Call for ‘A team’ focused on economy
THE head of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council says Australia is outstripping New Zealand in the economic comeback from Covid19, and we need to assemble an ‘‘A team’’ focused on the economy if we do not want to get left further behind.
Fraser Whineray says while New Zealand is tracking well regarding medical matters, Australia is doing better managing both the health and economic fallout from the pandemic.
He has written to the Jacinda Ardern asking for the establishment of a recovery task force and Reform Commission like the one Australia has set up, headed by a business leader with the same influence and access to the prime minister as the Directorgeneral of Health.
‘‘Normally, in any incident management in a company, for example, you will have people focused on the triage . . . then the recovery and then if it’s a really significant shift, which this one is for the globe, then it’s longer term,’’ Mr Whineray said.
‘‘That’s why the Business Advisory Council is promoting the recovery task force and Reform Commission, each chaired by businesspeople, kind of in a similar manner to what the Australian Covid commission is.
Australians were a ‘‘wonderfully confident bunch’’, who would become more so when they saw their Covid commission and started investing or hiring.
He wanted to ‘‘make sure that our economic activity —
$100 billion that’s about to be spent’’ went ‘‘into some really good things, because we have a strong recovery task force and Reform Commission’’.
Wellbeing was underpinned by the economy, so it was important it went hand in hand with the health response.
‘‘Nailing Covid is one thing, but now it’s about looking forward, what’s the best team we can marshal for the recovery, with the best influence on a huge amount of expenditure and debt we’re going to bring on as a country.
‘‘The members of the Business Advisory Council would very much like to strongly support it.’’
Mr Whineray would not elaborate on his ideas for who could be on the commission, but said he was too busy to be one of the members.
‘‘We’ve absolutely got the talent in New Zealand, there’s no doubt about that. We’re flush with talent . . . It’s about having a very significant mandate and presence to help influence decisions, as opposed to simply providing advice.
‘‘Economies are jobs — it’s providing for family; it’s having comfortable retirements; and it’s paying for new cancer drugs.
‘‘And the bottom line is if the income for a government is provided by taxes on the economy, and if the economy isn’t strong, then the government taxes go down. And at some point, you can’t keep borrowing from the bank.’’