Said Luxon: " It will bring new ideas to the table on how we can scale up New Zealand businesses and grow our export-led wealth."
He has already presented draft terms of reference to the Prime Minister and a list of 15 people he suggests should be appointed council members. Ardern was due to review the submission on her return from New York.
"We've got big day jobs, we care about New Zealand, that's why we want to participate in something like this," said Luxon. "But we want to get stuff done and we're not here for a talkfest. We're not here for a gabble, we came to sort some things out. And that's what, uniquely, business can do different from government, different from communities.
'"Governments are great at setting foundations and frameworks and platforms for people to operate businesses on, but we can move at speed. We're fast, we're pragmatic, we're used to solving problems and realising opportunities in our businesses, so that's what we want to do."
Luxon's 15 nominees are from a range of sectors — big end of town, small end, SMEs, regions, women, Māori — "it's a great bunch of people," he said.
To some extent he is taking his lead from an early 2000s business-led response to the "Winter of Discontent" where some enlightened business leaders subsequently worked with Helen Clark's Government on a range of transformative issues.
"It's the same dynamic essentially," said Luxon. "Different sets of players on the political side and also on the business side. But out of that really came the China FTA, the formation of Fonterra, and, also KiwiSaver in some ways. They were big things that were unlocked and created a lot of value and were the right things to do for the long run, irrespective of the politics."
"I really want to put people to work on the six big topics that are going to matter to the average Kiwi."
Said Luxon: "What would it look like if we could give 10 hours back to every small-to-medium enterprise in a month — because they spend most of their time in traffic?
"That leads you to all sorts of interesting notions around congestion charging. It leads you to conversations about infrastructure, domestic infrastructure and investment through super funds."
He contends that SMEs are more knocked around than big business by regulation and "the uncertainty that's happening at the moment".
Also top of mind is securing food and water in New Zealand.
"I think you have to have a discussions on genetics. You have to have a discussion on an agritech type fund. You have to think about an Iron Dome in an Israel sense, but for biology. Then just how do you win the war for investment — high quality investment?"
Luxon doesn't want to go too far down the content side of the council's agenda until the 15 people are appointed. ("Just giving you a flavour of the 'behind the scenes' thinking.")
"That leads you back to what (Spark's) Simon Moutter and I talked about. About a chain of investment because I think this angel investment stuff is a lot of peasant farming, to be honest .
"It's well-intentioned. But actually if you're a young entrepreneur and you end up with a whole bunch of angel investors on your register and you want to go get serious money, and you want $50 million you've got all this detritus that you've created with people that were there just to get you going. And that's not clean then to go in for funding in the States or anywhere else."
Big issues. Big answers to find.
Christopher Luxon's Big Issues
Top Three Business Priorities
Operational planning and delivery skills
Revenue pricing and action
Cost control
Biggest Achievement past 12 months
Strong commercial and cultural results
Single biggest factor that would assist AirNZ to remain internationally competitive
from NZ
Well trained and skilled talent.
Business Council Agenda
Potential topics include:
The Future of Work and Automation;
Vocational training on the Swiss model;
Unlocking cities;
Regional New Zealand;
SMEs;
Investment.
