Film Friendly Accreditation

Monday 17 November 2003

Anyone who has ever had anything at all to do with film knows that there is always one in the cast who can't, or won't stick to the script. Today I'll make that role mine.

Given that today's weather special effects look suited to a re-make of Wuthering Heights it is probably fitting that this morning I thought of Jim Hickey.

I thought of Jim Hickey because...........

Now to be at least a little "on-message" as they say, I did note the original script for today called for me to throw a few stats and facts into the mix. I'll share some that I served up recently to the winners of our Young Enterprise Awards. It was an important message because it tries to get across the fact that we are no longer a backwater nation.

I told the kids that:

In 2001 the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor ranked New Zealand second in the world for innovation, ahead of the likes of the United States, Ireland and Australia.

In fact, the same survey noted that Kiwi women are the most entrepreneurial on the planet.

I was also talking about Canterbury and Christchurch as the hub for one of the two emergent power blocs in the country.

There is that Babylon North of the Bombay Hills, the city of the perpetual traffic jam, and then there is us. A North and South Island hub. Except only here can we claim to be part of the new actively engaged global economy. At the last count we had 30 per cent more high-tech activity going on in Canterbury than in Auckland. We are in short, a smarter city. We are also prettier.

Let us all remind ourselves again that Christchurch has been rated as the world's top Garden City. What a superb set.

I also told the kids that one of the greatest assets we have as New Zealanders is that priceless intangible; our attitude. The International Gallup and Ray Morgan poll of 63 countries rated Kiwis as the second most optimistic people in the world. A nation of resourceful, happy people where the really smart ones choose to live and work in Christchurch.

Like I said to the Pacific Blue executives recently..."you'll have no trouble getting your people to come here, but I can assure you that you will have a hell of a job getting them to move somewhere else again.'