Anderton at Queen Charlotte School prize giving

Speech to the Queen Charlotte School prize giving, 173 Waikawa Rd, Picton

Thank you for the invitation to be here for your prize giving. I first came to Queen Charlotte College in late 2003. The aquaculture academy here was new then and I came here for the launch of the Academy's research vessel.

As you've probably heard, the government has just earmarked $2.9 million to help councils plan for aquaculture. Marlborough is leading the country in the aquaculture industry and we'll be recommending other councils to look at how you're doing things in this region.

And obviously Queen Charlotte College has an important part to play in the development of the industry. In the months and years since I was first here, this school and this region have gone from strength to strength. Your roll is growing. The Nelson and Marlborough regions are growing. There are more opportunities than ever before.

You are standing at the dawn of the most exciting century in the history of humanity. And the message I have for you is that you can be part of those opportunities from right here, in Picton.

I want to tell you a few stories that show you how anyone can achieve their dreams, no matter where they're from.

The first is about a boy I went to school with. He was interested in engineering; he used to fix cars in his shed. One day he announced he was going to build a car that would win the motor race up Mt Eden.

Everyone laughed; the other entries were famous sports cars like Aston Martons and Austin Healys. The school we went to was not one of the most famous in Auckland. It was a bit like this one.

This kid turned up with a home-built machine that looked like nothing on earth, raced up Mt Eden in first gear at 80 m.p.h. and won the New Zealand hill climb championship.

His name was Bruce McLaren and his name is still one of the prestige marques in world Formula One motor racing.

The lesson is that no matter what school you are from, if you follow your dream you can succeed. I was impressed to read this school punches above its weight in sports. I hear the first XV won the top of the south rugby tournament. That's a good feeling isn't it?

Success on the football field raises makes the whole school feel proud. And it's even better knowing you've achieved your success when you're not from the biggest school, or the school with the most advantages.

We're good at celebrating sporting success. And I wish we would learn to celebrate all our success with as much energy and pride.

We need to learn to celebrate our scientists and artists and our successful business people with the same energy we reserve for the All Blacks. We are brilliantly creative and talented in New Zealand. I think it's because we're far away from the rest of the world, we're used to having the freedom to try things out.

Our great scientist Lord Rutherford was from this part of the country, and he said, "We don't have much money in New Zealand, so we have to think." Our innovation and creativity is world-beating.

A couple of years ago the government ran a competition for students to develop a business plan for an international business.

It was part of a global competition - high school students from seventeen countries competed. They had to come up with an idea for a smart business and work through how to build it - where the money was coming from, how they would market it, how they would produce their product and so on.

At the end of the competition, there was a global video link and we tuned in from all over the world to find out who won. It was New Zealand.

And so the following year every other country thought, 'if New Zealand can do this, it can't be hard, so we'll try harder.' And they all stepped up their efforts and entries again flowed in from all over the world.

And we held a breakfast in Wellington, and everyone tuned in around the world once again to find out who had won. And once again - it was us!

So just because you're from New Zealand, doesn't mean you can't take on the world and win. Just as New Zealand is to the world, so is Picton; so is Queen Charlotte.

A few years ago one of the world's biggest management advice companies tried to analyse the future of global business. And they realised that some of the world's biggest companies in twenty years haven't even been started yet. Most of the products that will be on shop shelves in the years ahead haven’t even been invented yet.

Ten years ago, no one in the world had heard of 'Google'; Now it's one of the most recognisable names on Earth.

There is no reason why ideas, innovation, talent and creativity bred here at the top of the South Island can't be the next generation of world beating ideas.

We have a history of innovative and visionary young New Zealanders who have come up with brilliant world-beating ideas.

For example, Bill Gallagher was just 26 years old when he made his first electric fence for sale, in 1937. His electric fence business grew from being just a way to hold animals in, to becoming a world beating animal management system.

His electric fence units are now used in over a hundred countries. They're used in all sorts of primary sectors. In Canada, they use them to protect beehives from bears.

Another example is William Goodfellow. He helped to shape our dairy industry. When he was just 29, he formed the Waikato Dairy Company. He worked at testing products and training so that the skills and knowledge of the industry always had an edge. He worked to pull small, inefficient dairy companies together, so they worked together. His vision helped us to build the most efficient dairy industry in the world. It's New Zealand's most successful business.

It was never inevitable that New Zealand would have the best dairy sector in the world. Other countries grow grass and produce milk. It was the vision of young, talented people like Goodfellow that made it happen.

Individual leaders make things happen; things happen only because individuals put their effort and talent into making them happen.

Take Bill Hamilton, who was just twelve years old when he first built a water wheel. The wheel drove a small generator, which lit his family homestead in Canterbury and operated a lathe. A few years later he got sick of breaking the propeller in his boat on the stones in our rocky, shallow, fast-flowing South Island rivers.

So he sat down and did some research and came up with what was called the hydro-jet water propulsion system. In 1960 he took a jet boat to the Colorado River in the US, and everyone laughed at him.

He lined it up in the Grand Canyon - no one had ever taken a boat up there before because the river was too rocky and shallow. Off he went, and he became the first person ever to navigate the Grand Canyon. He brought his idea back and turned Hamilton Jet into one of New Zealand's most successful manufacturing businesses.

All these New Zealanders succeeded through their drive and determination.

There are many ingredients that go into making success. The support of your family is vital, often there is some luck. Your school and education provide you with a foundation of skills and knowledge you can develop. But there is never a time when education and learning stop.

When you leave your school, it just takes a different form. So the most important ingredient in success is your own determination and vision. Only you can make the difference you make. If you decide to do something - only you can make your contribution.

Others can emulate it, but no one can replace your uniqueness. We are all born with different skills and different gifts. It is not our inherited skills that define who we are, though. It is the choices we make about what to do with them.

There has never been a time when there have been so many exciting choices to be made. A few years ago I used to receive letters from parents who were desperate about the choices New Zealand offered young people. They would go deeply into debt studying courses for which there were no jobs at the end.

Sometimes young adults trying to enter the workforce would train and retrain and find themselves repeatedly rejected.

Today the opportunities are much richer. For young people entering the paid workforce, there have never been as many jobs.

Unemployment is lower than in almost any developed country and lower than it's been in nearly two generations. There is huge demand for skilled and talented young New Zealanders. And there is an insatiable demand for innovation and creativity - for people to make the most of the skills and opportunities around us.

I want to congratulate prize winners at tonight's ceremony. You are being recognised for your talents and creativity and it's a pleasure to see that you are being recognised for it.

The real challenge begins now, as you take the skills you have learned and decide for yourself how to use them. As you go on from here, I wish you, and everyone who comes through Queen Charlotte, all the very best for a marvelous future.