A divided country is an unhealthy country, both economically and socially. We have record low unemployment but huge demand for school lunches and food parcels, and families struggling to make ends meet. Crime/law and order is a major problem.
Both the economic and social ledger are unbalanced and pushing boundaries. Measures of unsustainability such as inflation and the current account deficit are flashing red.
We need real leadership, not populism driven leadership out of this mess. There should be some things we can agree on across the political divide.
The first is the importance of containing inflation, the thief that is literally throttling households and businesses. Inflation is an imbalance between supply and demand, or too much money chasing too few goods. We either get supply up (our economic capacity) or demand takes a bigger bludgeoning.
Policies aimed at stimulating supply (immigration settings, childcare support, boosting competition, lowering compliance costs) need turbocharged. The alternative is a bigger bludgeoning of demand and the economy.
The second is the importance of education. Education today defines the economy in 30 years. The school kids of today are the business owners and leaders of tomorrow. We are in trouble if you look at attendance and achievement. So, when it comes to prospects of a tax cut or ploughing money into education, I’ll take the latter.
The third is putting people back to the epicentre of what we do.
When I first joined the National Bank of New Zealand in 1999, Sir John Anderson told us to look after the staff because they looked after the customer and if the customer is looked after, the bank will make money. It did. Customer satisfaction scores were looked at before financial results.
The pecking order was people, customer, and shareholder. That order got flipped with the shareholder placed at the top of the pile and shareholder capitalism ruled.
Stakeholder capitalism now rules. That is a fancy name for being community connected, thinking more about sustainability et al. What it really personifies is just getting back to the basics of looking after people.
The fourth is stamping out short-termism. Short-termism is a plaque that needs eliminated. NZ embraces some long-term challenges (climate change) but ignore others such as the fiscal cost of an aging population. Election cycles drive decisions.
The fifth is the importance of time. Time is incredibly valuable. But without your health, time is worthless. So, we need to fix the health system.
The sixth is economics 101 – well-being needs an economic base.
New Zealand’s economic base is being eroded. Export of goods volumes are below 2019 levels. NZ’s pastoral base is being eroded. Trees are taking out productive land. We need to be aggressively unlocking growth opportunities to fill growth voids. That is not occurring.
Productivity sits are the epicentre of the economic base and within that is the quality of infrastructure. Potholes around the country on our roads are not just a problem, they are becoming a national disgrace.
The seventh is collective responsibility. The environment is one issue of our age. The question is increasingly what are YOU going to do about it.
NZ cannot turn the dial on global emissions, but we are prepared to do our part as global citizens.
Farmers are under the spotlight, but the townie conversations are light. Imagine if households had the equivalent of a farm environment plan? Urban issues go beyond transport. Urban issues include effluent disposal (those things we flush that we shouldn’t), rubbish disposal including fatbergs (drips of fat down the drain), urban water use rates, and heavy metals in waterways via copper brake-pads, spouting and zinc roofing.
Other household environmental issues include the use of water, use of household chemicals and cleaners, pesticides (spraying for garden bugs, spiders and flies), fertilisers and not washing your car on the driveway or hosing it off into the gutter (think of the gutter as the farmers stream).
The eight is execution and delivering results. You need the right people using data to make informed decisions so outcomes have a better probability of being successful. The era of sugar candy economics and just throwing money around is over. Now we need substance. The former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom learnt that in a savage fashion.
The ninth is the playing field. It is not level. Everyone in life does not get the same start. Proactive policies are needed to address it.
There are lots of other issues we need to address.
The above list are just some things we should be able to get some sort of a consensus on. Then the challenge is to write a policy prescription around them.
The views expressed in this article do not represent financial advice.
