Kiwi lifestyle was worth the effort
Nurse Alex Antony tells Deena Coster about his decision to move to Taranaki. ‘‘It’s paid off,’’ he says.
As Alex Antony was getting to grips with life in provincial New Zealand, he was also getting to know his new wife.
Coming from a traditional Indian family, Antony met his bride through an arranged marriage.
At the time of their nuptials his wife lived and worked as a nurse in New Plymouth. Antony joined her at the Taranaki District Health Board (TDHB) in 2012, where he began working as a health care assistant.
Little did he know then that his own goal to become a registered nurse would be realised in Taranaki after years of frustration trying to achieve his dream elsewhere.
Raised in Kerala, a state in Southern India, Antony had always wanted to pursue a nursing career.
‘‘I decided to become a nurse when I was a teenager,’’ he said. After completing his studies in India, he worked in the profession for 18 months.
Antony said it was hard to get ahead in India and he decided on an overseas move, first settling in the UK.
While there he persisted with the requirements to become registered as a nurse for four years, but was knocked back because of the strict English language requirements. He said he took the test about nine times, each costing $400 a pop, but he didn’t get enough marks.
When he began working at TDHB, he said his bosses saw potential in him and encouraged him to become qualified to practice nursing in New Zealand. OPINION: The first thing we need to remember is that we are all immigrants. At some stage of our heritage our forebears were either leaving behind something that was holding their whanau back or they had skills that were in demand, creating opportunities that were worth taking their family around the world for.
New Zealanders are travellers of the world as well, going to see how others do things, gain more experience in their specialist field, or to make more money than they can make in New Zealand.
The main reason people come home (and many do) is New Zealand is a great place to live and bring up a family: good clean air, water and environment, low levels
Now five years into his tenure at the TDHB, he couldn’t be happier.
‘‘It’s kind of paid off after all the struggles,’’ he said.
Antony said Taranaki was a calm, quiet and good place to bring up children.
While he encountered racism and street crime in the UK, it has not something he has had to contend with in Taranaki.
‘‘People here are so lovely,’’ the 33-year-old said.
While visits back home to India are rare (the first in three years is planned this December), Antony and his wife ensure their children are aware of their cultural heritage.
This includes speaking their native Malayalam language at home, instead of English, to ensure the children can communicate with their grandparents and other family.
Now a permanent resident of New Zealand, Antony said there are more opportunities available to his family here than they would have in India.
‘‘An immigrant who comes to New Zealand pays a lot of money and goes through a lot of struggle,’’ he said.
But he believed it was well worth it for the benefits his own children will get. ‘‘They can have a Kiwi life,’’ he said. of corruption, good working standards (H&S) and labour laws.
For all of these reasons that New Zealanders want to come home, people from other countries want to come to New Zealand, so that their families will have the opportunity to prosper.
If our immigration system is working properly we will be allowing people with skills, attributes and values that would be of advantage to New Zealand.
Currently New Zealand has a demand for people in agriculture, IT, tourism and construction, with a huge seasonal demand within the fruit and vegetable industry.
Speaking in an area I am most familiar with, agriculture and dairy in particular, the dairy industry has moved from a strict owner operator model where a family could manage the whole operation on their own, to larger scale farms with owner/managers and support staff.
With more and more new technology it has meant that the ability to run larger operations with different staffing requirements has come about.
Farming is a 24 hour, seven day business where jobs need to be done every day and at both ends of the day, so with multiple staff farms have the ability to run rosters and shifts to cover all the tasks while still keeping within safe and sensible work plans.
As farmers have to work in all weather and some have to get up early in the morning (4am) to complete our tasks, we also work outside with animals and machinery which is appealing to some people.
Farming, like all industry, has to offer a competitive remuneration package to attract quality staff, and in Taranaki, having to compete with the ‘‘Think Big’’ construction and oil and gas industries, farmers have had to think ahead to retain staff.
Taranaki, like the rest of New Zealand doesn’t have a high number of immigrants in farming, with people coming from the Phillipines, Sri Lanka, Uraguay, South Africa, Britain and Holland, these people are generally well qualified, motivated, and committed.
A lot of these people have skills in farming but not necessarily grass land farming, so as their skills come up to what is required to run a New Zealand farm they start moving up through the management (contract and sharemilkers) and ownership structures of farming.
So the big question, should we still have the level of immigration we currently have? We need people to run and manage our farms. In these times of strong economic growth in all sectors, the strain on the labour market is huge.
So filling any job that is out of the ordinary requires a reasonable level of skill. Often working alone, unsupervised and not within an urban environment has less appeal.
Then you add in the ‘‘perception’’ that farming is damaging the environment (which it is not) and the number of people applying for farm jobs is fewer.
We should be open minded and have rules that mean we get the right people.
New Zealand needs the farming sector to prosper to keep our exports at a strong level to help pay for our roads, schools, hospitals and other services.
Donald McIntyre is the president of Taranaki Federated Farmers