In Leaders Getting Coffee episode 42, our guest is Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley, of Massey University.

Paul Spoonley is a career academic with a remarkable ability to explain complex matters in very straight-forward terms.

But that straight forward manner is less surprising when we hear about someone who spent five years working in the freezing works,and later started writing his PhD thesis on that topic before abandoning it under pressure from the industry.

And so a career in academia followed, and the independent thinker shows through in Spoonley’s discussion and in his attitude to the future of the country. If only the politicians would listen.

Drawing heavily from his recent presentation entitled “The future of New Zealand: Demography as Desitny” Professor Spoonley conducts a wide-ranging discussion on the make-up of New Zealand and the challenges for our growing population.

We learn that Auckland’s population is set to grow by up to 700,000 people in the next 13 years, and we discuss the implications of that growth for infrastructure, health services and education. Professor Spoonley discusses the reasons behind the most rapidly growing regions in the country. And we hear about how an ageing population at a time of declining fertility rates threatens the way of life we have come to enjoy.

But there are solutions too, and plenty of advice for governments around the world who are grappling with immigration issues. Education, in particular, could become more relevant if greater access to apprenticeships was available and digital literacy more widely taught.

This is a fascinating discussion, filled with insights from a man who has made the make-up of our societies his life’s work.

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