RISK “POOR” AREAS WILL GET POORER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30857, 16 September 1965, Page 1

RISK “POOR” AREAS WILL GET POORER

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 15.

New Zealand must ensure that in future industrial change and progress it does not become an example of the economic principle that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, said Dr. W. B. Sutch, industrial development consultant and former Secretary of Industry and Commerce, tonight.

Dr. Sutch was speaking on “Automation—its implications for New Zealand,” in an address to the social science section of the Royal Society of New Zealand at Victoria University.

He referred to Sir Leon Bagrit’s statement on economic conditions in Britain. "It is morally wrong and socially absurd to condemn the north to an existence outside the main stream of industrial change and progress.” “If we substitute for Britain’s north, our Northland, East coast and West Coast, the same philosophy applies,” said Dr. Sutch. Dr. Sutch said there was a better quality of life ahead for New Zealand if the country took advantage of the world’s knowledge and spread the results over a wide area and made them accessible to all.

To make this better life effective required a great deal of planning for the personal futures of the generation now in primary school. This planning would concentrate on education. GROUPING EXPERTS

“We should not concentrate all the skills, the management, research, technology, science and experts in five or six centres, for example, Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin,” said Mr Sutch.

“All New Zealanders should have the advantage of access to working with people where the higher type of knowledge and skill is found: this means that public policy should not forget the Northland with its good human material, including the Maori population.” “These New Zealanders should not just have the semi-skilled work.

“If we can say this of Northland—how much more can we say it of the east coast of the North Island, cut off by geographical barriers

from access to the centres of human activity. “And, of course, we can see the West Coast of the South Island in much the same light,” he said. These areas needed not only new industries based on their physical resources and their human capital: they needed industries where science and technology and deep knowledge were required. Dr. Sutch said automation in New Zealand could mean the setting up in underdeveloped districts of factories and offices relying on technology.