National leader Christopher Luxon is defending his comment about businesses being soft, laying the blame at the government's door.
Christopher Luxon Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Luxon has just returned from a 10-day overseas mission, seeking policy ideas from Singapore, Ireland and London.
While speaking to the right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange in London last week Luxon said New Zealand needed to have more consistent micro-economic reform for "unleashing enterprise".
The public already looked to the government for all the answers and now businesses were "getting soft" and also relied on government backing.
Asked why he was criticising businesses overseas, Luxon told Morning Report that there was some great entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation among businesses but a government that was not empowering them.
"We've got a government that frankly adds cost compliance, red tape, doesn't support small medium enterprises whatsoever and makes their job incredibly hard."
The country needed a much more pro-business environment so they could grow but the government kept changing the rules and people were not investing.
Asked again why he said businesses were getting soft, he responded that there needed to be more businesses like Fonterra and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare that were of a global scale.
Reminded that New Zealand sat at the top of the World Bank's ease of doing business index, Luxon said in recent times the country's competitiveness and economic management had dropped in other tables.
In the last four years it has got "really tough" to do business in Aotearoa, leading to a lack of investment, he said.
He was impressed by Ireland which was tourism and agriculture based but also encouraged its businesses to get out into the world and export.
"This [in New Zealand] is a government that frankly doesn't support businesses, it's a government that doesn't have many people that have run businesses."
Businesses needed an environment in which they converted their commercial opportunities and could grow and become more successful globally.
NZ 'fearful, inward looking'
Regarding his belief that the rest of the world has moved on from Covid-19, he said none of his conversations in the UK, Ireland and Singapore were about the pandemic.
"Staying very fearful, very inward, very negative looking as I've said we've been in New Zealand for the last four years when we need to be much more ambitious and aspirational and positive and out there in the world. We've got to balance those things."
While the government had handled the pandemic well in 2020, in 2021 and this year it had been "a shambles", citing the vaccine rollout, slow availability of rapid antigen tests, MIQ and the traffic light system.
Luxon said with a health crisis in the country at present everyone should get a booster shot if they wanted one and healthcare workers should be able to test themselves before a shift (allowing the return of unvaccinated nurses and doctors).
The health sector had seen 30,000 cancelled surgeries and 57,000 people were waiting more than four months to see a specialist.
There were 500 unvaccinated nurses and 50 unvaccinated doctors and it would be a "pragmatic response" to allow them to work again, Luxon said.
