Interconnections: Aluminum and Japan New Zealand trade

Teacher note

Worksheet

What decisions should New Zealand make about the aluminum smelter, the site in Southland from which New Zealand’s biggest export goes to Japan?

New Zealand secondary school students of social studies are encouraged to learn about social decision-making. The background, the choices and the questions that will come up for New Zealanders make aluminum a useful case study for learning about social decision-making. A balanced understanding of the aluminum issue will also help current and future citizens handle an important issue.

What choices are there?
What is the background?

Key issues in New Zealand’s national development have often been key issues in the Japan New Zealand relationship-and the issues involved in converting Australian bauxite to aluminum with New Zealand hydro power have been and will be important.

So what might New Zealand do in future with the hydro energy it currently sells to make aluminum made possible by Japanese investment, and made profitable by the Japanese market? Are their real choices, or are calls for closing down the smelter inappropriate?

What gains would New Zealanders get as home energy consumers, as employers and employees, as tax payers and as citizens?

What would the implications be for the Japan New Zealand relationship if the hydro energy contract ended?

What decisions might the next generation make, the current and future governments make as contract renegotiations are held about New Zealand Aluminum Smelters.

This chapter of the Kansai through Kiwi eyes DVD offers a number of illustrative examples of social decisionmaking in the New Zealand and Kansai settings, including,

Worksheets can be used to explore the central concept (i.e. social decision-making) of this chapter.

Think of further lines of inquiry for the classroom