Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Simon Bridges: Auckland Business Chamber Chief Executive on changes to visa settings

Transcript

Simon Bridges: Auckland Business Chamber Chief Executive on changes to visa settings · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, the governments relaxed visa settings to encourage more foreign investments,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: replacing the current waiting system with two new categories, the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: growth and the balanced category. For the growth category, you'll
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: need at least five million dollars and that needs to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: be invested for a minimum of three years, and you
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: have to live here three weeks of a year. Ten
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  Speaker 1: million dollars is for the balance category, and that's over
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a long period of time, and you will have to
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  Speaker 1: spend one hundred and five days living here. The Orka
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  Speaker 1: Business Chamber Chief Executive Simon Bridges with me right now.
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  Speaker 1: You were also at the MC at the presentation.
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  Speaker 2: Weren't you. That's exactly right, Andrew, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Good morning to you. So haven't we done this before? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: And I think look at you. If you look at
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  Speaker 2: the results over time under more permissive settings, if you
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  Speaker 2: want to say that, the result is pretty clear. A
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  Speaker 2: lot of are very wealthy game and I think history
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  Speaker 2: shows they invested in our best companies, golf courses. They
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: may bequeath to your art, Garys. They had an oversized
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  Speaker 2: contribution to New Zealand then we tidened them up. I
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: think I think it was under the last labor government
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  Speaker 2: and we saw less of that, right, So you know,
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  Speaker 2: I think possibly in New Zealanders don't quite understand how
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  Speaker 2: much good invest in migrant settings can be really important
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  Speaker 2: to our economic success. I'm sure as they'll need that
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  Speaker 2: at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: That's true. But at the same time, art galleries and
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  Speaker 1: golf courses, is really is that the way to generate
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  Speaker 1: wealth and have wealth creation in this country? It's not really,
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  Speaker 1: It's not really the zeros and the fisher and pacal
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  Speaker 1: health cares?
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  Speaker 2: Is it? My personal view right now? As big as
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  Speaker 2: can't be true as it chooses, we have to do things.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I mean think, if you want to want to critique
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  Speaker 2: on this, at one level it's actually hate good, but
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  Speaker 2: there's so much more to do. We're in a negative
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  Speaker 2: growth environment. We have to get to positive growth and
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  Speaker 2: we need boldness. And one of the things I put
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  Speaker 2: to the ministers and the Prime Minister yesterdays. You know,
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  Speaker 2: people can have all sorts of views of Trump, and
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  Speaker 2: look I do too, but what he has done with
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  Speaker 2: quite bold steps on corporate text and the light is
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  Speaker 2: he has stirred the animal spirits of business and so
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  Speaker 2: you know, I think I take your point, but I
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  Speaker 2: do think the reality of the vineyards, the golf courses,
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  Speaker 2: actually the zeros, the rocket mAbs who private Micrant investors
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  Speaker 2: were instrumental in at the start, is as they create
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  Speaker 2: a big jobs that are higher paying, that create in
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  Speaker 2: the end higher standards of living.
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  Speaker 1: This is true. There's two parts of the equation. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: there's the money. We already have money in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 1: and there's high wealth individuals New Zealanders who have high wealth,
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  Speaker 1: and one of their problems is that they don't actually
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  Speaker 1: invest in businesses, the stock marketing and other areas to
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  Speaker 1: actually put in some working venture capital is not good here.
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  Speaker 1: And the other half of the equation is the actual
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  Speaker 1: things that we put investments into. So do we have
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  Speaker 1: the investments that some guy from overseas will come here
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  Speaker 1: and go, I'll put some money in.
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  Speaker 2: I think the point you make the receipt, you know
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  Speaker 2: at deep point we haven't got time for I tend
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  Speaker 2: to agree with you, right. I think though actually a
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  Speaker 2: lot of high network New Zealanders they need a bit
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  Speaker 2: more confident in the economies. That comes back to my
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  Speaker 2: boldness point in terms of the investment. Yeah, you know
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  Speaker 2: what I think we do. I think if you look
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: at Silicon Valley and I've been there a couple of
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  Speaker 2: times and talk to some really big venture capital firms,
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  Speaker 2: it's a fascinating experience. The reality there is there is
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  Speaker 2: more capital than good investible propositions. The truth in New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand is there are so many startups that are amazing
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  Speaker 2: that if they were in Silicon Valley would get the money,
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  Speaker 2: would get a sort of fifty million dollars from an
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  Speaker 2: andres In Horowitz or something that they don't get here.
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  Speaker 2: So I hear what you say. I still think there's
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  Speaker 2: a capital issue, and I still think actually the thing
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  Speaker 2: you get with you know, a rich American or German
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  Speaker 2: or whatever coming in here is they do have a
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  Speaker 2: bit more of that culture of investing in these things
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  Speaker 2: and giving them a whirl, probably because of their life
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  Speaker 2: experience in those countries.
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  Speaker 1: Well, maybe you could have a chat to your successes
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  Speaker 1: and actually suggest that maybe some corporate tax changes, particularly
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  Speaker 1: for startups might actually help people along the way to
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  Speaker 1: bring the money in. Simon, thank you so much once
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  Speaker 1: again for your time, and enjoy you week.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan's Bread, listen live
• 4:01
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• 4:04
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