Natural gifts need leadership

By DANIEL RIORDAN

New Globalco boss Craig Norgate may lack the footspeed Tony O'Reilly showed in 1959, but the man now known as Sir Anthony would change places in a flash.

Sir Anthony, executive chairman of Dublin-based Independent News and Media (owner of the Herald), says the challenges facing Mr Norgate, his industry and his country have New Zealand poised on the cusp of a very special future.

"You have a new dairy board here, a very dynamic chief executive officer, 36 years of age. I envy him his job. It's a wonderful job. You can create an image for this country which tells the world New Zealand, by its history and geography, is the most ecologically pure country in the world."

Sir Anthony, who until last year was also chairman of global food giant HJ Heinz, knows a thing or two about marketing a country's natural wealth. He earned his spurs almost 40 years ago with the Irish Dairy Board when he masterminded the launch of Kerrygold butter.

"When I launched Kerrygold it was simply a gleam in my eye. Now it's a $3 billion to $4 billion brand that goes to 85 countries all over the world. So it's not a theory, it's a reality. What you've got to do is believe as a nation that flair and ethos ... create great new images.

"Not just with dairy, but with all foodstuffs where New Zealand can exploit its natural gifts.

"If I were 40 years younger and a Kiwi, my aim would be to feed Japan, to try to make us the suppliers of temperate foodstuffs to the whole Far East and make our standard the standard of quality for which we'll get a few cents extra.

"You look at GM [genetic modification] problems, mad cow disease, foot and mouth, all the scares that beleaguered, high-intensity farming European countries are having, and the purity of New Zealand is immensely appealing."

But if New Zealand is to fulfil Sir Anthony's vision as the world's pantry, the country needs inspirational leadership.

"If you're going to do it, you don't want to do it by committee. You want to do it because a few very strong-minded people are prepared to say it and say it often and say it attractively and say it in a creative way - and I think that's what we did in the [Irish] Dairy Board."

On last year's visit, Sir Anthony urged a retreat from doom-and-gloom psychology and called on the NZ Government not merely to encourage foreign investment but to hug it to death and to emulate the Irish success story by slashing corporate taxes to around 10 per cent.

His visit then came as Heinz Wattie in Hastings prepared to benefit from the parent company's decision to close plants in Japan and Australia and relocate production to the existing Hastings operations - moves which Sir Anthony said yesterday had brought great benefits to the region and the national economy.

This year, he says, he is putting his money where his mouth is by funding the visit of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Mr Mulroney led Canada into a free trade pact with the United States that eventually grew into the North American Free Trade Agreement with the addition of Mexico.

Sir Anthony says Mr Mulroney was "excoriated" by his political opponents for championing free trade, but time has proved the wisdom of his decision.

"Here is the man who jettisoned his own personal political career and who has been proved right."

Sir Anthony says Nafta promises similar benefits for New Zealand and we should be pulling out all the stops to get in.

"The real question, of course, is that New Zealand is not top of the US agenda. It's not a question of New Zealand deciding it wants to join; it's a question of does Nafta want New Zealand to join."