‘Pommie stirrer’ urges special treatment for N.Z. disease, ‘Overseasia’

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 25

‘Pommie stirrer’ urges special treatment for N.Z. disease, ‘Overseasia’

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GENEVIEVE FORDE

The following numbers of New Zealand immigrants on a permanent basis were received into Canada and the United Kingdom in 1978: United Kingdom—lo 3 (not all skilled, but most were).

Canada—7B (about 25 of whom were professional people, including two university teachers. The number who emigrated to Australia in 1979 was 6507, of whom 754 were professional or technical people.

Richard H. T. Bates, professor (personal chair) of electrical engineering, Canterbury University, D. Sc. (Engineering) (London University), F.I.E.E. (London), F.T.E.E.E. (New York), F.R.S.N.Z., is a se 1 f-confessed pommie stirrer.

The thing that ’•upsets him about New Zealand is the waste: the waste of talent and expertise. “That’s what one hates as an expert, a professional,” he says. “You hate waste. A lot of what’s around in this country is just not being used. “There are such a lot of young people we could retain if something was going on. They need experience first — they must go abroad for a few years to meet people, to build up an acquaintanceship around the world — but what one wants to avoid is a large number of them staying abroad. It’s a big waste of our efforts in training them, apart from anything else.” The reason there is nothing “going on” in New Zealand is a chronic and debilitating disease — “overseasia,” according to Professor Bates. Particularly bad cases of it are found among politicians and bureaucrats, and their attitudes are costing the country both talented young people, many of whom go on to become the much-vaunted overseas experts, and money. “At present there are quite a lot of people doing things in New Zealand — small things, that are verv heartening.” Sir William Hamilton and his jet boat: somebody’s making an electric car in Christchurch. “But we’re not using New Zealand expertise enough. “Take oil. Exploration has been going on here for 16 years. Let’s try and get a group centred in the D.'S.I.R. There are very good people, excellent, in the universities. We should say, ‘We’re going to find that bastard oil ourselves. We’re going to build up the expertise. We would benefit the country more than people from overseas.’

“If you went to a Government department and said this, they’d laugh at you and tell you it was ridiculous. That’s because they want it instantly and you can’t have it then.”-

Another thing that annoys Professor Bates is the prediliction New Zealanders have for studies and committees and commissions. The energy reserves committee, based in Auckland, he cites as an example. “They are quite happy to have people make studies — those interminable things — about where the wind blows (certain places

have more wind than others) or on the toxicity of methanol.

“I’m sure it’s all very good, but I know that one of my colleagues, not in electronics, presented them with a device, only to be met with blankness and consternation.

“They are alright with theories and ideas but when you confront them with an actual machine, they back away very quickly.”

Another area of research and development in which Professor Bates thinks New Zealanders could do it themselves is in medical technology; things like brain scanners. “That’s an area I’m particularly interested in. When a big development comes up, the Health Department should say, ‘Look, we must get into this ourselves. We must build a lot of things ourselves; build our own equipment. That way we would keep our brilliant chaps and girls from going overseas.

“Suppose I had been given the means of building six brain scanners in 1972-1973, we would have had them operating by now in all the big hosptials. In many respects they wouldn’t be as advanced as those you can buy, but you would understand them and they would be every bit as useful.

“In 1970, Terrj’ Peters, one of my students, now in Montreal, had the idea of making a body scanner. He mentioned it to radiologists. Very interesting, they said, but what use would it be? Now everyone wants one.

“We didn’t know what Hounsfield (he had made the device by then in England and won the Nobel prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1979) was doing. We couldn’t have competed with him, but if I had been more skilful, at pushing it we could have built one by now. There is a small one being built at Christchurch Hospital. (Two cf his present

PhD students are connected with the hospital and three former students are working in the hospital system.) “It’s a diagnostic marvel. Hounsfield had the vision. When doctors see the actual pictures they go wild; but when you. talk about it, no-one is interested.

“Einstein was the most unworldly person who ever lived but he must

have been a fantastic salesman. When he was an unknown fellow working in a patent office at 25 he was able to convince other scientists that he was up with them. “Terry (Peters) and I wrote a paper in 1971 on the thory of brain scanners; it is still quoted. If I had been better at selling ideas, we might have been able to do something. That’s just one instance of

people not being made use of.

“But, then again, if you vent to the Department of ■lealth, they’d laugh at , r ou. It’s just not on, hey’d say. It would take oo long. What people for>et is that it takes a long ime to do these things. The simplest experiment akes a month — you ilways need to modify. Big experiments take six nonths at least. “I don’t think it’s in the imall things but in the big hings that one has to try o get people to take the ong view. Part of the problem is that they hink there’s this marvellous thing called techwlogy which happens overseas, whereas all :hat’s necessary is people if the right ability. If you tave them and allow them :o work, they will do as veil as anybody else from iverseas and save the unds.”

The other problem is politicians, Professor Bates sa} ; s. They are always in a hurry. “They can’t bear to think about the long term. They’re Very good at setting up wishy-washy committees, like the Commission for the Future — it’s got some splendid people on it; it’s certainly not doing any harm — but when it comes to doing something, everybody’s scared of rocking the boat, especially if they’ve built up a reputation. “Some of the people in top positions here are excellent. One of the D.S.I.R. heads I know is a fantastic bloke. He’s so good its tremendous and he does what he can. If he did too much he would lose all the influence he has because people wouldn’t trust him.” Professor Bates arrived in Christchurch with his wife and family in 1967 to take up the electrical engineering chair at Canterbury University. He had come here from Britain and Canada, where he worked in radar and radio engineering — “defence business” — and from the United States where he had worked on communication systems. The reason he came was

that his wife, a teacher, and he liked living in different places. Also, they thought they would Ike to bring up their four child* ren in a place where there was less pressure. “It’s been very good for them,” he says.

He finds New Zealanders are very self-reliant and resilient. “I’m always amazed at my students. If you send them off they’ll find out things, whereas

an American or Dutch student would find it much more difficult to do that on their own. Perhaps it’s because they live in a much more prescribed environment; maybe they are given ambition at an early age. But they don’t know how to go and live in the bush.” The research students he has had here have all been very bright, but “the amazing thing about New Zealand kids is that you have to boost their ego as a research supervisor. You wouldn’t dare in the United States or the United Kingdom because they are all conceited anyway. You’re just as good as anyone else, you tell the New Zealanders. “One of them had a dozen papers published by the time he’d finished his PhD. The students are really astounded when they go abroad and find they are as good as anyone else.

Professor Bates thinks New Zealanders can do it “in the large as well as the small” because “it’s individuals and their ideas that count. It always has been. We have the people here. What we need is trust and loyalty — not overseas experts.” Professor Bates does not agree that since the world is interacting more and more it would be better for the big countries with the money to get on with it and the little countries just to buy off them as they develop new technologies. “When you have a technology that’s affecting people, as in medicine or smelters or exploration, you want to have all aspects of it under national control as much as pos* sible, otherwise you just become a colony of a large country. Isn’t this what they call the neo* colonialism? Even though nominally free, we are. subservient to some other country. There’s a danger that we could become more so than less so. •

“We are potentially on the verge of tremendous intellectual ferment in this country. Life is getting so complicated and diffcult in the big countires. There is terrible pressure of population.

“In science and technology we have a lot of bright young people who still want to do it, whereas in other countries there L a swing away from science to the arts. There were more than 12 direct entries into electrical engineering this year; at least six got scholarships. It’s surprising.

“Also there is the aura that surrounds scientiific research. It has much less prestige now in the Northern Hemisphere. You

hear stories of people who get firsts in mathematical Tripos at Cambridge going into merchant banking — you can make more money that way.

“It has set in in Australia. I know of two specific cases this.year where they are finding it difficult to persuade people to do post-graduate work there. The scholarships are very small compared to what you can earn outside the university, in industry.”

He admits it could just be that New Zealand is 10 years behind the rest of the world. “Maybe I’m just a fantastic optimist. But as regards my students, there’s nothing subjective about that.” He gets at least one letter a year from a famous institution in the Northern Hemisphere asking for someone to replace a former student from Canterbury who has just left. “This is the standard. A lot of them are so good it wouldn’t matter how badly I supervised them. They would still be good at the end of it.”