What Next is about to start,... ...and you're going to need your phone or computer with you,... ...because this really is a conversation with you. Join the rest of the country at whatnext.nz. And when we ask you a question, all you've got to do is press that button on your device. It couldn't be any easier. So join in now. What will our economic landscape look like in 2037? If technology has disrupted every aspect of our lives, what will we do for work and how will we pay the bills? Will the gap between the rich and poor widen or close up? Welcome to What Next? I think New Zealand has a big problem with inequality, and it's not going to get better. I think profit is definitely not a business' number one priority. It's about people. All the time about people. In the future, everything is going to be automated. People just aren't going to have a reason to turn up to work in the physical form any more. I would like to be a police officer in the future, but I am worried that they will be using robots or AI. I'm a solo mum. I don't think a robot could ever do my job. I believe it's time for us to make some drastic changes. We have increasing levels of poverty. People are finding it really hard to make ends meet, and we need to do something. We need to come up with some big plans, and we need to do that now. Kia Ora, and welcome. What Next is a live conversation with you about what we want New Zealand to be like in 20 years ` the year 2037. Tonight is about our jobs and money. But first, last night we talked about the environment ` about what we can do to have the future we want. We asked you at the end whether you were Plan A ` think we are on the right track ` or Plan B ` needing some new ideas. And you guys were pretty clear. 91% saying Plan B ` meaning we should try some new ideas. We receive some interesting feedback. Morry from Te Awamutu said... And that is very timely feedback. Where talking about worldwide issues. How do we make the future we want? And what parts of what we've always done will we have to leave behind? But if right now just putting food on your table is hard enough, then you can understand why we don't want to do planning. How do we, at a personal level, care more about the future? Welcome back again. She raises a really good point. When today is really difficult how do you think about tomorrow? I can relate to that coming from the rural far north. I know what it is to come from a community facing that social inequality. And I think that is really important to consider the future because I don't want that for my family or future generations. And we are a them to think about how we're going to work out some solutions so we don't have virtue eight the inequality that we are facing. Comprehension is really difficult. If you can't see what is happening in the future, it is easy to stay where you are. And there is also their physical response of flight or fight and that is something that comes into play immediately. It doesn't kick into 20 years before it happens. I do feel like in some ways it is bad you are dumping extra things to think about. A lot of people in New Zealand aren't in those positions of deprivation and we need more of those people to think about it on behalf the people that are struggling today largely could be attributed to in the past not thinking enough about the future so the point about the discussion is thinking about how to avoid the kinds of things that we don't want to exist any more. I work on the knee and social inequality is linked. There are ways we can systematically change. We have had a lot of shocksover the last hundred years this is another shock we have to deal with and it is going to create some harm and pain and once you acknowledge that it really and powers you as a responsibility to bring about change. Tonight we'll dig deeper into what might to happen to New Zealand economically. And for many of us, our personal economy is about our job. So, what might happen at your workplace in 2037? Come in. Sit down, please. Unfortunately, it was the news we were expecting. Your position has been disestablished. I know this is very difficult news for you, and it's going to take a little processing. The reality is customers are very clear ` they simply don't trust human accountants as much as AI accountants. Machines are more efficient, more accurate and, well, cheaper than a human. You know, if it were me, I'd keep you. You've been a great team member, and we all really like you! But let's make it official. Can I please get your handprint? Earlier this week we touched on what automation could do to our economy ` basically that it's got massive potential to dramatically increase inequality. And now we want to ask it again in a slightly different way ` if there's less work, that means less income, and that's something we have to address. So will your job exist in 20 years' time? Go to whatnext.nz to add your voice to the discussion. Right now, 83% of you do think your job will exist in the future. This is a fascinatingly high number. Rising inequality is of concern to most of us in 2017. It's been getting worse and worse over the last 30 years. Homelessness, child poverty, over-crowding, struggling from week to week. Some of you will know the reality personally. Even people with jobs struggle in our main cities. And jobs are disappearing. This is where the tech stuff gets frightening. And if you think about when Kodak went broke ` because digital cameras killed them ` it had over 100,000 employees. But when Instagram sold to Facebook for $1 billion, there were around 16 people working there. That gives us pause for even more thought. And it's already happening here. New Zealand Post has just bought a new machine that does sorting, which is great. The problem is around 200 people have lost their jobs because of it. Jobs aren't just about income, the ability to pay the bills and buy the groceries. They're also about the dignity of labour, the sense of purpose you have when you have work. How do we deal with people who are losing that? Oh, look, everyone, no matter where you are on the spectrum of society, you need to be fully aware that automation is coming. At some point, this automation is going to affect us. We've seen it in Europe. Automation is kind of huge in Europe, and we are catching up to it. So we can't be complacent. We need to be looking at how we can transfer and support people into other areas of employment and help them train, because training is going to be a critical component of that. You shouldn't be afraid of automation. Just like getting out of bed in the morning, it is a reality. I think the government needs to look at the funding mechanism to support it. We need to look at how we are engaging with our school children. We need to be engaging with industry and seeing them taking some responsibility for putting a contribution into that. And from an individual perspective, we need to make sure that we're not closing off our minds to change, because the world changes on a daily basis, and we need to embrace it. The thing that really impresses me with Joe is that he says we can't afford to complacent. And I think anyone at this table` it is going to be hard and difficult but if we embrace it now and engage I think New Zealanders can do it. I get a bit freaked out about technology and jobs because I think a lot of more people will lose their jobs should I be worried? 100,000 retailers in America lost their jobs in the last six months. But the employers they need in the e-commerce world is equal to that number. So you have to transition those skills from one field into another and it is a matter of where the new opportunities come from so should be pessimistic it's an opportunity to retrain and step forward. This is about the first time since send us your revolution that there have been placards out saying the end of workers nine where machines and computers came we know what is true is that new jobs are created we can't imagine them today but they come. And then our families and communities are resilient and we find opportunity. That makes me feel more reassured. Cindy Kiro believes we need to change our attitude to inequality. I think the biggest barrier is actually attitudinal and belief barriers. The belief that if we have inequality that somehow people who are experiencing it are somehow to blame for it. And if we can think that they're to blame, we can basically surrender our humanity and our common commitment to helping them. So we have to change our mind-set and we have to see that people matter, especially in tough times, especially if they're vulnerable, either because of age or disability or because of youth, or because they were born poor. And we have an obligation to help them ` we have an obligation and also a benefit. We benefit when people do well ` all of us. Inside I am chairingbecause I believe that. But is there an attitude around a Inquality? Ssince you have been alive we have had the ability to eradicate poverty globally and in your entire lifetime there's been no need for an equality as we know now. And we couldn't feel like that is a choice on us but it is a choice and decision. It is a decision that governments and businesses have made and ultimately our communities right the moral code and the politicians and acted and the businesses act on it. And we'll come back to that. We are getting an enormous amount of feedback on Facebook. Natalie from Wellington says Natalie's pointers that she can do stuff robots can't. That she has the human equation. Such as being a solo mother. When we look at New Zealand Post, they look that investing in worker retraining and that is something that employers are laying people off have to think about. Next, we're going to look at another of the possible responses to the job losses ahead. So, do you think your job will or won't exist in 20 years? And just a reminder of how the gauges work. Here 82% of you think your job will exist in 20 years, which is Plan A thinking, so the gauge is purple. And this white line shows us how strongly you believe that, from 50% to 100%. What we can see is a big white line, so this is a very strong belief in the Plan A view that your job will still be here in 20 years. One response to the problem of large-scale job loss is a radical idea called the Universal Basic Income. In short, everyone gets an amount of money, no questions asked. Instead of a myriad of benefits and the pension and so on, everyone gets the same amount. It's controversial, and this time last year, the Swiss rejected it in a referendum. But as The Economist said, it's an idea gaining ground. The UBI has support on the left because it addresses issues of poverty, and support on the right because it means less bureaucracy ` there's no means testing; the government just gives you the money. You might think that sounds like a crazy idea, but it's now being trialled in over 15 countries around the world. One of the common objections people have, aside from the whole issue of how we pay for it, is that if you give people money, they won't want to work. Now, the University of Auckland's New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study made a statement ` if incomes were more equal, people would be less inclined to work hard ` and 57% of people said they agreed. So that's what we think, but what does the evidence actually say? So we've got some really good data, actually, starting right back at the '70s, showing that when people get unconditional cash, they use it in the way that they see best to fund their own well-being, I guess is a way to describe it. So families who get unconditional cash spend it on their children, and we see these massive improvements in their health, in their involvement in crime, in their educational attainment, in parents' mental well-being, so we see these vast improvements in not just the children but in the whole family ecosystem as well. That's Jess Berentson-Shaw. But a UBI is totally unaffordable, isn't it? Is there anything going for this? I think the nature of the study is interesting. One of the comments as people will not work as hard. That is one of the benefits of a universal basic income. You can share the workload across communities and people who want to can work less and be involved with their children more. We don't want to work longer hours or harder. It is a bold idea but we need to have bold ideas because we are facing something that is pretty big here. What we are finding as we have perceptions about what that might look like but there are a number of benefits to things like the universal basic income. In terms of reskilling. People have the opportunity to step out and take the time to re-skill into a role that can be of benefit to society. What is government's responsibility to support communities that are significantly affected by disruption. Through no fault of their own. From the government's perspective this is financially viable because it is saving costs in other places. There is less poverty -related healthcare cost. You lose the impact on the criminal justice system. You save money other places. For a society it is the question of what government need to do to engage with the reality that 80% of jobs that people think they will have a really hope they do, but I'm not sure they will. I am not convinced that UBI is what we need right now. But it needs to be part of the suite of options that we look at. It is good to have these discussions and we need to know how many jobs will be lost. People can move on to new jobs. If we don't have replacement jobs then we are in trouble. Will our current system ` or indeed our whole society ` function if that many people aren't working? Eric Crampton, from the New Zealand Initiative, an economic think tank, doesn't think it will. I don't think there's a world that works with 46% unemployment rates. I think there'd be... You can get to that world, but you've already had the collapsing government and a revolution. So I don't think there's a government response to 46% unemployment rates, because I don't think you'd have government any more at that point. There would be riots prior and terrible things happening. Even unemployment rates of 30% or 20% are not really sustainable over any longer period. People get very upset with unemployment and rightly so. Rightly so. I don't know about this whole episode. I can't get to grips with a lot of the stuff in a way that makes me feel like we are dealing with in the right way. There was a time we didn't think about life as a job. People just grew vegetables and live in a neighbourhood and live sustainably. Today we call that unemployment. If you are a full-time mum that is also unemployment today. It is a question about what a job is and what it might be in the future. We are talking too much about job losses rather than job changes. We are getting too dystopian on some of the stuff. I am not sure if we are being paying enough attention and investment into how creative Kiwis are and we have always created thousands of ways to live a livelihood. In Cambodia at 5000 people built Angkor Wat. We keep moving on aS society. I wanted to be more upbeat and positive. I have done lots of stories on the working poor. There are a lot of people in this town like that. We met a woman who was doing split shifts and she still wasn't getting enough money. How do we look after them when there are not jobs for her to split shift in? I hope you are right Derek. We need policy innovation and try everything. I'm into experimentation. We need to look at things in new ways. There are no good reasons why anyone should be in those conditions when they working those jobs. It has been a choice as a country and as a world to have poverty. In our lifetime we can make a choice not to. The only place poverty should be is in the museum. Thank you so much. We are going to talk about a lot tonight and in our last program. There will be some people yelling at the telly right now which I will tell them not to since we can't hear them. So this is a really big idea and a challenging one ` Should New Zealand trial a universal basic income? A small town, for example, for maybe a year? To answer, go to whatnext.nz, hit the 'load next question' button, and tell us what you think. And we are really interested in what you think about this one, New Zealand. And here's what you're saying now. Lisa in Wellington says... No! My hairdresser said they have robot headdresses. You put your head in spinning blades. Next ` we're going to look at why 'business as usual' in the future might mean no business at all. What do you shop for? Value? Quality? Of course. But consumers are becoming more conscious about sustainability and about company behaviour ` treating workers more fairly, for example. Profit motivates business, but will profit still be the fundamental driver of business in 20 years' time? The problem with business as usual is that there is no business as usual. With the big trends of what's happening in the world with water shortages, energy, climate change, biodiversity issues, social issues, means that it is impossible for a business to operate in a world which has large inequalities and climate change. So business has no choice but to shift from what we currently know as 'business as usual' to a business which is fit for the future, and that is a business that is about people and planet as well as profit. She is really on to something here. And in New Zealand we can be proud because Maori have been doing this for generations. We work with enterprises that focus on that. And it is good to see the rest of the world joining us on that. You are also seeing youth coming through with a different focus. Social entrepreneurs is driving them. When it means something to them and their community. More so than our parents communication. We can connect our passions with business and makinga difference. Young people believe that the purposes of business is to do good in the community. They do a survey every year that says this. We are getting to the point that business should solve social problems and if the existing for other reasons they don't deserve that. That is becoming a much more mainstream issue. And it has happened before. We have had business revolution is where we decided as a society that slavery was unacceptable and that woman deserve equal pay. Businesses evolve to the moral expectations of our community. And we want to do good. We spoke to a millennial business owner, Bonnie Howland, and she definitely seems to agree. I think the problem with traditional business models is that we maximise profit to the point where it's done at the expense of the environment and people impacted by the company. I think profit sharing is a really amazing way to not only benefit a small percentage of people within the company, but actually have a positive impact on the world with your profit. I think with my generation soon to be leaders of New Zealand businesses in this nation and their growing demands for ethical business, this is absolutely the future. She is really inspiring. and 50% of her net profit goes towards the Fred Hollows Foundation, so for every three mascaras sold, one person in the Pacific Islands gets their eyesight restored. I look at my own business and social entrepreneurship is interesting. It is a profit business with a social calling. And how do we teach 40,000 children a year by using a commercial opportunity from other parts of my business to help subsidise the ability to reach more children. As a business owner we don't have to say is one another. You have the areas they grow your business sustainability and then also having a strong social calling. We have done a similar thing where we reinvest 100% of profits and we will continue to do that and we also building up other parts of our bills this to be sustainable. Large New Zealandas this is do this. I am a fan of the smaller New Zealand business I think they're amazing how they have legacy and do a lot of work behind the scenes. So there is a whole continuum of what we want to do. It does feel often there is cynicism that businesses are just out to rip people off. A lot of them are. People should be cynical. You're talking about something different where you take profit and do philanthropic. And that is the old way. You have made money your whole life and then you give it away. Were talking about a way of making money in a new way we're looking at a problem in society and create a business to solve that problem and then you can decide how much profit you want to make. But it's a way of thinking we need to head towards. But from my axe parents in creating a nonprofit the high business leaders are thinking this is the only way of doing it. The B team is in just a couple of people in Hamilton. This is major corporations that think it is about people. We have had the system that we invented of capitalism it works for a lot of amazing things but it hasn't brought everyone along with it. We need to rethink it and redesign and because we just invented it. And it makes good business sense to do that. Egress business the cultures and businesses. Even some businesses see inequality is a real issue and are looking for ways to share what they have with people who have less ` effectively personally chosen wealth redistribution. How does Eat My Lunch work? If someone buys a lunch from us for $12, it gets delivered to them at their office, and for every lunch they buy, we give one to a kid in a low-decile school. So it's buy one, give one. People buy our lunches because of the good that we're doing. And when they buy it, it funds that good, so they kind of feed off each other. Is Eat My Lunch effectively a form of wealth redistribution? It is. It's people who can actually afford lunch buying a lunch not just for themselves but for kids who can't afford it. When you first approached a bank for funding, they turned you down? Yeah, the bank manager basically said to us he thought it was a stupid idea and how are we ever going to make money by giving away free lunches. When we first started out of our home, we thought we were just going to make 50 lunches a day. And then in the third week, we were making 400 a day, and then by 12 weeks, we hit our three-year forecast. Eat My Lunch has really shown and proven in a very short period of time that you can do good and make money at the same time. Businesses have to survive. Do you think profit is the most important thing for a business? Tell us what you think at whatnext.nz and hit the 'load new question' button to answer. We are getting so much feedback tonight. When we were discussing before, I raced out to talk to Facebook people. And they say engagement is off the scales. And this is fascinating. Let's look at whether you think New Zealand should trial a UBI. Two only trial it as in Finland to see how it works. 72% of you said yes to a trial. Which is three quarters of the people responding and well over 100,000 people have voted. These are huge samples and that is a very striking response. And I have just gone off script because we were talking before and I said 70 to 80% were trial at because I rate the people of this country. I pooh-poohed it. Next ` what would happen to a company if the workers become the bosses? Now, here's a crazy idea ` what if there were no more bosses? What if we ran businesses like a democracy? We live in a democratic society, and we talk a lot about how important democratic engagement is. But when you think about it, a lot of people grow up in families that are basically dictatorships; they go to school and that's a dictatorship; and then they go into the workplace, which is a hierarchy and kind of a dictatorship. When are we meant to have the chance to practice the skills of democracy, democratic deliberation, in our everyday lives? I think it's really important that we do find those times to practice, and one interesting place to do that is in the workplace. If we have democratically run companies, we can practice engaging with each other in democratic ways every day. We're going to be better and more effective as citizens engaging in our democracy. I think it is really important that we have got young people that are pioneering new business models. I am not convinced about a completely democratic workplace because talking takes a long time amongst the Maori community I know how long that can take. But it is really important that someone is pioneering the new while also recognising that not all of us have the choice to go and work in that kind of environment. I have the choice to explore freelancing or join a cooperative or take a pay cut which I did my current job, but my parents did not have that. And a lot of New Zealand does not have that luxury which I think is why it is important that people pioneer new models so we can slowly move. Mainstream is not going to lead us. But our quirky entrepreneurs well. It is really interesting thinking of my own farmer, a farmer and then a builder and now in semiretirement and air B&B owner. He would not imagine even three years ago that would be one of his forms of revenue and retirement. I think a lot of people that I have hired that I worked with a New Zealand would not be interested in voting on decisions in the workplace and they want to leave the decision-making to other people and want to enjoy the day. Experimenting with democracy in the workplace seems bizarre when you can't get people to show up once every three years to vote for people to lead the country we should focus on that first as a democratic exercise. There is a circular logic here that we need to think about. If we want government to have the taxes to play pay the UBI we need businesses to be confident. This is what we are having right now. A democratic discussion. This is the reinvention of business models. I don't off I was on TV before when you were pointing at Sacha, but you need someone to take control sometimes. But other times you can work with people in a democratic way. But expect the web if you are applying for a job with Derek. I said people don't want to vote on everything all day long. Root Systems in Wellington is run by the workers ` all six of them. And they pay themselves a basic income ` $3500 a month. If you don't work or you're sick, you still get that amount. And if you do work, you get more. That was actually one of the requirements when I made this ` that this should be so flexible that someone can say, 'I'm just going to work one day a week on external stuff, 'two days on internal and take the other two days off.' The idea of paying everyone equally came out of wanting internally to value everyone equally. It comes out of us wanting to build a group that will be together for the next 20 years, 30 years. We don't want to be setting up a system where someone's going to feel rubbish and leave because they've found a better opportunity. We want this to be the best opportunity possible. But our whole economic system is based on the idea that you pay people what they're worth ` some people get paid more. Who says that? Everyone. I don't. I think that's poppycock. If everybody gets paid equally, won't some people slack off? If you're an owner, then by not working hard or by you not delivering, you risk, in the end, just shooting yourself in the foot, because when the going gets tough, then there's nothing to pay you. There's nothing for you to live off of. If everyone in the group did that, the company would cease to be. We are getting to push ourselves professionally, we are getting to push ourselves socially, we are getting to push ourselves technically in ways that you would never be able to do if you were inside an organisation. Is this a model for the future? Absolutely. I don't think we can do anything but this. His conviction is amazing. How much he believes in this model. Similar to the last one creative, exploratory ideas that are nice. I don't think that on the fringes they can create change. There are cooperatives that can scale. People can get paid differently. I think it is nice. I disagree. New Zealand is a whole country of small businesses and I think this type of business model going forward with say six people who don't want to go on their own and they all go into and take a bit of risk and maybe create something amazing. He was saying it was the only way. I am saying it is on the fringes. It is great. For social enterprise when people get together bound around a common vision and they want to make change are invested in that decision. You can do it so many different ways. You don't have to all be paid the same. There are thousands of ways to approach the problem. The second part of the questionwhat is businesses role in redistributing wealth and what is their role in solving poverty? And New Zealand is saying with an 80% vote that businesses should pursue more than profit. We have an evolving moral contract that business should solve poverty to some extent and that we should explore new ways, recognising that we have to have profit to be able to do any of that. Profit is not a bad thing. As long as it is a means not an end. It is an ecosystem. It all needs to be aligned. I want to see every young person, old person, New Zealand together embraced and going for it and making it happen. This is conversation about things are really important. Some people would have never thought of business this way. We are having it at 9 o'clock on TV one on a Tuesday night. I did not participate in at all. Is this the future of our workplaces? Worker co-ops? I have no idea what you are going to talk about next Nigel. So would you take a lower wage if you got a share of the profits? Go to whatnext.nz, press the 'load next question' button, and tell us what you think. Now let's see what you think about the question of whether profit should be the most important thing for a business. Here is the thing that is tremendously reassuring. 80% of the country across the board are saying that it is a good thing. David from Northland says... And let's look at the results because that is what is it says. New Zealand she is your opinion. 80% of people think profit should not be the most important thing in a business. I guarantee you there will be a load of business owners who will have voted the same thing. If you look at that across-the-board it is orange all the way. Everybody all over New Zealand all across the country agrees with that sentiment. Next ` we pull all this together as we look at what kind of economy you want in the future. Welcome back. We have discussed acknowledge the automation and the environment What will our jobs look like in 2037? there's been many Segways and wild discussion. What is the most important thing that we need to take from this? People need to take away optimism. So they can plan forward and give people choice. To look at different business models and ways we can give back to the community there is a lot of hope in the country that we can do this. I agree and I think that is one of the most important things to move towards and that is optimism. We have looked at how businesses can play a different role we need to move to a new one. We have had a discussion about measuring poverty and I think we should decide on having a goal of eliminating an entirely. And we should create that conversation nationally. I want to pick up on the idea of optimism and choice. And for those who have come out and voted tonight and those in the comments that are coming through and that we can't take something that were passionate about and do something or make a change I say go and do that. Is important that we find a passion and connect with people around that and that we trial something and try and build an enterprise. If we learn and fail that is cool. We need courageous people to test. My takeaway is an equality. And that is the most dangerous thing for New Zealand society. It creates less cohesion and then we have such things as Brexit and Trump. And I don't want that for New Zealand. And I don't think New Zealand wants and either. If we need to address inequality in this changing world, government has a responsibility and business to and what I'm really heartened by tonight as both of those things we've talked about it together and it comes down to what community expects to be right. And I believe New Zealand's pulse about what is right. Five words. Innovative, aligned, healthy and vibrant ecosystem. Thank you, futurists. It has been wonderful conversation tonight. Thank you all. You can hear more from the futurists live on Facebook after What Next finishes. So would you take a lower wage if you got a share of the profits? And what is really interesting is that 78% of people said that they would. And if you look at the country it is across the board. Sorry John you go I am fired up because New Zealand is awesome. So tonight, this is how you voted. As you recall, purple is Plan A ` you think we're on the right course ` and orange is Plan B ` you think we need some bold new ideas. 80% say is profit the most important. Businesses won't exist without profit. But is profit the most important? 80% said no. And they want to share and have some participation in the game and share the rewards of your labours. And UBI to run a trial 73%. We still struggle with the idea of technology take our jobs. 79 think the jobs. Our last question of the night is ` do you want Plan A or Plan B for the future of our economy? Plan A is either you think that our economy is working efficiently and will meet all of our needs in the future or Plan B would be things like a UBI experiment and businesses that value other things, like social good, not just profit. We have had about hundred and 50,000 votes. So these are meaningful reflections of how you feel. We'll reveal the results of the last question and New Zealand's vision for the future ` a roadmap for New Zealand 2037 ` on Thursday night. Tomorrow we're going to look at how our lifestyles are going to be impacted by all these changes. I will set out the back and watch the Facebook conversation. And I recommend it. If you want to continue the conversation, head to Facebook now, where ` thanks to the support of University of Auckland ` we are hosting a live-stream think tank where our futurists will be discussing the comments and choices you made tonight. See you live tomorrow at 8.30 to find out about housing and health and more in 2037. Captions by Antony Vlug and Ingrid Lauder. www.able.co.nz