A goal for 2025
November 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm by David FarrarLloyd Morrison has proposed a goal for New Zealand – to be in the top ten countries in the world by 2025 for GDP per capita. He writes:
New Zealand lacks a common purpose. No one knows exactly what we want. We hanker for a return to the times when we were one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We want everyone to be better off, knowing that individual wealth does not result in freedom from crime and the social fallout of excessive disparity. However, there is no clearly articulated goal we are pursuing and no solid plan of how we can get there.
As a result, there is no definition or accountability for policies or policy-makers. Policies are often clothed with loose positive objectives and ultimately ineffective aims. There is no co-ordinated accountability for these policies (or politicians) in terms of their ability to contribute towards a common measurable outcome. Consequently, we continue our steady decline. As the attached analysis shows, current forecasts have our GDP per capita slipping below Kazakhstan and Botswana by 2025.
I’ve been discussing this with colleagues and friends, and we believe that NZ needs to embrace a common objective that will provide the means to deliver what we are seeking as a nation.
Whatever the objective chosen, it needs to be simple, clear, measureable, understandable, aspirational and, most importantly, catalytic in terms of driving positive change that makes the outcome achievable.
We’d like to stimulate a broader discussion over what that goal should be for NZ. To kick-off the debate, here’s our starter for ten: NZ should aim to be back in the top 10 countries in the world based on GDP per capita by 2025. Not just the OECD, the world. Unachievable? No way. Ireland, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan all achieved the required level of growth over the last twenty years. It will take real collective commitment and more creative thinking about our economy – but that’s exactly what an ambitious goal will generate.
I’m hoping you’ll participate in a broader discussion about an aspirational, measurable goal for New Zealand. Please read the attached document. Pass it on to your friends. Participate in the debate by emailing measurablegoal@hrlmorrison.com or contributing to the forum on www.blog.nzx.com. If you agree with what we’re proposing, show your support. If you don’t, please share your ideas for a national goal. Together, let’s take the first step in defining and delivering a better future for New Zealand.
Lloyd has out together this (a-measurable-goal-for-nz-short-2) presentation that is worth reading and also an FAQ – a-measurable-goal-for-new-zealand-_2_.
If you don’t like Lloyd’s goal, then suggest one of your own.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Median income in the top ten.
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Why not join Ireland in the top 10. It is achievable as we are in a better position to weather the economic recession. Gold projected to reach US$5,000 an ounce in response to manaicial buying1
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Well, let’s start wth getting ACT back. They’ve been harping on this for years and their 20 point plan is a good start.
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Fix NZ in five easy steps:
1) No corporate tax for businesses approved to set up here. If we become a tax haven for budding billion dollar businesses, and they’re prepared to invest in operations here, so be it.
2) Flatten personal tax rates in times of booms, and step them in recessions.
3) Scale back secondary personal income tax rates back to parity with sole-income levels.
4) Heavily invest in new technologies/products through dollar-for-dollar research partnerships (in return for those magical zero corporate tax rates) for ideas that can be licensed around the world – we missed a chance to rebuild our domestic car industry around LEVs and we should be alert to such future opportunities.
5) If we have to spend $20b on health and education, so be it. But let’s not be afraid to make sure we get the best research and medical centres in the world. Zero days off work, zero days away from school – the very zen of worker productivity. Let’s aim for it.
I guess it’s essentially ThinkBig 2.0, but we need to try something different. The markets have begun a marginal slide, there are escalating costs on the horizons and NZ will, at some stage, need to find an alternative to agriculture. Let’s do it now, and beat the rush.
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Well, here’s hoping he votes National for a change.
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
“…..current forecasts have our GDP per capita slipping below Kazakhstan and Botswana by 2025….”
Now that is one heck of a blunt way of putting it. Front page of the DomPost, eh……?
Yeah, Right.
In every letterbox in the country?
Yeah, Right. (While the EFA is in force, anyway).
Hope John Key uses this. Rodney Hide probably will, but how many Kiwis take any notice of him?
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Kiwis are bloody bright and are quite capable of solving 90% of the problems thrown at them. We have the people and the ability to make this country one of the greatest on the planet. We lack for one thing only, a true leader with vision and the guts to do what is right for New Zealand. Will our prayers be answered ??
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I’d wrap it up in a vision of “Best value for money in the world”.
And if we can’t offer that.. we have the systems in place to get where you will.. and clip the ticket on the way through.
JC
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Might be possible if Roger Douglas lives to 100 and JK makes him “Minister of Progress”.
Vote:November 5th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Wish I could agree that we were a bright people side show bob, but how do you square that with us voting Helen Clark for the last nine years?
In my lifetime, I can only remember one election where the public voted for real change.
That was 1987.
Then the prime minister pulled the plug on the changes, and New Zealand has been a hotbed of mediocrity ever since.
The tragedy of Lloyd’s suggestion of 10th by 2025 is that Peter Shirtcliffe made a similar suggestion at an ACT conference in 2001.
Only then the goal was 10th by 2010.
It was a bold idea for a nation to have a goal and you’d have thought it was achievable.
Yet under Helen’s management, which I keep hearing is highly competent, we’ve gone from 20th in the OECD not to 10th, but to 22nd.
Out of all countries, we’re down to 38th. If we were a state of Australia we’d be the poorest – poorer than Tasmania.
If we were the 51st state of the US, we’d also be the 51st richest – poorer than Mississippi.
And now Lloyd has to put off Peter’s goal deadline by 15 years.
And even that isn’t realistic as long as we have leaders who are terrified of goals because they might have to do unpopular things to achieve them.
The Nats were terrified of the idea of endorsing Peter’s goal when I suggested that they campaign on it. Yet ACT embraced the same idea wholeheartedly.
That’s why we need a strong ACT presence in government. It’s that word on Rodney’s unauthorised jacket: guts.
Lloyd will be a force for good.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 2:04 am
An admirable proposal.
All those in favour.
Aye.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 2:51 am
This comment in that document sums it up for me:
“If you want to run a marathon, the first step is to tell everyone you’re going to do it”
And nobody in NZ is doing that currently, Hide is making noises but not determined enough.
As somebody who works offshore in the real shitholes of this world, and sees the determination of the people in these shitholes, I can see that this determination is plainly missing in NZ.
I’m fast becoming sick of traipsing all over the world chasing the big bucks, but at the present time, I do not see any real drive and determination from Kiwis to do better!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whinging about us, I’m just saying how I see it. I’ll be the first to contribute and help build a FUCKING GREAT COUNTRY, where I can.
But people, we all need to get behind an initiative like this. Yes, we are going to have to make some tough decisions some people are not going to like, but that is life. Things are going to get better, if we all unite and have a common goal for everyone and the country, not just a goal to save the whales and the lowlifes, as we seem to have now.
That’s my 3 cents!
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Oh, and expat, that’s a big fat “aye” from me too!
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Aye.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good for a laugh. Become like Korea? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
NZ has got far more chance looking like Argentina by 2025.
NZ’s goal should be to become a state of Australia. It is our only shot.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I have just read in the NZ herald how Obama is gonna take all the money off those rich pricks and give it to the fat & lazy. This is Obama’s crowning virtue as set out in a NZ mainstream paper.
Move into top ten. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Still laughing.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Obama
sure seems hell-bent on making Americans poorer. That’s one way of increasing the Democratic base.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Completely agree with John.
Under MMP we see various factions, with their hands open and their minds closed, banding together to stop our Nation’s progress.
Their reward? Lip services to their special-interest selfishness, while the whole country slides to become a sleepy Polynesian economy of global insignificance.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 9:04 am
As long as we have a culture of dependency and victimhood this will never happen. People have to do it for themselves, and that part of our national psyche has long been eradicated.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Well, it could be time to stop moaning about it and lobby your NEW NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 10:21 am
stop wasting time and money on personal tax cuts and reinvest that into business tax, research tax breaks and universities. Also lose the dim-witted idea that we can hack it as a primary producer. we can’t! We need to focus on real wealth creation and applaud intelligence and creativity, not bigotry and backwardness.
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 10:23 am
oh and hide is an idiot, tough on law and order is the answer to a question that doesn’t exist nor need answering for any purpose but attracting idiotic bigots for votes
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
At last, someone with the PR to get it out in front of the pollies comes up with a BHAG* worth getting behind. Now we’ve got the vision statement we need the measurable interim goals for 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020 and 223 that will take us there! With those in place, – and they should be about achievement (e.g. 50% of exports from products not in production three years before, ministry costs at no more than 20% of service costs, etc.,) not measurement (e.g. in the top 50 by 2014) – we will be able to judge our governments by the progress they achieve. Yes, I know it sounds like a series of three year plans, very ‘USSR like’, but this is the way things get done in the real world, with plans and small steps.
In a word, I’m with the ‘eye’s!
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Go shoot yourself instead of the messenger, we’d all be better for it. I BET you’re one of those who thinks patriotism is a siisy thing for lilly livered americans!
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
patriotism is silly AND dangerous. Pride in one’s country is natural, patriotism with no crticism=suicidal
Vote:November 6th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
NZ can meet this goal and maybe earlier
Renewable energy is the only way.
nearly 50 countries world wide are proponents and the most popular option is wave energy and marine turbines.
Britain pretty much leads and Obama has already stated he is going down that path
In fact President Clinton stated on Letterman that if America had invested in renewable energy at the beginning of the decade, America would not be in the mess its in now.
Crest Energy is awaiting consent for a $6oom marine turbine reserve in Kaipara Harbour in Northland. Every $1m invested means 11 jobs.
The problem is the environment court. Its holding up huge windfarm initiatives and being in a recession we can’t afforf this beauracratic BS. The reason Britain has got so far must be because they didn’t have the red tape crap to battle.
Huge oil fields are being tapped off the east coast and off Dunedin projected to millions of barrels worth billions and the Greens are calling for a ban on fosil fuels. Madness in the current world conditions.
Farmers are being blamed for draining hydro dams and being threatened with water resrictions.
Transpower is threatening to cut off geo thermal power if they can’t get their pylons up.
Renewable energy would cut out all this political fascism. Why aren’t the Greens advocating it??
A political agenda without renewable energy is a fraud and a fallacy.
Vote:November 8th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Obviously, my one detractor is a fascist Green
Vote: