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Leeann Watson: Business Canterbury Chief Executive on Business NZ report · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: There's a worrying new report out this morning from Business
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand. It projects a shortfall of at least two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand workers by twenty forty five, with
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  Speaker 2: health and pensions absorbing one hundred percent of our income tax.
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  Speaker 2: They also reckon there's a one and four chance of
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  Speaker 2: no population growth at all, and they'd like to see
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  Speaker 2: a national bipartisan vision. Leanne Watson is the chief executive
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  Speaker 2: of Business Canterbury Joints in Now. Hello Leanne, Good morning Andrew.
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  Speaker 2: Not a pleasant read, but are they right?
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  Speaker 1: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I think there is a number of things in
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  Speaker 3: the report that certainly requires some more robust thinking that
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  Speaker 3: I think calling for too much by part of an
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  Speaker 3: agreement might be a little unrealistic, particularly as we are
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  Speaker 3: heading into an election year next year. What we do
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  Speaker 3: need is a clear understanding of the go no go
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  Speaker 3: areas from major political parties and definitely reducing that pendulum
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  Speaker 3: swing to something more manageable for business. You know, the
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  Speaker 3: business people I talk to around the country looking for
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  Speaker 3: a conversation about steady, incremental progress, not a pendulum sliff
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  Speaker 3: shift which would potentially south go backwards.
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  Speaker 2: So that's what a national, a nation bipartisan vision would
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  Speaker 2: look to you just calm down, kick to full time goals.
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  Speaker 2: But the thing that gets me is the two hundred
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  Speaker 2: and fifty thousand workers. I mean, we need workers, business
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  Speaker 2: needs workers. Do we need to change immigration settings? You know,
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  Speaker 2: what what can we do about this shortfall? Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And look, I think you know there is definite
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  Speaker 3: air requirement here to ensure that we create some I
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  Speaker 3: guess the scale and the timing of those policy settings
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  Speaker 3: needs to be you know, really clearly laid out for
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  Speaker 3: businesses and for migrants themselves. I mean, we will always
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  Speaker 3: need international talent. We're a country at the bottom of
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  Speaker 3: the world and we're a small country, so it's a
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  Speaker 3: combination of both. Though we need international talent, we need
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  Speaker 3: to provide certainly around those immigration settings. Because when you're
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  Speaker 3: making a decision to move, you know, from the other
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  Speaker 3: side of the world to a different country, you don't
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  Speaker 3: do so lightly, and so having potential for those settings
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  Speaker 3: to change from one government to another is really unsettling
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  Speaker 3: for both those people making those decisions. But also for
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  Speaker 3: the employers who are making big investments on bringing people
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  Speaker 3: into the country. We also need help with it to
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  Speaker 3: grow our own talent, and we need to make sure
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  Speaker 3: there's a really good interface between our education sector and
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  Speaker 3: industry around future workforce planning, and some of that has happening.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we've got a couple of great universities in Canterbury,
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  Speaker 3: caniber University in particular, really engaged with our business community
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that they're getting those conversations going and
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  Speaker 3: getting the right talent coming through our education system.
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  Speaker 2: I'm loving your tone, though, because this comes out at
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  Speaker 2: a bad time and we've had a hard year and
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  Speaker 2: everyone's talking us down and you know, the confidence is low,
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  Speaker 2: and then we hear this like by twenty fifty it's
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  Speaker 2: going to be even worse. But you're actually saying there's
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  Speaker 2: still a lot to look forward to.
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  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. I mean I'm from Canterbury and you know
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  Speaker 3: we are fortunate we are in our region and you know,
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  Speaker 3: in the South Island, you know, things are actually going
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  Speaker 3: reasonably well. We've got you know, really great net internal migration.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we're seeing population growth, you know, we're seeing
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  Speaker 3: export growth, and so I think you know there is
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  Speaker 3: a lot to be positive about around our economy in
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  Speaker 3: the future. Has it been challenging for the last sort
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  Speaker 3: of five years, Absolutely it has. But I think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: if we get these settings right, if we create confidence,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, we've been doing a bit of work
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  Speaker 3: in Canterbary to provide some of the answers to make
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  Speaker 3: sure that we do have a long term vision and
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  Speaker 3: there's a role for the private sector to play in
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  Speaker 3: that in terms of having a really strong ambition. There
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  Speaker 3: is a role for local government and central government to
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  Speaker 3: create the right environment for you know, businesses to do
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  Speaker 3: what they do best, which is to innovate, to invest
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  Speaker 3: and to grow. And all of the times it's actually
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  Speaker 3: government getting out of the way and sometimes without pulling
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  Speaker 3: the right.
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  Speaker 2: Lead exactly all of us working together. Lea and Watson
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  Speaker 2: from Business Cannibury, I thank you so much for your
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  Speaker 2: time today.
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