New Zealand Executive Government Speech Archive

Ladies and gentlemen, guests, laureates, I'm passionate about lifting New Zealand's performance. So are you. That's why I'm so delighted to be here tonight. Our hearts surge when we see a Jonah Lomu on the rugby field. Our spirits will rise at the sheer glory of seeing our own do so well at the Olympics. Outstanding achievement inspires us all. The zeal of a few to improve our businesses, our schools, our communities, all our institutions, is the means by which we all attain better lives.

We know this. But as New Zealanders, we are sometimes ambivalent about acknowledging all the varieties of excellence that the nation needs to succeed. We accept without complaint that we pay our new sports mega-stars mega-bucks, so that we can win on the international sportsfield, but criticise the fact that business mega-stars are paid mega-bucks so that we can win the battle of national and international trade.

Tonight we acknowledge a few who have helped to keep New Zealand moving forward. As a politician, I believe passionately in equality of opportunity. Every New Zealander must be able to grasp the best opportunities in life. But let's not for one minute mistake equality of opportunity with similarity of outcome.

Let's not stifle excellence because it means some do better than others. That is a fallacy and it destroys the very things that are great about our nation. Consider some of the realities of the old so-called egalitarian New Zealand. Only the Government could broadcast television programmes. A wait of three to six weeks was normal for a business telephone.

You needed a doctor's prescription to buy margarine and the law banned carpets manufactured from anything but wool. You needed a permit to subscribe to an overseas journal. The Government determined how many hens a commercial poultry farmer could keep and they determined the price you could pay for them. Equally strange was our determination, until recently, to prevent by law people shopping at the only time they could shop - the weekend.

Manufacturers were secure in the knowledge that a protective government would keep any hint of foreign competition from upsetting their cosy arrangement. What we had wasn't choice. It wasn't opportunity. It was a country in which the authorities were afraid to let people think and act for themselves. And New Zealand consumers had less choice than those in any developed country. There was no incentive for businesses who served them to do better - because the customers had nowhere else to go.

Politicians and others justified it by saying they were protecting New Zealand jobs. But it simply didn't work. Consider the New Zealand of today. Between 1991 and 1995 exporters facing tough global competition produced new jobs at nearly twice the rate of those with domestic sales only. When the barriers were torn down, the best enterprises lifted their game. They showed what they were capable of.

New Zealand workers, New Zealand consumers, New Zealand industry were the winners. I'm enormously proud of the advances New Zealand has made. Faster than any other country, New Zealand has moved into a new dynamic world. The latest issue of Time magazine carries a report of the successful economies in this year's Global Competitiveness Report issued last week. You will be proud to know that New Zealand came third after Singapore and Hong Kong and just in front of the United States.

What we have developed is a culture of enterprise. I see instances of it, big and small, all around the country. And I see many of the people who are making it happen here in this room tonight. Conspicuous achievers, those who won't settle for second best, are the reason why the country has reached the stage it is at today. Let's thank them for delivering us out of the woods. The fact that the economy is healthy enough to be embarking on tax cuts, to be launching a carefully considered social spending programme to make our communities safer healthier, more cohesive and better educated, to be repaying debt faster than at any time in our history is all due to one factor.

We would have no wealth to share as a nation if someone wasn't generating it. We would have no security if the economy wasn't performing to meet the demands we make of it. We have dismissed the old bogeys of size and distance that we used to hide behind and have become full participants in the world. As successive governments have pulled down the barriers people such as yourselves have recognised that the answer lies in being as good or better than the best in the world. And that has brought benefits for everybody.

We didn't legislate to secure economic growth in the '90s that is more than twice the average of the entire 15 years beforehand. It was newly liberated New Zealand enterprise that got stuck in and fuelled growth. It is not the Beehive alone that can secure growth paths that will see real average New Zealand incomes 50 per cent better in another 15 years. It is the performance of New Zealand business. I'm proud to say the Government has kept its end of the bargain. We've tried extremely hard to set a rigorous benchmark for sound economic management. If governments could get ISO 9000 accreditation, I'm pretty sure we'd qualify. Through mechanisms such as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we have established best practice norms that future governments will have to live up to - or explain to the whole nation why they are slipping. But all this, in essence, is merely freeing New Zealand to get on with its work. Freeing business to perform to its full potential.

I take a lot of confidence from that. Some fear that the future will bring damaging economic changes, even reversals. I know and understand the concerns many feel as we approach the first election under MMP. MMP is very different and does require quite different approaches and attitudes to the old order.

We have achieved considerable progress in the last three years in a very difficult political environment. It is possible if all political parties approach MMP and the post-MMP election with a clear understanding of the new obligations it imposes for the transition to go smoothly. It can all be made to work if we approach it with the right attitude. Business leaders can help to encourage the realism needed to gain the maximum security from our new electoral system.

There's a growing realisation that dynamic, growing businesses mean a better livelihood and a better future for us all. We can't achieve growth and prosperity without risk-takers and profit-makers who carve out new opportunities. Those who envy successful performers want to impose mediocrity on us all. They are living in the past. A past which was never as ideal as the one they paint. The Business Hall of Fame represents the sharp edge of success. That's why I so strongly applaud the vision of the Enterprise New Zealand Trust.

The people already in the Business Hall of Fame, and those whom we mark tonight, are people who have helped make New Zealand what it is today. If we wonder why New Zealand responded so quickly and aggressively to the new world of business, I think we see the answer in the calibre of the people in the Hall of Fame.

People such as Sir Bryan Todd, Sir James Wattie, Sir Robertson Stewart and all the others in this select group. They all tell part of the story of New Zealand's success. They have made enormous contributions to New Zealand. They remind us that though enterprise has often been stifled and unacclaimed, it has always been there in New Zealand.

In these last few years, the enterprise spirit has been unshackled. And fortunately there have been people such as you to take up the opportunity. Your achievement is New Zealand's achievement. And I mean that quite literally. You are generating the income, the jobs, the opportunities that all New Zealanders live by. I'm delighted to be here tonight to honour the third intake of laureates into the Business Hall of Fame.

You are doing New Zealand proud. Stick to the path you've carved out, and New Zealand's future will be secure.

Ends