Flat earth sailors stick to shallows

By Rod Oram

between the lines

"Bright Future": a giant leap for National; a small shuffle for New Zealand.

It's a start is the best that can be said of the Government's package of policies aimed at nudging the New Zealand economy into the late 20th century.

Given where National's coming from, the policies must have seemed bold to the ministers who signed off on them. But the 30 initiatives are simply timid. They are no more than a slight sharpening of policy focus, a meagre shuffle of money and an attempt to build some new links between business, research and education.

Together, they will be modestly helpful to the economy. They might even help National hang on to power. But alone they will certainly not reverse New Zealand's long term decline. The problems are too profound, the issues too complex for such shallow solutions.

Nothing National said yesterday suggested it had a deep understanding of the essential strengths and weaknesses of the New Zealand economy, how rapidly and fundamentally the world economy is changing and thus how radically we need to reinvent our businesses.

"People drink our wine in America and wear our fashion garments in Britain. Here, we drive Japanese cars and eat Italian ice creams," was about as sophisticated as Enterprise and Commerce Minister Max Bradford got in his analysis yesterday.

The truth is we are a very small nation of very small businesses on the very edge of the world. We are earning such a poor living we are running up deficits on our trade and current accounts.

But don't despair. We have attributes some other countries don't. Our land is productive and beautiful. We are creative, resilient, innovative and determined people. When we put our minds to it, we win big - usually in sports and sometimes in business.

We win when we do things our way. We lose when we try to emulate others. Thus, we will only earn a better living if we find solutions that play to the very nature of the New Zealand economy. To do that we have to devise truly new and radical policies which unleash the potential of individuals and companies.

But instead of seeking those, National's flat earthers sailed off the edge of their limited universe to discover the "secrets" of success of small countries such as Ireland and Finland. So it was no surprise we ended up yesterday with a pale imitation of some of those countries' minor tactics. Labour and the Alliance are offering the same but more of it.

While we tiptoe around at the bottom of the learning curve on economic development, other countries are romping ahead with policies which are more radical, harder hitting and much more tightly co-ordinated. But at least we have begun.