Alan McDonald: EMA Head of Advocacy, Finance & Strategy on the government's renewed focus on economic growth

Luxon's Government has reshuffled cabinet, including the economic growth development portfolio that saw Nicola Willis take over Melissa Lee's role. 

EMA head of advocacy, finance and strategy joins the show to discuss what these changes mean for the Government. 

LISTEN ABOVE. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Growth is the name of the game for the government
in twenty twenty five, Lux and yesterday reshuffling his cabinet.
You would have seen this already, also reshuffling what was
the economic development portfolio In the process, Melissaly is out,
Nikola Willis is in. It's no longer economic development, it's
economic growth. And Alan McDonald is the AMA's head of advocacy,
finance and strategy. That's the Employers Manufactured Association.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Allen, good morning, Lodding Roy.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Is this window dressing in your eyes? Or are you
expecting actual change for growth?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well? I don't think Minister Willis is into a window dressing,
but she's been handed a pretty tough job because things
are going, as we all know, much slower than everyone
would like. But it's really good to see that focus
on growth because we do need it.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
What is one big, bold idea you can offer up
this morning for her, because it sounds like she's open
to all and any ideas and she's going to corral
a team of ministers to implement them.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
There was possibly two things, actually, Ryan. One would be
around this rapid depreciation we've been pushing for for a while,
which is basically allowing businesses to claim back more and
claim back faster if they're investing in new tech or
new machinery. They did it in Australia post COVID. It
does give a bit of a sugar hit, but it's
a really strong signal to business that we're investing in

(01:16):
you and its investment rather than cutting back on spending.
So that would be one. And I think really getting
a couple of decent size, good infrastructure projects away. I
know they want to do this, they've been trying to
get the settings right, but we actually need to get
something away because we're losing a lot of people that
are sort of designed legal engineering top end of the

(01:39):
infrastructure pyramid, but also at the other side the people
who are going to build stuff. So we do those
and get them away.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
That great good ideas to appreciate infrastructure. Both of those
ideas are going to mean a hit to the government's
bottom line. Are we too focused? Do you think? And
perhaps this is something that Nicolaillis could look at. Focused
at getting back to surpus at the expense of growth.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I thought we possibly are at the stage. New Zilda's
is very good at understanding the cost of everything that's
out looking at the value and I think we're at
that point where we're just going to have to bite
the bullet, maybe go to go push our debt levels
out a bit higher than we're possibly comfortable with Orthough
possibly targeting, but actually spend some money to make some money.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, that's an interesting remit for the Minister certainly, isn't it.
What about some of the asset recycling that's been spoken about.
Roger Partridge did a really incing piece in the Heild.
I don't know if you've read it the other week,
talking about exactly this. We need to open up foreign
investment and we need to start recycling some of those assets,
a huge portfolio of the government owns.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it was a good piece by Roger and it's
something that's worked really well in other jurisdictions. MAT's our
New South Wales's got its big infrastructure building projects underway
and we've seen the difference that that's making to Sibity. Yes,
can be very disruptive, but we also have to get
out of that mind set where you know it's privatization
by stealth or whatever you want to call it. We've

(03:04):
got to look at what we've got on how we
use it and that's asset recycling. But also I think
too we really must move quickly on opening up for
overseas investment. That's worked in other jurisdictions our size Ireland,
for example, the Prime Minister's seen that work. We've got
to open those stores, we've got to bring in that
money and if needed, bringing a workforce too.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Allen, thank you for that. Alan McDonald's AMA, head of Advocacy,
finance and Strategy.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio