Sunday 3rd April, 2011

Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas.

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is broadcast live on TV ONE between 9-10am on Sunday mornings and repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

DAME JUDITH MAYHEW JONAS interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL HOLMES
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, good morning.

DAME JUDITH MAYHEW JONAS – World-Class New Zealander Recipient
Good morning.

PAUL You have been in the UK, what, nearly 40 years now. You’re described as one of the most powerful women in Europe in the various positions you’ve had. How much attention do you still pay to NZ?

DAME JUDITH Very much attention. I am a New Zealander. It’s where I grew up. It’s where I learnt everything that I hold dear. So I’d probably describe myself as a Londoner and a New Zealander. So what happens to the country is very important to me.

PAUL And so as you look at NZ at the moment in recent times, what do you see? How are we doing?

DAME JUDITH I think NZ is doing exceptionally well. Obviously the earthquake in Christchurch was an enormous crisis, but the way in which it’s been handled by people has been praised fantastically over here. Everyone here is very concerned about NZ and the people in Christchurch and are working very hard to do their best to help the recovery. But in doing so, of course, it’s really important that NZ shows just how effective and efficient it is as a country and that it’s a safe country to visit, because, as we know, tourism is a very important part of the NZ community.

PAUL Has the Christchurch earthquake, the magnitude of it, damaged our reputation as a safe country to visit? Are people dicky about coming to NZ now?

DAME JUDITH I think people are questioning it, and, of course, that will have huge implications later on for the World Cup, so I think it’s really important that all of us around the world who are New Zealanders and feel passionate about the country talk it up and show it’s safe and that the country itself shows that it is safe. So, for example, we’ve got a City of London Festival later this year where we’ll be featuring a lot of NZ music and art, showing how important NZ is in terms of creativity and culture, and it’s getting that sort of message across, which is very important.

PAUL How important is it we do the World Cup well?

DAME JUDITH I think it’s vitally important. Every time you have a major event in the city, the world’s media descends on you, and all the towns that are hosting the World Cup will be on worldwide view. If you think about the Olympics, the views that we have about Beijing are very much about their Olympic Games, so it will be the image of NZ that many people around the world have for many years to come. So it’s vitally important that NZ puts its best foot forward, that people have a really great time, that it’s well run and that those media who do go down report what a fantastically dynamic and exciting country it is.

PAUL You’ve spoken about the importance and how much New Zealanders in the UK help NZ. What is the importance to NZ of that NZ diaspora, do you think? This network of New Zealanders around the world. How important are they for NZ?

DAME JUDITH I think they are very important. I mean, proportionate to the population, we’re second only to Ireland in the people who live outside NZ. So we are here in the various big cities in the world as New Zealanders and also citizens of those cities and countries, and I think that it’s really important that we work hard for the country as well. Because, after all, it gave us a really good upbringing, fantastic education, and that’s why KEA, the Kiwi Expat Organisation, has been so wonderful in bringing us together.

PAUL They do wonderful work, I know. Can I speak to you at greater depth about Christchurch, because there is a perception developing here in NZ, I think, of a certain paralysis in the beginning of the rebuild and the re-creation and the repair of Christchurch. From your lifetime experience as a public administrator, as an administrator of cities, what kind of approach is needed, Dame Judith?

DAME JUDITH Well, I think it needs a master-planning approach very much based on the information that’s given about where you can and can’t build, and in some ways, out of the tragedy must be taken opportunity to get it right. Rebuild the old buildings if they can be rebuilt in the same style. Build to the highest possible earthquake standards, because the world will be watching, but take time to say, ‘Where do we need public space? Where do we need recreational facilities? Where, perhaps, we don’t build again, but actually create nature reserves.’ I think it has to be master planned, and the people must agree with what’s going to happen, because people will have been very shocked by this. So it does take time. So you need to engage in dialogue with lots of different groups, but it does need an overall master plan.

PAUL Central government or people of Christchurch?

DAME JUDITH I think it has to be a partnership. In a country as small as NZ, certainly a town like Christchurch will need help from outside as well, and sometimes the additional view that you get from people who are not quite so close to it is really important, because they can see things that perhaps people right in the middle of it can’t see. There’s got to be a dialogue.

PAUL You’ve described yourself as a person who can deliver and you say that people will work with people who can deliver. You say you’re the kind of person who sits round and gets things done. How do you do that?

DAME JUDITH Well, I think I was taught to do that when I being brought up in NZ. It was go, get and do things; not just sitting around and talking about things. I get real pleasure from things being achieved, and I think what I really like doing is when a group of people come together with an idea and they take that idea to fruition, and there’s a really positive outcome – it’s very satisfying.

PAUL Mechanically, does Christchurch need one strong man or woman at the top – a kind of a rebuilding tsar, if you like?

DAME JUDITH I think that can help, but that person will need teams of people around them. You need natural leadership, and I believe natural leadership probably had already emerged, but no one person will have all the skills that are needed to rebuild that community, because it’s not just the physical rebuild – it’s rebuilding shattered lives, it’s rebuilding schools, it’s rebuilding communities. So there will be lots of leaders in different areas. But, yes, a leader at the top of it is often very helpful in a time of crisis.

PAUL How much attention did the Christchurch earthquake get in the UK?

DAME JUDITH It got an enormous amount of attention. I mean, the first one that came in September got an enormous amount because it was contrasted with Haiti and just how the people of Christchurch were coping so well. The second one did also get attention, but then, of course, it was completely overwhelmed about four days later with Japan. So, of course, it’s gone off the main headlines here, and, of course, everything that’s going on in the Middle East has overtaken it as well. But people in communities up and down the United Kingdom are still working very hard, and the government, of course, has launched its earthquake trust which I’m privileged to be a trustee of, and we are all working very hard for fundraising for that trust here in the United Kingdom.

PAUL Auckland is another city preoccupying us at the moment in NZ. Now that we’ve become a supercity, what do you see as the main challenges facing Auckland?

DAME JUDITH Well, I think one of the main challenges has always been public transport and related to that, obviously, the low-carbon economy. It’s very hard when you’ve got a city that’s so spread out to devise public transport systems, and that’s, of course, in stark contrast to Wellington, where the city is much more compact and where they do have a reasonably good public-transport system. So I think transport is probably one of the major important factors. But just the bringing together of so many different authorities and getting people to work together too at this point is going to be a challenge.

PAUL And what about the austerity packages that David Cameron’s government has had to install into British life, into the British economy? How are people coping with that?

DAME JUDITH Well, the austerity measures were absolutely vital. Because the public debt was so enormous, the government had to take these radical steps. It’s too early to say yet how effective they’re going to be, and many of the cuts have yet to bite. I predict that we’re in for some quite rocky times, but most people do realise that what is happening is absolutely necessary. For too long that we had relied on vast amounts of state expenditure, living well beyond our means, and we have got to pull back, and that does mean that individuals and groups will have to step up and do many of the things that in the past the state has done. This idea of the ‘big society’, which is really important, too, for NZ, because voluntary activity in NZ is a very important part of the NZ way of life.

PAUL And, of course, one of the very important places, one of the things you have run, is the City of London itself – one of the great, if not the greatest, banking centre in the world. What is the feeling in the City? What is the prognosis for the global economy?

DAME JUDITH Well, the City is cautiously optimistic at the moment. I mean, obviously with what’s going on in the Middle East and what’s going on in the Japan, they are watching these things daily. But they are cautiously optimistic that the economies of Europe will recover and that London will remain the world’s greatest international financial centre, ranking just slightly ahead of New York in international finance.

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