Woonton's Blindspots: Jobs And Environment

It is now ten years since authorities in the Cook Islands last surveyed workers' terms and conditions. There was a political firestorm when results from the first labour survey were released in 1993.

Repeated calls by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management (MFEM) for its own statistics division to conduct another survey were ignored by politicians who give final approvals to all budget activities. Rather than stress this failure, however, MFEM merely stopped highlighting it.

"You're really caught up on surveys aren't you?" asked Prime Minister Dr Robert Woonton when pressed by Islands Business.

This response sounds fairly casual in a country where more than a quarter of the population has migrated overseas.

Those who stay back make the same complaint as those who have left: low pay and high cost of living. Certainly the NZ$4 an hour is higher than most other independent Pacific nations and compares favourably with an economic powerhouse like Fiji where the minimum wage hovers around F$1. However, expenses are up to ten times that of Fiji.

Today, average wages remain around NZ$6 an hour at best in the capital and are often much less in the outer islands.

Hundreds of Fijians are among an estimated 1000 foreign residents imported to make up the labour and skills shortage in a country with one of the most successful tourism industries in the region. Of NZ$202 million in GDP, NZ$103 million comes from tourism.

Very little of that goes to those who help generate that income. Last month, Woonton appeared to zero in on the plight of tourism workers.

"Are we as industry leaders doing enough for our people?" he asked, when opening the fourth South Pacific Tourism Council conference on Rarotonga. "Are we giving our people just rewards for the very qualities visitors often highlight as the differentiating factor between our people and those from other regions? Or are we taking them for granted."

The latter, if Woonton's current budget is anything to go by. As one example, the word "labour" appears only once in the current budget. This, amazingly, takes place on the tiny island of Mitiaro, with a population of barely 300, and its island council's promising to be a "Good Employer" with an output worth NZ$40,602 to "upskill the labour force to become more competent and committed in all areas through training and attachments."

Back on Rarotonga, the Human Resources Development Office (HRDO) approved NZ$4600 for a new airconditioner. Another NZ$20,000 was given for family support of students studying overseas. There is an impressive NZ$150,000 for renovation of the trade training centre. Overall, there is NZ$502,702 for the HRDO in the current budget.

No dollars, however, for a labour survey.

Similarly, there is just over NZ$9 million in aid funds in the current budget but nothing for labour surveys despite a requirement that aid "contribute to an increase in the net physical assets or human capital of the country."

Clearly, aid is failing miserably when it comes to increasing human capital. Resident population was officially 13,900 at the end of the June quarter this year, down from 14,600 the same time last year.

Half a decade ago, in June 1998, resident population was 16,600. Woonton agrees that the question should be, why are they leaving? Why should they stay? And stay for what?

"The majority of people who leave are unemployed or who see no future in remaining in the islands. The great majority of the migration is from the outer islands."

Environment is another area crumbling away from under the Woonton administration.

A second island, Aitutaki, has joined calls for a moratorium on tourism development.

One of the island's longtime operators, Mike Henry, warned that Aitutaki was already at the "extreme limits of sustainability, both environmentally and socially."

Woonton, however, rejects the idea of any moratorium, saying it would amount to government telling people what not to do with their own land.

He says the answer lies in development authorities enforcing existing rules and regulations. Little sign of that, with just three prosecutions by the Environment Service over the last ten years, even after many instances of abuse being highlighted by the local media.

By the time authorities get on the job, the country's number one industry risks not appealing to that many tourists any more.