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Simon Bridges: Auckland Business Chamber CEO on the new Business Investor Visa · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
• 0:12
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Another visa moved from Erica, Stanford, this time targeting investors.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: The New Business Investor visa fast tracks your residency for
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: anyone chucking two million dollars or more into a KEYWEK company.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: All applicants have to pass health check, character English language
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: tests before they're approved. Simon Bridges is Auckland's cheerleader Aukland
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Business cheam for CEO with us this morning.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Hey Simon, Hey get a grian.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: What do you make of this one?
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I think first bus blush it's excellent additional policy.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, if you think about it, we've
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: seen for quite some time in sem Land older business
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: owners they want to get out. They've built up a
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: successful business, their son and daughter doesn't want to take
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: it over. How do they provide for a successor and
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: get a payday before before they retire? And I think,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: of course, look, you know that the issues we've talked
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: about around all Prince, this is more cash one and
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: two million dollar lots coming in. Some of them go
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: on Carol and Steve going on their overseas holiday, but look,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: a bunch of it will be injected back into the
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: local economy. I think one questions around just that the
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: discrete crike Furya. It's hard to tell in the abstract
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  Speaker 3: just how permissive and enabling this is. You know, you've
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: mentioned some of them. Five you've got a five full
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: time staff English language requirement. It can't be convenience stores
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: and so on. All of that sort of on its
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: own makes sense. But if we add it all up,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: just just how permissive is this policy? So I think
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: overall an excellent edition.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Is two million dollars minimum enough for a fast track
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: to residency?
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think so. I think I think you'll
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: get a lot of businesses that have fallen into that
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: sort of category. And you know, I think in the
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: end it comes back to the point I want you. You've
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: got to structure this right so that you are getting
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: investors coming in who want to work on the businesses.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Remember the other thing here that it's not particularly permissive.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: But you know, I can understand that the logic ofv
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: is the person who buys is going to have to
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: work in this business for a period of time. You know,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: that's well that's work. That's hard work.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: How you have been quite successful in lobbying the government
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: onhalf of business chamber to get Auckland stuff done. I
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: reckon they're going to go with a bid text to
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the election. What do you reckon?
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  Speaker 3: So you know about that? There's such sort of entrench
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: positions around not having a tax. The reality is this,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: they don't need to do a text. I mean what
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: they could just do is from the center. That is,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: from that the tax money we pay in provide a
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: dollar of cash back for the kind of initiatives I think,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: you know, it's important to see better events funding and
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: so on. I mean the figures that I have in
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  Speaker 3: my mind, I don't quite me the exact you know,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: ten thousand or anything, But you go back a decade
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  Speaker 3: or so, there's about thirty million dollars going into major
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: events and the like from the crown and local government.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Now it's more like seven to ten million. You know,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: if we want to do well versus kind of you
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: be big AUSSI cities, we do need to invest more.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: What about because there are a couple of other things
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: you have mentioned yesterday. What are the other big things Leavers?
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: You think the government needs to pull for Auckland.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm not a brains trust, but but
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: there's there's there's so many things they could do. I mean,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I may think another one that is in the Erica
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: stat Stanford kind of area is just ongoing liberalization of
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: tourism and international education visas. These these are levers you
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: can pull. There is a boom in Asian tourism going
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: on at the moment in your Malaysias and your Vietnams
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: and your Thailand. Why isn't it in New Zealand. Yeah,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: we're a bit more expensive, but I tell you what,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: we've made the visa set settings not easier, but tougher.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Are we too rich to not need that cash? You know?
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  Speaker 3: I think I think we need it right now in
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  Speaker 3: Auckland hotel nights. The occupancy rates in Auckland hotels are
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: as a generalization abysmal. So I think that is something
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: they could pull that would be quite a switch actually
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: to seeing more Asian tourists walking around our streets.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Interesting stuff. Some appreciate your time this morning, Simon Bridges,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Auckland Business Chamber of CEO.
• 4:07
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