Frank Greenall: Make your mark on NZ, Bill

Frank Greenall

DEAR Uncle Bill ...

Congrats on becoming New Zealand's 39th prime minister.

It may only be a brief tenure, though, so here's an idea: Why not actually make a difference while you're there?

As we know, our last PM's big accomplishment was schmoozing a lot of voters into thinking he was a great leader instead of just a great schmoozer.

Granted, he was a great innovator too, although somehow I can't think of anything specific other than his three-handed handshake.

But he certainly was just one big, loveable puppy that everyone up to the Queen wanted to pat for a while. Well, everyone except maybe Frank Bainimarama. Frank gave him a swift kick up the jacksie for slobbering on his sharply creased camo pants.

But Uncle, given that Jonky's long-term vision didn't go past tomorrow's spot market price for milk powder or whether he was going to get an invite to Richie's wedding, here's your chance to prove you're a big-picture man.

You know, stuff that actually benefits Kiwis long-term instead of just foreign investors with hot money burning holes in their pockets, or offshore bankers soaking up interest payments on the $80 billion additional government debt run up on your predecessor's watch. (Hmmmm ... you may have had a hand in that too, but we'll flag that one.)

So, not to second guess you, Uncle Bill, but a "vision" could look something like this:

Define what real wealth is, not in terms of illusory gross domestic product money-go-rounds, but in what real quality-of-life gains accrue to the average Joan.

You know, access to healthy housing, education and medical care, absence of crime, environmental pollution ... that sort of stuff.

Treasury has already done work on using true wealth criteria such as GPIs (Genuine Progress Indicators), so why not actually implement them in the tradition of our ground-breaking social policies of several generations ago.

With meaningful benchmarks, the real economy then has focus and clarity.

Recognise loudly and proudly what New Zealand's single most long-term lucrative asset is, both in monetary value and quality of life terms: the "clean green" brand. Not the phony, hypocritical "100 per cent Pure" nonsense that your predecessor hyped around the traps.

No, the real McCoy, especially since we're one of the few nations still able to achieve this priceless reality.

Recent breakthrough advances in substitute animal and plant proteins, dairy products and even wine threaten conventional land-based agriculture across the board, but a lucrative demand for the true-blue will remain.

Imagine the worldwide premium all our commodity-related produce would attract if the whole country could be certified genuinely organic by, say, the next generation.

Niche pockets of it already cashing in big-time are proof of the pudding as we speak.

And this is the platinum brand that will permeate a raft of other industries. It's all very well counting the tourists coming in to check out Middle Earth, but not when they're appalled to see the stagnant local waterways and blitzed landscapes of industrial and reckless farming.

There's a heap of other stuff, too. Like instead of pussy-footing around climate change issues and doing shonky under-the-table avoidance deals, why not man up, do the business, and enhance the clean green brand into the bargain? Gee, it could even help save the planet.

Incentivise domestic and commercial alternative power, fuels and transport? Curb unsustainable immigration? Reform Neanderthal drug laws? New tax regimes to take the turbo out of property investment, and ping corporate tax shirkers?

Or (the elephant in the room) reconfigure a whole new entrenched underclass of intergenerationally disengaged who, having been trapped into permanent alienation, are being farmed by a burgeoning army of now institutionalised social dysfunction agencies. A small sector, but with disproportionate social consequences already consuming about a quarter of the national budget.

Take your pick, but time may be short. The waters have already quickly closed over John Key's eight-year tenure, leaving little legacy other than perhaps a small slick of snake oil.

How now, Uncle Bill? Want to just warm the chair for a while or actually make a genuine difference?