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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern introduces the ‘tripartite Future Work Forum’ with a goal to prepare NZ for the ‘rapidly changing nature of work’

Business
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern introduces the ‘tripartite Future Work Forum’ with a goal to prepare NZ for the ‘rapidly changing nature of work’

The Government, unions and businesses are joining forces in what the Prime Minister has described as a “tripartite Future Work Forum.”

Speaking at a BusinessNZ pre-Budget lunch, Jacinda Ardern said it’s important for the groups to come together to develop a plan that “future proofs the economy.”

The Forum will be made up of BusinessNZ, the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) and the Government.

Ardern says she has asked Finance Minister Grant Robertson to lead to work with BusinessNZ Chief Executive Kirk Hope and CTU President Richard Wagstaff.

“This Government is keen to future-proof our economy, to have both budget sustainability and environmental sustainability, to prepare people for climate change and the fact that 40% of today’s jobs will not exist in a few decades,” she says.

The forum will help in shaping policies needed for workers and businesses to be equipped for the “rapidly changing nature of work.”

“We know the challenge is coming, we need to be ready and together I am hoping we can work through these issues. And most importantly avoid the mistakes of the past where economic shocks damaged communities up and down New Zealand.”

She says because of climate change, 40% of today’s jobs won’t exist in the next few decades.

Speaking to media after the speech, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said jobs “all across the board” will be impacted by the coming changes.

“Often, we think about how process-based jobs, more blue-collar based jobs being the ones that will go first. Actually, the rapid growth of things such as artificial intelligence is actually changing more white-collar jobs.”

One of the ways the Government will be helping workers in the coming years will be getting them into further education, Ardern says.

“Given we have tried to improve the accessibility of our further training and education, particularly access to vocational training and apprenticeships, we will be exploring how can we partner with business to develop that for their workers.”

Budget hints

Ardern also outlined some of the Government’s key priorities for the Budget.

She, like Robertson earlier this week, defended the Budget responsibility rules of reducing debt to 20% of GDP by 2021/22.

“You will see a strong focus on delivering economic growth, on running sustainable surpluses and reducing net debt as a proportion of GDP.

“We know we have to live within our means and we will.”

She also spoke about her commitment to lifting productivity – New Zealand’s economic Achilles heel.

“This will involve increases in both public investment as well as incentives for business.”

The Prime Minister also again took a swing at the previous Government for leaving the books in a poor state.

“You will see a clear commitment to investing in the critical services we rely on and addressing areas of neglect. This Government will make targeted investments to address our social and infrastructure deficits.” 

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51 Comments

I don't know what they hope to do here. As this psychologist explains (Youtube) you can't train low IQ people to do smart jobs.

Maybe Labour should focus on making the country smarter. For a start they might want to...

* Stop paying low IQ people for each kid they pump out.
* Improve the cost of living and cost of building a warm house. I've heard it's 30% cheaper to build in Australia. No wonder people move there. Too much red tape. Too many council workers on $150/hr. Too many "must be certified in NZ" standards.
* If burger flippers and cars are going to be automated tomorrow then stop importing chefs and taxi drivers. Gosh I would have thought this one is obvious.

There you have it Labour. No need for yet another 90 page report $$$ or a working group $$$ because it's not rocket science.

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"you can't train low IQ people to do smart jobs."

No, but you can train them to form working groups and write reports.

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Top joke.

Or you can turn them into teachers. With the new experimental education technology (aka iPads and YouTube) you can turn anyone into a teacher. Well almost anyone. We don't want any white males now as they're all assumed guilty sexual predators.

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Yeah , like Massey High school having this new fancy-pants learning ............ including a research project for school kids on how to use Meth, including instructions to .......... " be discreet ......its illegal " the manual says, and 'keep your Bong clean ".

The truth is stranger than fiction .

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Why not just hand out bags of meth to the students. Wouldn't want them to use that nasty adulterated stuff now would we.

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Curious.

Who are the low IQ people in NZ?

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I wouldn't know Xingmowang. But you should ask a Chinese person. They always seem to be experts on such matters.

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How could Chinese people be experts on identifying low IQ people given IQ was not even invented by them?

You seem to be an expert on that and have already had a list of low IQ ppl in NZ. Could you show us please?

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... my guess would be that High IQ people get paid well to write on the internet ...

Whereas the Low IQ people spend hours doing the same , but for free ...

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You get paid?

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... they pay me at my regular place of employment ... which just goes to show how " high " the boss's IQ is in relation to mine ( and thank goodness for that ! ) ...

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They are everywhere you look, especially in government and business management.

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Helen Clarke's lot tried it. Waste of time

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"Smart poor kids are less likely to graduate from college now than dumb rich kids. That’s not because of the schools, that’s because of all the advantages that are available to rich kids."
— Robert Putnam

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/the-costs-of-inequality-…

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Why is the buzz -word now 'climate change ' when a few years ago it was "Global Warming "

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Localized cold weather events confused stupid or poorly educated folk who assume 'global warming' means it must get warmer all the time and any cold spell or snow 'proves that the scientists are wrong'. 'Climate change' more accurately reflects the variable nature of weather events in the context of steadily rising global temperatures.

In serious, the term climate change has been used by people in the field for at least 50 years.

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Thank you for summarising it more succinctly. Those engineering journals from the 1950's to now would only be gathering dust because they explain things that only those with specialised training or the ability to read them would understand. I worry that proportion of people in the public is only getting smaller. Already there are less being taught adequate 101 thermodynamics, fluid dynamics & other physics basics in high school; copy and paste coding wordpress plugin classes now being much more marketable (even though php should be shown the door and understanding many web formatting languages is trivial compared to what is needed in the workplace in skilled levels).

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Climate change was politically incorrect, it offended climates everywhere by suggesting changing to be who they wanted to be was a bad thing.

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“Tripartite Future Work Forum?"..... rejig the first letters of this new august body/ talk-fest and you get .....WTF?

Just like before , there is no way in hell they can predict the future with any certainty, and in a free market capitalist economy the market will take care of the changes as they unfold .

The changes in our society and development if the internet and I -phones have not led to mass unemployment , has it ?

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It is very hard to relate what PM is talking to to everyday NZers life.

How do you lift productivity when there is virtually no productive industries in NZ.

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Well said , we have no industry , and the productive sector being dairy , food growth , timber and tourism are working at capacity and battling to get staff

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Point is though, if what you say is correct, surely putting some top down thought into the problems in a collaborative effort between employers, unions and central government is exactly what a government should be doing?

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Kate - an observation of our right-wing'ers, is that the ambition is to not fix the problems our society faces, but to use those problems to one's own best self interest and let the 'free market' fix them - but then complain if that means some get left behind and need support. When one is the problem, its difficult to be the solution to that problem.

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So agriculture is not a productive industry? And I think anyway, the purpose of the group will be to explore broader issues relating to labour productivity - as this encompasses all types of work sectors; primary production, manufacturing and service delivery.

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The devil is in the detail. If there are left wing sacred cows like unionism that can't be critiqued then Kirk Hope risks being seen as a Socialist 'beard' here. Don't get me wrong it's good to have business input but collective responsibility could compromise his business credentials.

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The above is the last post of Ex Expat. The new moniker signals a move to being a retired expat, hopefully a continuing trim one as Fat Pat is taken and we won't even go into the origins of Cow Pat.

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Agriculture can also require employees who highly skilled and require a lot of technical engineers. Working to design new products, streamline logistics & boost production are quite important in this country. However the number of NZders employed in those areas will usually be a fixed small number and cannot encompass the employment needs for a growing population, (there is only a fixed amount of land, which is rapidly being sold for property development and currently the wages and skills of most the workers in the industry are low to rock bottom today with a likelihood to drop further depending on increasing contract or gig economy work models).

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I may not agree word-for-word of what Cuban says on this topic, but he makes a good argument to kick off the dialogue.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree-will-be-wo…

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...it’s important for the groups to come together to develop a plan that “future proofs the economy.

"it’s important for the groups to come together to develop a plan that “future proofs the economy' and protects in perpetuity our major Union supporters revenue streams from compulsory dues"

There, fixed it for y'all..

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Ouch.

It is hard to see why Big Unions and Big Business and Big Government would want to do anything other than protect their cosy cartel from Change. Particularly if it comes from those pesky opportunistic entrepreneurial types. After all, They Know Best.

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Read T Alexander piece this week.
It answers all the PMs dilemmas...!!
http://tonyalexander.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/WO-May-3-20181.pdf

This CoLs is anti business and they just want to get their pound of flesh after missing out for 9 years ... no matter how friendly they claim to be.

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What's with this CoL stuff - it's almost like there's a segment of our commentators here who don't believe in democracy? This is OUR government. If you don't believe in democracy, what are you doing in this country?

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How is referring to the government as a coalition of losers Inconsistent with a belief in democracy? As long as those of us who oppose this bunch of incompetents obey the laws of the land then we are free to call them what we like. We are not obliged to respect them, or give them our cooperation.

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Sure those are your views which you're free to express. Remember that if you live by the sword you'll fall by it.

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Haha, tell that to all of those lefties that wrote derisory posts about Sir John Key and his Government for 9 years.

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Fair comment - but did those views occur in week 1 of the previous coalition being formed? If they did, same rules apply to those commentators who did.

It's only fair to judge a person or group by what they deliver and you can't expect change in the first 6 months. It takes time to slow down a runaway train. As one famous books talks about; By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Lets see what fruit this coalition produces - if it turns our sour and they're removed from government at the next election then at that point you're justified to call them the CoL. But to do so now, it comes across as childish and unjustified. More like sore losers than pragmatic believers in OUR democratic process.

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The CoL is a description of a state of election losers, has nothing to do with democracy ...

Asking me or others to leave the country is not only childish but foolish and shallow .. Not only you have no right in even mentioning that , but you are being carried away by the same tactics the losers are using nowadays ...

Encouraging noobs and incompetents isn't patriotic , it is destructive.

Becoming and opportunistic Gov is not sacred or bibliotic event ... we leave it to your likes to follow them blindly like devine Gods,

You need a bit more reading about democracy.

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Please send me some suggested links to read so I can better understand your perspective.

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I think you'll end up subscribed to a bunch of newsletters...

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A "coalition of losers" is infinitely better than a Brexitrumpocalypse any day.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-d…

https://psmag.com/news/this-chart-helps-explain-why-people-in-the-rust-…

blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2016/11/08/the-us-failure-to-provide-vocational-training-is-a-massive-policy-failure-which-supports-donald-trump/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/07/from-rust-belt-to-mill…

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How many of those people had the kind of form this lot did when put into power? If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. You don't need three years to work it out and they're doing a fine job of confirming every concern I had, except for the fiscal conservatism, so far.

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So, not so much a lack of belief in democracy as a basic inability to grasp how MMP works.

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MMP works? Washed up career politicians like Winston - that get rejected by the people that know them best and can't win an electorate seat - get to choose who leads the country?

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A government that represents a majority of voters in the country.

Ultimately, National lost due to trying to win FPP in an MMP system. The subsequent whining of "No, COL!" is just a bit pitiable.

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You don't see any problem any problem with a career politician who can't win an electorate seat deciding who makes up that "majority of voters". The last thing we want is a political class deciding who governs/is the majority. It is too open to abuse.

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That's part of MMP so no use whining about it. And it would have been the same no matter which way he went. And given polls suggested 65% percent of NZ First voters preferred a coalition with Labour...well.

My personal preferences? I'd like to see votes being transferable and a lower threshold for new parties. In the past under FPP we had governments that represented significantly fewer than 50% of the population, a worse situation than now. "No, no, but you see, my preferred party would be in power under FPP" is not a great reason to return to such a situation.

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I agree it would have been the same no matter which way it went - that still doesn't it make it a good system. Yes I agree a transferable voting system is much better.

MMP (and FPP) sucks as a system - but the media and political class rammed it down the electorates throats so transferable voting systems never saw the light of day.

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I can't recall ever calling this government illegitimate, if that's what you are insinuating. The COL is in power, I accept their democratic legitimacy, but fervently oppose them and yearn for the day they are gone, which will come, it always does.

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What is even stranger is there were more coalition parties involved in the last government, yet they did not get the same treatment.

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The people who run around squwarking "CoL" can be safely ignored. It's just autistic screeching.

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.

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