Young Enterprise Scheme Awards

Thursday 30 October 2003

Good afternoon...I think I'd kick off today by letting you in on some key facts about the real New Zealand that you live in. First up, we are no backwater at all when it comes to innovation. Our "can do" attitude is admired throughout the world.

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 report rated New Zealand women as the most entrepreneurial on the planet. Note those facts.

They are proof that the real New Zealand, the one that happens away from the spotlight and the six o'clock news is an incredibly inventive, clever and capable country.

Right here in Canterbury you have the great good luck to be living in a place that is the hub of the new economy. The only place in New Zealand that can really lay claim to being the hi-tech hub of the country is here.

At last count we had something like 30 per cent more hi-tech activity going on than could be found in that vast traffic jam formerly known as Auckland.

They call the workers in the new economy the gold collar workers. In the old economy, blue collars were the working classes while white collar was the office staff. Skilled knowledge workers are called gold collar workers because that is one of the things you need to attract them.

The other draw-card is a quality natural environment. We have that here. The other great asset in the real New Zealand is the asset of attitude.

Another area where we come in at number two globally is for optimism. At the start of 2002 I noted that the international Gallup and Roy Morgan poll of 63 countries rated Kiwis as the second most optimistic people in the world.

That's an important fact because not only do optimists live longer and better than the glums, they also tend to be more innovative and imaginative.

What I'm saying and illustrating to you here today is that it is a good thing to be both a thinker and to be happy about it. It is

the great reality of our society and economy that I think we are still failing to get to hear enough about.

It is a story that I get to see taking place in incredibly exciting ways all the time. With your gifts you are already part of that story. This is an enormously exciting time to be a young New Zealander. Kiwis, old and new, now all seem to be starting to take pride and delight in being here in the dress circle of the Pacific Rim at the dawn of what history will call the Pacific century.

We are all in the right place at the right time in a country that by global terms is still enormously young and fresh. Not to forget, optimistic and innovative.