Catherine Beard: BusinessNZ Advocacy Director on the report calling for a long-term plan to strengthen the country by 2050

Bold, bipartisan centred planning is key to ensuring New Zealand doesn't succumb to the effects of a dwindling population and economic growth.  

A new BusinessNZ report's calling for a cross-party vision and long-term goals to strengthen the country by 2050.  

It notes a labour shortage of at least a quarter of a million is expected before then, and there's also a one in four chance the population doesn't grow. 

Advocacy Director Catherine Beard says businesses are sick of political u-turns and flip-flops. 

She told Mike Hosking we’re currently stumbling towards the future in a blindfolded fashion, and the report is designed to get everyone to think outside of the box.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big picture of stuff from Business in New Zealand for
you this morning. They're report into the future of n Z.
They're looking at key issues that face us between now
and twenty fifty. Lack of workers called of a million
of them, cost of health and pensions, twenty five percent
chance we've got zero population growth. Catherine Beard's the Business
New Zealand Advocacy director and is where's Catherine morning?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Do you reckon? We're up for this is a country.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Look, the only way we're going to meet these challenges
really is to have a bit of a collective vision
about what good looks like in the future. And there's
definitely a concern from the business community that we are
sort of stuck in a cycle of short terms thinking,
you know, we have three year electoral election cycles, we
have changes of government, we have policy u tuns and

(00:42):
flip flops, and we're not really planning for the future.
We're sort of stumbling towards it in kind of a
blindfolded fashion. So this report's really designed to get everybody
to think outside the box. How big do we want
to be as a country or do we want to
sort of shrink into increasingly unviable future.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I wish you well with a quarter of a
million workers and that's directly tied in with zero population growth.
Do you reckon we're still a magnet for people who
want to come here or not?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Look, I think we can be, but again that has
to be part of the plan and the thinking why
would talent want to come here? And in fact way
even would our children want to stay here. So we
have to provide high paying jobs, we have to have
affordable housing and you know they have to see a
future here. And we've got some fantastic attributes, but we

(01:33):
really have to be competitive with Australia frankly.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Indeed, and we're not. And this is not new do
you guys, not just at Business New Zealand but in general,
get sick of producing reports that say the right thing,
but nobody does anything about them.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Look, I think part of our hope with this report,
and we've put it out very widely amongst all the
industry groups, is that everybody starts singing the same song.
And we actually put pressure on the politicians too, who know,
depoliticize them things. Sure they're going to have differences of opinion,
but you know, when you're campaigning in opposition on the

(02:09):
fact that you're going to reverse everything that's currently been
implemented From a business perspective, that's really hopeless.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Isn't it, CARSA. All I can do is wish you well.
With Katherine catherinebe who's the Business in New Zealand advocacy director.
I think Luxem, to be fair to him, has reached
out on the infrastructure side of the equation and tried
to make it a bit apolitical, but I don't know
that Labour's too open to that sort of thinking at
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