Coronavirus: Call for radical green job plan to lift south and west Auckland

Wednesday, 5 August 2020

Thousands of jobs will be lost in Canterbury due to the economic impact of Covid-19, experts believe.

A radical and targeted economic recovery plan is being called for to avert a coronavirus “wildfire” of job losses in Auckland’s poorer southern and western communities.

Forty thousand jobs, many held by Māori and Pasifika people, are at risk, according to an Auckland Council assessment.

Tania Pouwhare, a social entrepreneur with the council, said a radical plan was needed to create higher-value jobs in the green and hi-tech economy.

“It is utterly unacceptable to ‘red zone’ almost a quarter of all Māori and 64 per cent of Pasifika peoples in this country,” she said.

The Burwood Resource Recovery Park in Christchurch does a similar job to what is proposed for south Auckland.

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Pouwhare and the council-driven Southern Initiative and Western Initiative units are preparing a manifesto for the incoming government on how to create better jobs and greater local ownership of businesses.

One has been floated at a day-long think tank called Auckland’s Future, Now, run by the council’s economic development agency Ateed.

It proposed a South Auckland resource recovery park – a 10-15 hectare site to recycle and manufacture products from 1.6 million tonnes of mainly commercial waste dumped each year.

Auckland Council social entrepreneur Tania Pouwhare.

Pouwhare proposed a venture with a mix of public and private ownership, including community and social enterprises and Māori and Pasifika businesses.

She said one trial project had salvaged more than 1000 tonnes of reusable material and created 50 sustainable jobs.

“Our big bet, our flagship project, is He Waka Eke Noa which connects buyers and clients like Auckland Council to Māori and Pasifika-owned businesses,” she said.

Unemployment data shows a higher than average rise in South Auckland through the global financial crisis

“This year, more than $40 million has been awarded to Māori and Pasifika businesses who are part of our movement, creating and saving hundreds of jobs – half of that during lockdown.”

Pouwhare said overseas experience showed community-owned businesses could solve problems such as digital access, an issue in southern suburbs where 20 per cent of households lack internet connection.

“What if a co-operative of residents, young people or lone parenting mums owned that digital infrastructure?” she said, citing a model successful in poor, remote, indigenous communities in Canada.

Pouwhare has also called for a South and West Auckland “growth fund” to invest in Māori and Pasifika initiatives.

Figures from The Southern Initiative showed there was a flow-on of joblessness from the last economic slump, the global financial crisis (GFC) from 2008.

Research using data from the 2006 and 2013 censuses showed unemployment rose more sharply for Māori and Pasifika people than for others, especially among the young.

By 2013, unemployment for Pasifika people over 25 years old had risen to eight times that of other ethnicities. By 2018, annual income growth for Māori and Pasifika people was half that of others.

Ateed data showed nearly 23,500 people in Auckland had accessed welfare due to job losses since February, compared with 20,000 job losses over an 18-month period during the GFC in 2008-09.

Former prime minister Sir John Key told the Wednesday gathering in Auckland that the economy would get worse.

“We are in the very early part of a serious contraction of the economy in New Zealand – we can't afford complacency,” he said.