New Year Honours: Michael Barnett, a passionate advocate for NZ Inc.

Former Auckland Business Chamber CEO Michael Barnett recognised for 31 years service to NZ Inc. Photo / Supplied

Michael Barnett reckons what he’s best at is storytelling.

“I can talk to people about transport, I can talk about mental health, I can talk about employment for our disadvantaged youth, I can talk about having cancer. The best thing I do is story-tell,” says the new companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.

“I came from a family that had nothing and to build our lives we had to work. People recognise those values,” says the former chief executive of the Auckland Business Chamber, whose life hasn’t eased up a jot since he handed the chamber reins to Simon Bridges in August after 31 years in the job.

The Karaka lifestyle farmer still gets up at 4.45am every morning to exercise - only now he walks 6km daily instead of going to the gym. Just a few weeks ago he found himself in a hospital in France for five days after collapsing after a 24-hour flight and on the run with business obligations, including as a board member of the World Council of the International Chambers of Commerce.

He recalls the hospital doctor muttering a lot about “too much stress, too much exhaustion”.

“We all get our wake-up calls. I say listen to your body.”

It’s not the first time Barnett’s body has reminded him to look sharp. He’s a survivor of a battle with throat cancer.

Ironically, he’s a passionate advocate - and activist - for supporting business leaders and managers through pressure and stress, a weight leavened considerably by the pandemic.

Also perhaps ironically, when the Herald asked what he meant when he once said he “operated at a high level” (in response to how he packed so many different campaigns and focuses into a week), Barnett responds, “Too many CEOs don’t say no.

“A lot of executives talk about the high workload and not enough hours in the day. I say one of the biggest reasons for that is too many CEOs don’t say no. We like to be liked, so we say yes and end up over-committing ourselves.

“You need to surround yourself with good people, people that can implement for you. I’m a big thinker, a creator, an innovator. I surround myself with people who can implement. That way I can operate with my fingers in a whole lot of places.”

Those “places” have included supporting Māori, Pacific and new migrants into work, co-founding during the pandemic the mental health support project First Steps, which provides advice and tools for small business leaders, partnering with the Government to launch CadetMax, a programme which has so far helped more than 3000 disadvantaged youth gain employment, and a programme in South Auckland to help students gain a driver’s licence to assist with getting jobs.

First Steps, a self-managed, self-help online portal, has assisted more than 250,000 to date and Barnett is still “passionately” involved.

“It’s made mental health and wellness become normalised. People are able to talk about it.”

He says the project came about even before Covid-19 after a conversation with senior Cabinet ministers Grant Robertson and Stuart Nash.

“There was an increasing issue around mental health and we needed to stop the stigma attached to it. Business leaders were under pressure and stress, they needed help and there shouldn’t be a stigma attached to it.

“The opportunity [for First Steps] came soon after my son committed suicide [in 2016]. I had watched the process for him and I knew what had to be done.”

Barnett who was born and raised in Hamilton, the third child of eight and a twin, has almost lost count of the number of issues the Auckland chamber has pursued and championed over the span of his time there.

It helps explain the length of time he stayed as CEO. (When he started the chamber had six staff. The day he exited the top floor of the Symonds St chamber building it had 70.)

“Almost every five years there was a reinvention of the chamber, what we did, how we did it, the different focuses and issues.

“It increasingly became a reality that business organisations are part of the community - not just about business. Making sure there was talent available to fill jobs to the focus of the last three to four years on mental health that I have taken quite purposefully and passionately.

“The role of business organisations and people like me changed, and changed dramatically.”

First Steps started as an Auckland project with a 60,000-signature chamber petition collected in 48 hours alerting the Government to the dire predicament into which the Covid health emergency would plunge small business. Today it is a nationwide service.

“It provides business leaders and managers with the help to help themselves. It was no different 15 years ago when I looked at unemployment. It was 5 per cent in New Zealand, but in South Auckland 25 per cent. The community was badly disadvantaged. On one hand, we were a business organisation with lots of members and on the other hand, those people could offer jobs,” recalls Barnett.

“We needed to match them up. That became a real focus.”

Barnett’s other contributions have included serving as a director of the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce and chairing the boards of the Local Government Business Forum, Auckland Business Forum, the Auckland Children’s Christmas Parade Trust, Diversity Works NZ and the Toi Economic Development Agency.

Observers say one of his most notable achievements has been his ability to work with politicians and parties of all stripes to achieve the chamber’s goals.

“When you’re working with people it’s all about endpoints.

“We can get lost in personalities much too easily. If we are talking about a roading network, for example, we are talking about helping people move around Auckland, to move around New Zealand, with the greatest of ease, with the most efficiency.

“It doesn’t matter if you are red or blue. It’s about the best way of doing that. I’ve always been quite upfront and honest about the way we work.”

Barnett, who received a New Zealand Order of Merit in 2011 for services to business, says he was “a little overwhelmed” at news of the companion order.

But he says the sheer growth of the chamber “must tell everyone it’s not Michael Barnett doing stuff, it’s a team of people”.

“And alongside me, there’s a family, a wife and kids supporting me.”

Barnett in a sign-off opinion piece for the Herald in July said his work was not done.

“I will continue to be relentless, focused and zealous to use the experiences, learnings and wide network of relationships I have gained...to change the things I can to better the health, wealth and wellbeing of all New Zealanders.”

This week, that philosophy remained unchanged.

“There will always be something I want to do, always something I will be passionate about.”

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