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Brad Olsen: Infometrics chief executive on the Government's signs a new standards agreement with Australia · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: The government signed a new standards agreement with Australia. It
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  Speaker 1: covers areas like AI, data management and cyber security. Scott
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  Speaker 1: Simpson did this. He's our Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister.
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  Speaker 1: He says it's going to lower costs for businesses. Brad
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  Speaker 1: Olson Informetrics with us this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Hey Brad, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: What is this thing.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's effectively making sure that all of this sort
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  Speaker 2: of real base level standards, so the various things that
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  Speaker 2: businesses have to do when they're operating in either New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand or Australia are aligned. So if you're someone who's
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  Speaker 2: offering services or try and offer services in both countries,
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  Speaker 2: you don't want to have to fill out two sets
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  Speaker 2: of paperwork and sort of conform to two different standards
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  Speaker 2: to do effectively the same work. We're so close with Australia.
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  Speaker 2: They are one of our biggest trading partners, certainly in
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  Speaker 2: the services industry, and so effectively this is meant to
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  Speaker 2: allow a lot of businesses who do trans Tasman to
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  Speaker 2: do that a whole lot more efficiently. Whereas, and this
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  Speaker 2: is the challenge that we continue to hear from businesses
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  Speaker 2: Otherwise the sort of start doing all that paperwork. They're
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  Speaker 2: trying to sort of figure out how they do the
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  Speaker 2: base stuff. They don't actually have the time to do
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  Speaker 2: actual work and then make money. So this is a
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  Speaker 2: good move. It's not something that I don't think consumers
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  Speaker 2: are going to notice a whole lot. They're not going
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  Speaker 2: to be looking at ENZ standard three zero one eight five,
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  Speaker 2: But it's going to make a difference to businesses not
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  Speaker 2: having all that admin to do in the background.
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  Speaker 1: Which way does more business go trans tasmin wise from
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  Speaker 1: US to them or them to US.
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  Speaker 2: Looking at services activity, the Australia is the second largest
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  Speaker 2: export area that we export our services too, so we
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  Speaker 2: send services over there now that includes things like tourism
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  Speaker 2: as well, and it's a little bit tricky on the
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  Speaker 2: services side to break down other bits and pieces, but
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  Speaker 2: in terms of overall trade, they're sort of second or
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  Speaker 2: third largest after China and the US, so they are
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  Speaker 2: vitally important. And I think the other big reason that
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  Speaker 2: these sort of changes make such a difference is because
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  Speaker 2: we've obviously seen such a big flow of New Zealanders
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  Speaker 2: who go across to Australia and they sort of often
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  Speaker 2: take their skills at points in the past. Maybe not
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  Speaker 2: so much at the moment, but they do often then
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  Speaker 2: come back or you know, have families back in New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand and the Lakes. So there is some real importance
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  Speaker 2: here and some of the areas that the government are
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  Speaker 2: noting they should make a bit of a difference under
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  Speaker 2: the hood for a lot of businesses. You know, you're
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  Speaker 2: talking about the likes of electrical installations, you're looking at
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  Speaker 2: civil engineering, you know, parts around building design and construction.
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  Speaker 2: And probably the biggest one is that there's actually twenty
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  Speaker 2: four standards that previously we had in certain areas that
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  Speaker 2: we sort of got out of kilter. The Aussies went
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  Speaker 2: one way, we'd gone another, and so again you're probably
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  Speaker 2: having businesses out there that are effectively having to employ
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  Speaker 2: a whole other person just to sort out the paperwork
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  Speaker 2: on this stuff. Now at least they'll be a little
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  Speaker 2: bit more aligned. And look, talking of businesses, there's a
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  Speaker 2: whole lot of stuff they want to do more, better, faster, stronger,
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  Speaker 2: but these sort of things they are I guess that
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  Speaker 2: the main below the surface issues that if you don't
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  Speaker 2: get them right, they're just such an idiot barrier to
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  Speaker 2: a lot of businesses. Oftentimes people go it's not worth
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  Speaker 2: it to do that work. So this should free up
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  Speaker 2: a lot of capacity across the system as we go forwards.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Brad, appreciate that update This morning. Brad Olson Informetrics.
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• 3:18
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