Clark comes out shooting at Knowledge Wave conference

By SIMON COLLINS

Prime Minister Helen Clark walked into a gathering of New Zealand's business and academic elite yesterday and accused some of her hosts of an "unspoken agenda" of "discredited" right-wing policies.

She slammed Business New Zealand chief executive Simon Carlaw for claiming that the Government was not serious about economic growth.

She also hit back at those, such as Auckland University vice-chancellor John Hood and 51 per cent of New Zealanders in a Herald DigiPoll this week, who said they were not confident that the Government had a growth strategy to lift New Zealand back into the top half of the world's richest countries.

Speaking only minutes before her, Dr Hood told the forum: "Recent polling would suggest that there is, at the very least, a need for compelling articulation of a growth strategy.

"Another interpretation of that polling is we have yet to put in place the policy settings and societal initiatives to improve the probability that the required step-up in productivity rates, wealth creation and economic growth will be realised."

Helen Clark responded: "We believe in being explicit about our vision and our agendas. We do not accept the unspoken agenda behind so much of the rhetoric about the need for vision, leadership and change.

"Decoding that rhetoric generally reveals discredited and discarded agendas of the 1980s and 1990s which produced growing inequality, social fragmentation and despair in many quarters.

"The pace of change in those years may have been exciting for some economic elites, but they were simply terrifying to many in broader society."

Dr Hood said "many would argue" that there had been "too little urgency and action" since the Knowledge Wave Trust's inaugural conference in 2001 set out a long list of recommendations such as intensifying efforts to attract foreign investment and "talent".

"Although New Zealand is enjoying relatively strong rates of economic growth at present, there is little evidence in the Treasury's and other agencies' forecasts that the step-up in medium-term growth rates necessary to achieve the 'top-half' goal in gross domestic product per capita by 2011 is imminent," he said.

"That will require 1 to 2 per cent over the medium-term forecast trend rate of around 2.5 per cent."

He said New Zealand's social fabric was also of deep concern. Even after corrections were issued, recent figures showed that New Zealand's rates of youth suicide, juvenile crime and substance abuse were far too high.

"Individuals and institutions, including the Government, are designing and pursuing numerous and diverse initiatives to address these and many other pressing issues," he said.

"However, we have to be able to ask not only whether these are enough, but also whether the frameworks and incentives being developed are good enough to achieve the outcomes we require.

"And we need to be able to do so through public dialogue in arenas that are open and respectful, where no possible answer is ideologically foreclosed."

Helen Clark was more reticent about the goal of reaching the top half of the 30-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) by any specific date such as 2011.

"Much has been written and said about the desirability of restoring New Zealand's living standards to the top half of the OECD rankings - and the Government accepts that as an overall goal over time," she said.

But New Zealanders would not be inspired by "negative images, fearmongering, painting scary pictures of decline".

She called for balanced policies aimed at economic growth plus "social cohesion and inclusion, participation, partnerships".

"Building a momentum behind economic growth requires us to lift our levels of knowledge and skill and to get the whole community involved in the challenge," she said.

"But if the agenda for growth is based on slashing taxes and spending, then we would not only face an uphill task financing the acquisition of knowledge and skills, but would also face resistance from a disempowered and dispirited community.

"That is not a path I propose to follow."

Herald Special Report - February 18, 2003:
Knowledge Wave 2003 - the leadership forum

Herald feature: