As a boy growing up in Wanganui in the Sixties, Paul Callaghan saw physics everywhere. “It was the age following Sputnik. There was a big emphasis on science. And physics is beautiful – it was always a part of my life. I got up to stuff, basically. I built my first crystal radio set when I was ten or eleven, and I was able to pick up two radio stations. It’s life-changing for any young boy.”Fifty years later, Dr. Callaghan is one of the leading physicists in New Zealand, author or co-author of three books and over 200 scientific articles, and the founding director of the Wellington-based company Magritek. But while he views scientific innovation as the key for New Zealand’s prosperity, he feels that we’re held back from our full potential by a myth of our own making.
In his latest book, Wool to Weta: Transforming New Zealand’s Culture & Economy, Callaghan makes the case that New Zealand needs to shift from its overreliance on tourism and agriculture, and invest in a new economy based on science, technology, and intellectual property. As he notes in the book’s preface, “David Lange once said, cheekily, that New Zealand’s destiny was to be a theme park, while Australia’s destiny was to be a quarry. This book tells the story of how we must move beyond the farm and the theme park if we are to build sustainable prosperity in New Zealand, protecting our natural environment in the process.”
Compiled from Callaghan’s interviews during his public lecture tour on the subject, Wool to Weta includes conversations with leading New Zealanders in science and business. It explores Kiwi business strategies from our world-class industries through to up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Other chapters focus on education and social awareness, Maori perspectives, and economic insight. The overall goal is to put a much-needed emphasis on New Zealand’s possibilities for cutting-edge careers in the technology sector.
“Business is exciting wherever you’re living, whether it’s Silicon Valley or Wellington or Slovenia,” says Callaghan. “But what’s really exciting is that you can be creative and engage with the world from home, with all the physical beauty of New Zealand at your doorstep.”
“Why shouldn’t it be us?”
The central question of the book comes from Richard Taylor, co-founder of Weta Workshop: “Why shouldn’t it be us? If it can be a company in the heart of Burbank in California, why couldn’t it be a company in the heart of Wellington, New Zealand?” Callaghan applies this philosophy to the country as a whole, citing the successful economic turnarounds of other small countries like Ireland and Finland. But before we can diversify, we need to adjust our self-perception.
“The reason I’ve been writing the book, speaking to audiences, making the documentaries, is because it’s about storytelling. We all know the story of Peter Jackson and Weta, for instance. Any kid can see that there’s great scope for working in the creative sector and movies. But we have wonderful stories to tell about businesses in science and technology, and they’re relatively unknown.”
So in addition to Richard Taylor, Callaghan’s interviews include Mike Daniell, CEO of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare; Peri Drysdale, founder of eco-friendly fashion brand Untouched World; and Murray Broom and Hans van der Voorn from Australo Ltd, a nanotechnology company that got its start from the University of Otago’s Centre for Innovation. He focuses on savvy business leaders and venture capitalists who draw on the strength of New Zealand’s reputation as a clean, green country with a can-do attitude.
By promoting these examples, he hopes to encourage young people to experience the excitement about science that he felt as a child. In his interview with Royal Society CEO Di McCarthy, Callaghan remarks, “I think the world of science and technology is often a rather foreign and strange one for kids growing up in this country. Enabling kids to see a different possibility for themselves in terms of their employment in the future is very, very empowering.”
“The point about it for kids is not that you make a lot of money,” he says. “It’s the kids who want an exciting job and a fulfilling life. Revenues in science and technology industries are very good, but what’s really important is that they’re exciting places to work. The experience I had interviewing these businesses was fabulous. That’s the motivation that really matters – the prospect of an exciting job, competing with the world, being the best at what you do.”
A new direction
Callaghan is confident that New Zealanders have the brainpower and creativity to build the high-tech industries we need, provided that we’re willing to take the risk. The trick will be to ensure that our entrepreneurs don’t have to move to Sydney or New York to be successful.
“The crucial thing here is public engagement, changing perceptions, and developing a national conversation about the prosperity gap,” he says. “It’s not that we don’t generate scientists, it’s that we don’t hold them in the country. In a way, we produce more than we can absorb.”
Some have criticised the book since its release, asserting that investments in agriculture and biotechnology are still important. But for Callaghan, it’s not a question of choosing one over the other.
“Some people get nervous when we say, ‘Don’t we have a great technology sector’ – they think it’s a threat to agriculture. I’m saying, thank god for agriculture, but it can’t do it on its own. And there’s no reason not to invest in technology. These new industries are environmentally benign, they require very little land resources, and there’s no physical limit to the number we can have. The title Wool to Weta means that New Zealand started off with wool, but in the 21st century, we need to add to it.”
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