Letters for Thursday October 7, 2021

Dear Editor,

I feel for our employers and our workers back home. It’s easy for us to say what we think should be done however we’re not there to understand from both sides as to what they’re going through. Yes, some of us maybe, as an employee, dream or would love to be paid a higher rate however we don’t know what they’re going through over there as an employer or the government.

This isn’t a new conversation (Workers lured to New Zealand with higher pay, Cook Islands News, September 20). In fact, it’s an ongoing one. I too used to comment and say the Government needs to raise the pay rate and cut back on their salary packets, etc. I still believe that.

To be honest, it’s going to take all of us – all sectors and all of us living outside of the Cook Islands – to come up with great ideas to help and look at working together with those back home.

For me though, I think the dependency on money from just one industry –tourism – has to be addressed, we need to grow and build and bring back what used to also work for our country.

Restructuring I say in all areas of the economic industry to make a return at all levels for everyone. Horticulture exporting is one and manufacturing – bring back making our own Ara Juice, our fishing industry. The Government needs to cut out the foreign countries they allowed to fish in our waters, instead make them buy from our fisheries and trade there.

Grow and build up our small and medium businesses that are struggling and invest in them, open a trade school in Raro to teach trades or bring back the Government owned Public Works Services that used to be there and now no longer exists. Invest in shipping therefore more and bigger boats to transport our exports produces, not just to New Zealand but let’s also trade to other Pacific Islands, etc.

I’m just thinking of solutions to help this long ongoing problem, it’s got to start somewhere. Let’s support positively with great and good intentions rather than the negatives. I’m a proud Cook Islander and I feel for what they’re going through back home at all levels.

Stay Safe everyone. Te Atua te aroa Kia tatou katoatoa I runga I teia pia uriuri ete kimi manako anga.

Kia manuia.

Tina Kea

(Facebook)

Labour drift

This drift of workers has always been the case, there is in excess of 60,000 Cook Islanders in NZ alone. It is the free access to NZ citizenship that enables people leaving.

The Cook Islands is one of the highest paying small island nations in the Pacific with wage 3 to 4 times higher than the like of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga or Vanuatu. None of these nations need foreign workers because few can leave. Dependence on tourism also warps the local economy, this has happened in NZ if you look at the likes of Queenstown – very few New Zealanders can afford to live there.

Doug Hesp

(Facebook)