Dear Prime Minister, you’re not measuring up to my KPIs - Sir Ian Taylor

The article that follows appeared in The Herald last week. I am reposting it here for those who do not have access to the Premium site, along with a couple of additional thoughts on the Prime Ministers comments that music and arts are not a priority in his version of a world class education system. (This pre-election promise was one of the main reasons I casted my vote for his party.)

I think it would be fair to say that the people I have had the privilege of working alongside over the past 3 decades could be described as world leaders in the field of technology and innovation.

There was a collective sigh of disbelief at the Prime Ministers comments because we have seen, first hand, how important the arts, and creative thinking, has been in putting our company at the forefront of our field globally.

Yes we have people hugely skilled in numeracy & literacy - but many of those come with skills in music and the arts. One of our founding members who was responsible for the proprietary software rendering engine that launched our business, is still a member of the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra.? We have others who perform in local bands in the city - one of our younger members has a sideline business as a Club DJ who writes his own music.

Then there are the artists. These are examples of the work that two of? our team produce in their free time.

Our company would simply not exists as a world leader if it were not for the creative thinking that comes from a broad range of skills anchored in creativity. A creativity that is engendered by far more than a simple focus on numeracy and literacy.

And as far as Minister Goldsmith’s removal of the most basic of te reo phrases from a letter of invitation to the recent Matariki celebrations - I am no lip reader but I am pretty sure that both Hamish Kerr and Ellesse Andrews were singing the Māori version of our national anthem as they stood on the podium accepting our last two gold medals in Paris.

For those watching who confuse our flag with the one from across the ditch - this is what makes us different. This is who we are.

This was the article as posted in The Herald.

Tenā koe Prime Minister

You may recall that on the evening you won the election I sent you a text congratulating you on your success but also noting that, whilst I had given National my vote for only the 3rd time in more than 50 years of voting, I looked forward to measuring the personal KPI’s I had set for earning that vote in 3 years time.?

I totally accept that the KPI’s I set may not align with the majority of voters, but that’s what democracy is all about, and that’s how I put a value on the importance of having the right to vote.

I would have to say that things have not gone all that well when measuring your performance against the KPI’s I had set for where I placed my vote next time.

First there was a coalition agreement that gave two minority parties an unprecedented amount of power and leverage. The warning signs were there from the start when the leaders of those two parties put their focus on who was going to be the deputy Prime Minister.

Really! Political baubles was what was keeping them up at nights. Not a great start.

Then came the unravelling of the slow but positive steps that had been taken in the acknowledgement of Te Tiriti as our founding document and the use of Te Reo Māori as one of the two official languages of Aotearoa New Zealand.

?The irony (and you will see that word a few times in this letter) is that you had once been CEO of Air New Zealand, the kiwi company that proudly and unequivocally lead the corporate world in its embrace of Te Reo Māori and Te Ao Māori.

I am no longer sure where you stand on this important issue because this week you dismissed Minister Goldsmith’s decision to remove Māori text, including the word Aotearoa, from a letter of invitation to our Aussie neighbours to the celebration of Matariki - “the Māori New Year” as trying to make things simpler for our cuzzies across the ditch!!!

Really!

A celebration of the most significant Māori event of the year and Minister Goldsmith chooses this as his vehicle for putting his stake in the ground on the use Te Reo.

It is wrong on so many levels, but here’s what offends me most.

On my Māori side I am angered by the arrogance of Minister Goldsmith’s total disregard for the language and heritage of my mother, whilst on my pakeha side I am embarrassed by - well, how do I put this? - ah yes, the arrogance of Minister Goldsmith’s total disregard for the language and heritage of my mother.

And, if having the Minister of the Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations remove Te Reo from a letter of invitation to a celebration of the Māori New Year is not irony enough for you, how about this for irony?

Last week you made an announcements around education, at the core of which was the importance of structured numeracy and literacy.

Well, Prime Minister, a letter is about as structured as literacy can get. There is a form that everyone knows and understands. Even politicians.

That structure has an opening greeting or salutation, followed by the content of the letter, and finishes with a closing. Literacy doesn’t come any more structured than that.

What did Minister Goldsmith remove from his letter to make things simpler for his colleagues in Australia?

Tenā Koe - the opening salutation - which I am sure even an Australian politician would be able to discern from where it sat in the structure, was the equivalent of “Gidday mate.”

Then he took to the closing, Naku noa nā,? (yours sincerely) which his Aussie invitees could easily translate to “See you at the barbie.”

But, here’s another irony.

They would be unlikely to do those translations because, as you might recall, your Australian colleagues in the current government tried valiantly to give voice to their indigenous people with the Voice Referendum last year. They lost that referendum but there was no doubt that Aotearoa New Zealand was their role model, their inspiration, in their attempt to give their indigenous people a voice.

Minister Goldsmith appears to have sided with the Australians who voted down that voice.

I am not sure if this next example ranks as an irony, but in the recent extravaganza that was the opening of the Paris Olympics the only indigenous greeting that I heard used by the BBC commentators covering the teams as they sailed down the Seine was, ’Kia Ora New Zealand’ in acknowledgement of the New Zealand team as they sailed by.?

I am sure Dame Nadia Glavish would have viewed this global acknowledgement of the work she began forty years ago, by refusing to back down from using kia ora when answering the phone at the Auckland Post Office, with an enormous sense of pride. The world was acknowledging her work and her culture.

How must she have felt to see a Minister of the Crown, forty years later, order the removal of the most basic use of te reo in a letter of invitation to the celebration of Matariki, the Māori New Year?

Would he have threaten to fire his staff if they refused, as Dame Nadia did?

And, remaining on the topic of education is your statement this week that “music and arts was not a priority and should be deferred in favour of maths and writing.”

Well, this is from someone whose first job was as a singer in a Rock n Roll band in the 60’s. For what it’s worth we even opened for the Beach Boys when they toured New Zealand.

For years I have argued that we need to introduce A into the concept of STEM because I have seen first hand how important the arts and creative thinking is to the global technology business we have created here in Aotearoa. One of the most valuable lessons I ever got was from the Head of the Computer Graphics Department at the University of Otago, Professor Geoff Wyvill who, back in 1990, told me that anyone wanting to excel in that field should first learn another language and do music.

Geoff trained the University programming team who, in 1989, went to the USA and beat Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, just to name a few, in the World Computer Programming Championship, becoming the first non American team ever to to do that. I think I know where I would put my money when it comes to taking advice on the importance of art and creative thinking in education.?

With the advent of AI that has become even more important, and I am seeing evidence of that every day as we take on the world from down here in Aotearoa.

Our tamariki are going to have instant access to the biggest source of knowledge on the planet.

Our education system has to prepare them for this expanding source of knowledge which will be at their finger tips. It’s not simply maths and literacy that will help them take up the opportunities this will create.

?It’s enhancing the ability that humans have to think creatively that makes us who we are. We need to put the arts, A, in STEAM while we still have time.

?I am watching those KPI’s.

Kia pai tō rā – have a nice day.

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