John MacDonald: I'm paying attention to BusinessNZ, I hope you are too

I hope people are sitting-up and paying attention to what BusinessNZ is saying today. 

Especially the people who have their heads in the sand about our ability as a country to keep paying for things like healthcare and pensions. 

Because, as BusinessNZ puts it, we don’t have enough people to keep on doing that and we need a lot more people. 

As one headline today says, New Zealand needs 10 million people to stay afloat. 

BusinessNZ says we need twice as many people just to keep the lights on. For several reasons. 

For starters, in 20 years’ time we’ll have a labour shortage of 250,000 people. And unless we bring a truckload more people into the country, we won’t have enough workers to do the work. But also, we won’t have enough workers paying tax to pay for the likes of healthcare and the pension. 

That’s why I hope people are paying attention. Because, if we think we can keep on keeping on, providing the same services and doing things like dishing out the pension to anyone and everyone just because they turn 65, then we have to either stop doing that or somehow find a way to keep doing it. 

If BusinessNZ was a political party, it wouldn’t last five minutes, because the stuff it’s saying today is the stuff that doesn’t win elections. But it’s the stuff we have to listen to and accept. 

Example: raising the retirement age. If we are going to be five million people short of being financially viable as a country, we’re all going to have to keep on working longer. Most politicians are too scared to say that, but it’s true.

Or if we still want to retire at 65, we’re going to have to pay for it ourselves. Again, most politicians are too scared to say that, but it’s true. 

Now I’m not talking about this happening next week or next year. I’m saying that it’s inevitable that, at some point, we are going to have to accept that everyone retiring at 65 and everyone getting the state-funded pension is a thing of the past. Because we can’t afford it. 

Which is why BusinessNZ is also saying today that we’re going to have to start putting more into our KiwiSaver. 

That’s another no-brainer. Because, if we’re in a position where we need to double the population just to keep the place running, then we need to change how we do things. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from Newstalk ZB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
And I turn it. I hope that people are sitting up,
sitting up and paying attention to what Business New Zealand
is saying today, especially the people who seem to have
it in their head or seem to have their head
in the sand about our ability as a country to
keep paying for things like healthcare and pensions, because, as

(00:34):
New Zealand puts it, we don't have enough people to
keep on doing that and we need a lot more people.
As one headline of Seeing this Morning says, New Zealand
needs ten million people to stay afloat, which puts it brilliantly.
That's what Business New Zealand is telling us today. It
is saying we need twice as many people here just

(00:55):
to keep the lights on for several reasons. For starters,
tryn get your head around this for starters. By twenty
forty five, so just twenty years from now, by twenty
forty five, we will have a labor shortage of two
hundred and fifty thousand people. Two hundred and fifty thousand
people short. And that's in just twenty years. And unless

(01:20):
we bring a truckload more people into the country, we
won't have enough workers to do the work. But also
we won't have enough workers paying tax to pay for
the likes of healthcare and the pension. And that's why
I hope you're listening to Business New Zealand, because if
we think we can just keep on keeping on providing

(01:41):
the same services and doing things like dishing up the
pension to anyone and everyone just because they turn sixty five,
then we either have to stop doing that or somehow
find a way to keep doing it. And Business New
Zealand has got some ideas such as raising the retirement
age and making us put more into our cvsaver accounts,
both of which, by the way, I think are inevitable.

(02:02):
But let me come back to that first though. Here's
how and Beard, who is Business New Zealand's advocacy director,
Here's how she described the problem we've got, which you
spoke to Mike earlier this morning.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
We are sort of stuck in a cycle of short
terms thinking, you know, we have three year electional election cycles,
we have changes of government, we have policy u tuns
and 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

(02:36):
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 2 (02:46):
Here that an unviable future. An unviable future is exactly
what Business New Zealand says we're facing or will be
facing if we don't grow some as a country. And
I'm not talking there about growing the population. I'm talking
about growing some fortitude or growing some you know what
as a country. I mean, if Business New Zealand was

(03:07):
a political party, it wouldn't last five minutes, say, because
the stuff it's saying today is the stuff that doesn't
win elections. But it's the stuff that we have to
listen to and it's the stuff that we have to accept. Example,
raising the retirement age. If we're going to be five
million people short of being financially viable as a country

(03:29):
in twenty odd years, we're all going to have to
keep on working longer that most politicians are too scared
to say that, but it's true. Or if we still
want to retire at sixty five, we're going to have
to pay for it ourselves. Don't expect the pension. But again,
most politicians are too scared to say that, but it's true.

(03:52):
Now I'm not talking about this happening next week or
next year, and neither is Business New Zealand. I'm saying.
This is what I'm saying is that it is inevitable
that at some point we're going to have to accept
that everyone retiring at sixty five and everyone getting the
state funded pension is a thing of the past because
we can't afford it. We don't have the people. We're
going to be way short of the people and it'll

(04:16):
be a pipe dream because we can't afford it, which
is why Business New Zealand is also saying today that
we're going to have to start putting more into our
can we savor That's another note brainer, because if we
are in a position where we need to double the
population just to keep the place running, and we need
to change how we do things.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
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