Will it be a bold future or business as usual?

With the start of the largest immunisation campaign in our history, and the continuation of strong public health measures, New Zealand’s largely Covid-19 free status can be consolidated, although we have to wait a while longer before the wider world becomes more health-secure.

Here, we can look ahead to our postCovid future. Will we grasp this opportunity to map out a bold future, or will it be largely a return to “business as usual”?

If our response after the Global Financial Crisis is any guide, the prospects for fresh thinking leading to transformation are not good. After the financial crisis — cheered on by the bank economists and the commentariat generally — New Zealand suffered a collective failure of imagination.

In the pursuit of untrammelled GDP growth we went for volume rather than added value and innovation. Essentially the strategy was about more of everything: international tourists and students, migrant workers to fill the gaps we couldn’t or wouldn’t fill ourselves, more unprocessed primary commodities, and more roads and vehicles.

This all contributed to economic activity, but added little value, diversification, or new directions, and put considerable pressure on our infrastructure and our ecosystem.

It also required the government to look the other way as greenhouse gas emissions soared and questionable emissions units were traded, fresh-water systems suffered, logging debris was left unsecured, fishing vessels could ignore catch requirements, safety standards in trucking were not properly enforced, lowvalue providers in international education and elsewhere flourished, and shortterm visa migrant employees were exploited. Is there another way, and is New Zealand well poised to take advantage of it?

A recent report in the Global Competitiveness series from the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests we are. How Countries are Performing on the Road to Recovery reviews the prospects for post-Covid transformative economic and institutional change in 37 countries, assessing a range of indicators across productivity, people and planet.

The top-performing countries are almost all small-to-medium social market countries with competitive economies and developed welfare states: namely, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden in the first rank, with the Netherlands, Canada and New Zealand not far behind.

The one exception is China, which also features in the second rank. Our usual comparators, such as Australia, the UK and the US, are towards the middle of the pack, with Greece, Hungary, Mexico, and Turkey in the bottom decile.

We are in the top rank when it comes to quality and trust in our public institutions, a thriving, long-term oriented and stable and financial sector (although data availability is very limited here), and indications of diversity, equity, and inclusion (with limited data availability).

New Zealand is also above average in keeping education and skills training upto-date, in the quality of its labour laws and social protection, and in expanding access to care services and improving health system resilience.

Where is New Zealand below average and needing to lift its game?

Despite all the public rhetoric, WEF sees a need to upgrade infrastructure for the energy transition and ICT access. It thinks New Zealand could do a lot better in shifting taxation in a progressive direction, creating a more competitive and vibrant economic environment, facilitating the higher-technology “markets of tomorrow”, and incentivising and encouraging the long-term investment in research, innovation, and invention needed to underpin those markets. These insights are not necessarily new. What is new is the comparative framework that allows us to view ourselves in relation to 36 other economies on key parameters of performance, and to find we are close to the top rank.

We are in that cluster of small-to-medium-sized countries that operate largely on a social market basis with a competitive, open economy underpinned by environmental protections and welldeveloped welfare state arrangements that provide the essentials of an enduring social compact for a cohesive and fair society. We have the potential to transform.

The question is whether we have the will to do so.