning climbing, trekking, ski-ing, music, theatre, ballet and opera. “Calvinist makes it sound like all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. I enjoy life.’’

In fact, Ms Clark goes on to point out in language reminiscent of a travel guide that New Zealand is not only about “untouched coastline, glaciers cascading to the sea, great walks’’ but also has taken huge strides in the arts. Few prime ministers would be willing to be used in a Discovery Channel documentary to help advertise the attractions of their country – attractions that led to the filming there of the Lord of the Rings series and to US billionaires such as Julian Robertson of the famed Tiger Fund buying huge tracts of land for exclusive golf resorts. More to the point, few prime ministers would be in good enough shape to be filmed trotting up a Southern Alps peak.

Advantageous isolation

Interviewed in New Zealand House, in London’s West End, a dated, glass-fronted building with seemingly incongruous Maori carvings dotted around, 53-year-old Ms Clark is intent on dispensing with some of the stereotypes. She believes, for example, that New Zealand’s physical isolation – a minimum 24 hours’ flying time from Europe – is becoming an advantage. The pressures of living in Europe and North America, including lifestyle issues and security, are making New Zealand more attractive. And unemployment at 4.9%, significantly lower than other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, and 4.4% GDP growth last year, mean it has become the recipient of net migration, primarily from Asia. In addition, the number of New Zealanders leaving last year was down 25% while those coming back home were up 8%. (However, I am not sure I agree with Ms Clark that my husband, a New Zealand-born big cheese in the City, could have “done the things he’s been able to do living here [in London]” in New Zealand.)

“In an age of fast telecommunications you are not isolated in New Zealand. Not like my forebears who came out in the gold rush on a one-way ticket,’’ she says.

On the subject of stereotypes, Parliament legalised prostitution at the end of June. Perhaps a listed brothel is not that far away.

Economic focus

Despite radical economic reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, the country’s continuing dependence on agriculture (responsible for more than half of exports) appears to contradict the government’s campaign to turn it into a knowledge economy. And how can it compete with the cost of labour – skilled labour – in the Asian region?

“The aim is to be a high-value, skilled economy. We have to benchmark against the OECD, not the region,’’ she says. “In other words, we have to go from being a price taker, which a commodity producer is, to a price maker.’’

However, her vision does not involve turning against agriculture. “We can’t move away from it. We have to get more value from agriculture. We have to look at what new applications of science and technology can lift the returns available. That is why biotechnology has been identified as a critical area,’’ she says. “That is the challenge, because we will always be one of the best converters of rain into grass into healthy animals.’’

As the daughter of a dairy and cattle farming family, Ms Clark is aware of the need for foreign markets to buy New Zealand produce. “It is unfortunate that this is the first visit to Brussels in 10 years by a New Zealand prime minister,’’ she says, having just come to London from a trip there that included a meeting with Franz Fischler, European Union Agriculture and Fisheries Commissioner. The EU is New Zealand’s second largest export market, with services and technology lagging far behind agricultural produce. On that front, the EU’s highly protectionist Common Agricultural Programme must have provided a subject of heated debate.

Ms Clark blames New Zealand’s decline in the OECD tables measured by per capita income over the past 50 years (despite the past three years of relatively outstanding growth) on the economy being unprepared for the UK’s entry to the EU in 1975. Until then, it had relied on being the UK’s farm. She is also not enamoured of the “enormous amount of structural reform which was very destabilising for the whole society’’ in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the Blair mould

Her words belie the fact that she has proved to be a Labour politician in the mould of UK prime minister Tony Blair, building on key changes made by prior Conservative governments while overhauling some and tinkering with others.

For example, she does not foresee the government making major investments in its bid to have the country become a knowledge economy; she speaks of having funding responsibility in education, infrastructure and basic research and development.

“But rather than a total hands-off approach to the whole regeneration, the government can act to provide leadership, facilitation, strategy, co-ordination, playing a partnership role in the economy,’’ she says.

Ms Clark is just as adamant that the Opposition governments in the 1990s went too far in deepening ties with the Asia/Pacific region at the expense of Europe. “It is a question of a small trading company, eeh, country, having eggs in a number of baskets,’’ she says, with a Freudian slip. Exports are more than one-third of GDP.

Nor will she cater to those who think immigration from the Asia/Pacific region is diluting the character of New Zealand, pointing to the UK’s adaptation to multiculturalism. “Is New Zealand as a society strong enough to adapt to that? Yes, it is. The world is changing and your societies have to be strong enough to live with that.’’

Still, a tiny glimpse of the former left-wing firebrand is visible when she is asked whether her stance against the Iraq war will hamper the country’s attempts to gain free trade access to the US. “Most countries didn’t support what happened in Iraq,’’ she says. “Disagreement over a single issue does not fundamentally change relationships.’’

US president George Bush may not agree.

Ms Clark believes that what matters most in trade terms is the Doha trade round and the fact that Australia is looking for a free trade agreement with the US. This is especially relevant because New Zealand has a long-standing free trade agreement with Australia.

Polling well

She laughs when asked whether her rather more non-aligned policy has anything to do with a desire for a United Nations post after her term in office finishes by 2005: “[The accusation] is generated by an Opposition desperate to get an angle.

“I have no plans beyond my present job, which I am perfectly happy with. So is the New Zealand public. I’ve just seen today’s polls: 51% for Labour and the favourability ratio for the PM is 70%,’’ she says, with justified satisfaction.

The Opposition is undoubtedly in disarray and desperate for an issue with which to belabour the prime minister. Nonetheless, like most conspiracy theories, it probably has a modicum of truth.

Imagine the advertisement: “Middle-aged, successful, no-nonsense former top politician from small state looking for role on world stage. Accustomed to travel. Accomplishments include move to central ground from the left, sticking to the UN stance on Iraq, and responsibility for the early ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.’’

The latter is, arguably, the best evidence of her abilities and her ideas. To local industrialists, who say Kyoto imposes heavy burdens, Ms Clark responds that, by being part of it so early, New Zealand’s interests have been taken into account, with the effect that in the 2008-2012 first stage the country will be a net beneficiary of the agreement. She also points out that the protocol forces companies to adapt to best practice so that when environmentally dirty practices become an ever more important blockage to trade, New Zealand will not suffer.

Add to that her message to the world that her country regards itself as a model of global citizenship and that UN job looks a shoo-in.

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