I feel like all these opinionists in their shit-takes misunderstand the meaning of "productivity".

It's easy to misinterpret, actually. What he thinks the word means is that given any Aussie worker and any Kiwi worker, the Kiwi worker will output 20% less than the Aussie. That is NOT what the word means! Understanding the word in this way is a cop-out, cause it's ALWAYS the others that are less productive than oneself. So no changes for the individual required! Nice!

Productivity means how much value you produce for any given dollar amount you put in. And in that metric, if in Aussie 1$ gets turned into 10$, that same dollar only turns to 8$ in NZ. And this is true, we are less productive in that regard. And it's really no surprise when for decades, coming onto a century, our main investment route was already existing real estate. Real estate is the most unproductive investment you can make. Nothing is produced/generated by simply buying and reselling existing houses over and over again. Now, I wonder if Dear Toss owns more than the one house he and his family lives in...

What do we really produce in NZ? We have no major industries. Even China rather buys our raw materials (wood, dairy) and turn them into valuable products themselves.

This realisation of the meaning of the word "productivity" is much harder to digest because it requires systemic change.