Are we asking the right questions?

Prepare yourself, this is my first attempt to get a little deep and meaningful

Ahem,

One of my favourite early morning activities, whilst lovingly cradling my morning coffee, is to browse the news sites of the world and see what has been happening outside of my supervision in the last 24 hours.

As I surfed the news site www.nzherald.co.nz, in between stories of school girls uncovering the dastardly Ribena scandal and Brangelina's impending nuptials, I noticed a poll question that got me thinking along the lines of this post's topic.

The question itself was directed towards the always thorny immigration debate, but it's very nature made me wonder if we have become a people who, though well practiced at identifying problems, lack the foundation required to diagnose a solution. So what was the question? It read as follows, "Are there enough people in New Zealand?"

Though I could distil the question's intent, my immediate reaction to it was to respond with a question of my own, "Enough people for what?"

Leaving aside the fact that it is often regarded as poor form to answer a question with another question, this is where my train of thought took me.

To respond such as I was motivated to do may seem flippant, but on dwelling on it a little further, I have come to the conclusion that it may be more worthy of contemplation than I first thought. How can one effectively answer a question if it is not entirely clear what question we are being asked in the first place, or what problem we are attempting to solve?

In this specific case, the goal may be purely biological - do we have enough fertile individuals to continue the propagation of the species. A charming and thoroughly romantic thought, I know. Then there is the economic angle - the need to have a growing, dynamic, skilled workforce. Perhaps we could even consider the sociological angle and think of how we are culturally enriched by the contributions of new immigrants.

So to my mind, the question is impossible to answer unless we know where, as a nation, we intend to go.

Once we know that, we find there is still a greater question that needs answering. Why there?

Now having comprehensively kicked over the hornets nest, I will leave the next step to you. What makes any direction, immigratory or otherwise, worthwhile. How do we then know that is the one worth pursuing?

Please understand that my motivation here is because that we truly care about a better future, being able to ask the right questions is a skill we all need in order to get there.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

- A