Friday, October 10, 2008

Filling the leadership vacuum

A while ago, I posted about the gap in leadership that resulted when Rod moved on from personal blogging.

Yesterday I was very disappointed about the lack of courage from National to respond to the crisis facing NZ and the world with the current financial meltdown. Basically both parties have put their head in the sand because it *seems* like this crisis hasn't had a practical effect yet on NZ'ers. This is simply just a matter of time until it bites.

My view is that in this time of crisis, there is no better mandate to be sought than to fundamentally restructure our economy to make us more competitive. Basically there is a clear requirement that we can't do the same stuff over again and expect to succeed.

National's economic policy stepped away from that challenge. Labour isn't any better.

I think Mark Weldon and David Skilling's effort to post a different way *and* be brave enough to say 'it's draft, how about you shape it with us' is, quite frankly, superb. They are leading a conversation that our politicians don't have the skill or the courage to engage in as they are too worried about their own personal position. Honestly, a vote of no-confidence is the best option at the moment.

I don't agree with all of the solutions but I strongly support the principles of 

1. Creating an environment where NZ businesses can initially survive and then be best placed to succeed.

2. Effectively advocating a raid on global talent by making it more attractive to the type of people who can drive productivity for NZ to generate a large proportion of that productivity here in NZ.



I will be adding my 2 cents worth of ideas of how to make these happen - if you care about the productivity and future of NZ Inc I'd encourage you to do the same. Even if you don't agree, be part of the conversation and make a difference.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been finding Bernard Hickey from interest.co.nz really interesting. He explains things well without dumbing it down and really seems to get what is going on. Good reads.

Miki Szikszai said...

Yeah - Bernard knows his stuff.

Also noted that Rod has jumped into the conversation over at NZX as well