Need to hear from you first
On this site, we are in agreement that we urgently need a clear, coherent economic strategy that resonates with the country, and leads to great outcomes. To achieve great results will require:
(i) a single, clear “organising idea”
(ii) a new form of national dialogue
(iii) improved public-private sector trust-based relationships
However, almost as important as ‘what’ the strategy is, is ‘how’ the strategy is created and then executed. In my view, policy making in New Zealand has recently come to be characterised by its secrecy, its closed nature, and its insularity. The public sector sees the private sector as ‘vested interests’ and thus, despite their training, naturally discount ideas as being driven by purely pecuniary interests. The private sector see public sector as out of touch, irrelevant and politicised. Neither of these views are true. Both need addressing, and the past approach will not do that.
There have been a lot of comments on this on the blog. Some comments on this so far on the NZX Blog:
Jane said, “The government should be “of the people”, not a fortress.”
Baruch said, “… build a wider constituency of support”; and
Peter said, “[put] these concepts in a simpler format”.
When the private sector is engaged, it typically manifests as large committees, ‘talkfests’, and other inauthentic engagement, with most of our contributions inevitably disappearing down a black hole. We need to avoid jamboree type talkfests with large numbers of people (a la Knowledge Wave, Ruddfest). Equally small, ‘closed’ groups hatching plans in closed rooms, will not get it done.
We think that there is a very large and diverse group who should be part of this debate, and this group is all Kiwi’s – whether living here or expat. The question right now is, how to best engage all their talent and ideas?
I have some thoughts as to how this could occur, but would prefer to hear from everyone else first, especially the online community, as to the “how”.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the NZX Blog RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
In agreement with the 3 ways identified as needed for moving towards a national consensus on most effective co-operation towards certain measurably desirable and sustainable socio-economic goals, the following course of action might be successfully practicable:
a) – Identify (and agree on) the most universally basic need to enable achievement in anything beyond hand-to-mouth survival, or the status quo – arguably, our savings rate.
b) – Identify the most most urgent, desired, and promising increased investment needs.
c) – Try to have them publicized and publicly debated as in search of the truth, not pre-determined, ideological propaganda.
d) – In view of inevitable differences in opinios and priorities, let supporters of this blog take their priorities to the political parties most sympathetic to them – AND PRESENT THEM NOT AS EXCLUSIVELY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP, BUT AS GENERAL OR UNIVERSAL, WELFARE CAUSES.
(Example: Higher superannuation under the status quo is a “vested interest” cause not necessarily universally beneficial or sustainable (e.g. Muldoon’s superannuation policy) – but higher NZ Super through higher (super) savings & investments would arguably be the most effective basic NZ economic growth, higher earnings and novel investments generator.)
e) – Sooner or later, such politically centrist and universally constructive attitudes – especially if seen to be working for the personal welfare of all – are bound to overcome vested interest rivalry – ?
I’m not sure if you already know about this, but earlier this year the Melbourne City Council ran a ‘Future Melbourne Wiki’ which presented their city plan as a shared document which people could edit through an online wiki that ran for 3-4 weeks. (www.futuremelbourne.com.au/wiki/view/FMPlan/WebHome)
This approach could be incredibly relevant here, perhaps taking the Swan Dive or Belly Flop doc and enabling people to directly edit it through a similar wiki idea thus facilitating a completely transparent and open collaboration which NZers anywhere in the world can contribute to, open 24 hours a day.
I agree that it is essentially important for ALL NZers be involved and allowed a sense of ownership of the final result and this could very well be a good start.
Assume acceptance of growth goal ( however defined).
The acid test of NZ’s perfomance in 2009/2010 will be the manner in which it deals with what is shaping up to be the severest international recession of the last 25 years, in the next 6 months.
Right now a casual observation suggests Australia is leading NZ in the first quarter mile of what is shapping up to be a 10 mile middle distance race.
Key reference points are likely to include:
- the quality of the public private partnerships/contracts in the telecoms and construction/ infastructure projects
-the extent to which we are able to use the fiscal package to shift productivity to new levels post the 2 year timeframe
-ability to position private sector for sustained growth beyond 2010, higher scale etc
-opportunity captured to lift the non inflationary sustainable growth pathway
-other qunatative goals to be added
For all these initatives; evaluation criteria to be identified; comparisons with Australia determined; benckmarking completed on regular basis etc
monitored and Australian initiatives to be evaluated and asessed for inclusion here
Don Cowie
- and the savings & investment rate raised to get it all from a theoretical to a practical level of actions.
Mark:
Great question. I am an ex-pat Kiwi living in Northern California (north of San Francisco – yes, California continues after Sacramento, but don’t tell the Bay Area!) working in Economic and Community Development. I’m not sure if you would agree, but one thing I have noticed since living in the States is how ENGAGED people are in the process of government. Now, that’s very broad obviously and I happen to live in a liberal part of the country, but it seems that citizen activism is a fine tuned art here.
The interesting observation coming out of the Obama campaign was just how well they took that engagement to the next level with a highly mobilized grassroots effort assisted by technology. Through Social Media people felt mobilized, heeded calls to action and were empowered to make local decisions within a framework. The level of engagement was unprecedented and campaigns are forever changed here. The bigger debate now is how will that collaboration work post Jan 20, 2009? There is a great article on Huffington Post (http://tinyurl.com/58kydc) that focuses on this – The “Wiki” White House where policy makers blog about their intiatives and major policy proposals are open to community collaboration through Wikis or other collaborative tools.
I think the discussion needs to be focused around creating a culture of activism – not confrontation, but creating a culture of grassroots organizing where people know how to effectively reach out, educate around ideas and rally people to a cause; providing public space where that passion, and combined intellectual knowledge, can be shared, harnassed and leveraged like Wikis for policy documents, clearing houses where public debate and conversation can occur linking action to resources (which is a GREAT role performed here by Community Foundations) and extending public outreach through innovative use of social media – in fact your blog represents the future in so many ways and is a prime example of citizen advocacy at its best!
To illustrate a possible process: I consult with a great Community Foundation here in Northern California (www.hafoundation.org). A local university research center released a report on Rural Healthcare in our Region. I will take that report and in January sit down with healthcare cluster leaders in our community to discuss the report – very informal, just framing a question about how do we respond actively to these recommendations. THEN I start to widen the circle of particiation bringing in more stakeholders, educating them and engaging debate around what our community defined values for healthcare are. Further, we spill this discussion into the public domain and blog, podcast and youTube it to death in addition to the normal townhall meetings and debate. Within 6 months we have an active discussion about how we feel about healthcare and what we plan to do about it – that then leads to action through industry clusters and policy makers linked to a community defined vision developed through an open and collaborative process.
Admittedly that process is slightly more difficult for a central government, but I think enabled discussion through multiple channels (blogging, podcasting, youtubing, Wikis) etc; creating public debate and empowerment to engage in the process in meaningful ways; and creating neutral forums to engage and collaborate – are ESSENTIAL to redefining how we create policy in the future.
Two cents (USD which today is like .0377 NZD)