Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the Government's plan to set up Special Economic Zones for Marsden Point

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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the Government's plan to set up Special Economic Zones for Marsden Point · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from newstalk zed B. Follow
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The government is considering a special economic zone from Marsden
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  Speaker 2: Point that would reduce red tape to parently help turn
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  Speaker 2: it into an economic winner. Brad Olsen is the Informetric's
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  Speaker 2: principal economist who's back with us on this.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Brad, good evening.
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  Speaker 2: So these special economic zones. We've spoken to the minister,
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  Speaker 2: that's Shane Jones earlier on the program about this, his
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  Speaker 2: ideas for it. What do you reckon?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, look, it's always encouraging to think about the economic
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  Speaker 3: growth potential coming through And look, I'm a Northlander so
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  Speaker 3: definitely understand all of that. But I really would hope
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  Speaker 3: that if we can figure out how to make some
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  Speaker 3: of these different proposals work in a special economic zone,
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  Speaker 3: surely we can make them work for like the entire country.
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  Speaker 3: And it would be better probably to do that more
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  Speaker 3: broadly than to do it sort of at a more
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  Speaker 3: specific zone by zone function. I mean, the worry I
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  Speaker 3: guess I have is that you start to create winners
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  Speaker 3: in establish losers if you have certain you know, more
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  Speaker 3: business friendly regulations or you know, different regulations that you
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  Speaker 3: don't have to do within a special economic zone, but
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  Speaker 3: you still have to do in other parts of the country.
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  Speaker 3: It sort of does make other parts of the country
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  Speaker 3: less competitive. It would be better, I suggest to, you know,
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  Speaker 3: try and lift all boats or to eliminate all of
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  Speaker 3: those regulations everywhere. If you can do it in one zone,
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  Speaker 3: you probably should just do it everywhere. Overall.
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  Speaker 2: Countries that do this tend to be massive. You know,
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  Speaker 2: we're quite small, so it would seem odd to have,
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  Speaker 2: you know, an arbitrary line between around a port basically
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  Speaker 2: in northern.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and I think, you know, also for other
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  Speaker 3: areas around the country where they might be going, well, geez,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I've got a port, can I have one
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  Speaker 3: of these as well? And then okay, so you extended
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  Speaker 3: out to all the ports, and then the airports want them,
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  Speaker 3: then the inland ports want one, and at that point,
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  Speaker 3: why don't you just sort of do it wholesale? I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I think as well. Part of this is, I think
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  Speaker 3: is around the government wanting to test out some of
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  Speaker 3: these options and hopefully using it as a bit of
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  Speaker 3: an approving ground for how they might be developed. Out further,
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  Speaker 3: and if that's the case, I can buy that justification
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  Speaker 3: a lot more. But I think also, you know, looking ahead,
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  Speaker 3: it would be better if we can figure out a
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  Speaker 3: way to make these sort of proposals work, then you
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  Speaker 3: do have a much more expensive option. The work the
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  Speaker 3: government's doing though around Marsden Point or thinking about around
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  Speaker 3: the likes of fuel security. I do think that's important.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, some of the analysis that the government's put
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  Speaker 3: out today suggests that you know, we can only cover
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  Speaker 3: about a third of our usual amount of fuel use
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  Speaker 3: across the country. If we had no fuel supply for
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  Speaker 3: ninety days, that's two thirds of economic activity and transporting
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  Speaker 3: stuff around that we wouldn't be able to do. So
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  Speaker 3: aside from the special economic zones, which you hope can
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  Speaker 3: broaden out, some of this work on fuel security is
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  Speaker 3: going to be important. It might be costly, but I
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  Speaker 3: think it's worth the conversation.
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  Speaker 2: The other thing that comes with it's not just better
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  Speaker 2: regulational easier regulations than especially economic zones, is potentially tax
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  Speaker 2: breaks as well. How do you reckon that it go down?
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's where a lot of other business
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  Speaker 3: will sort of start to probably rightfully complain and go, well,
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  Speaker 3: how come we can't get that as well? You know,
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  Speaker 3: we're good, hard earning export businesses throughout the country and
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  Speaker 3: trying to do different things. You know what, why do
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  Speaker 3: we have to uproot ourselves from different areas. So again,
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  Speaker 3: I can take the point that maybe it's a bit
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  Speaker 3: more of that test case and that over time it
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  Speaker 3: can sort of widen out. But I do think that there,
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  Speaker 3: you know, could be some very valid complaints for people going, well, actually,
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  Speaker 3: surely we should do this across it if we can
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  Speaker 3: make you know, some sort of tax breaks and similar
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  Speaker 3: work for certain industries and certain parts of the country.
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  Speaker 3: I sort of feel like you should do that broadly.
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  Speaker 3: Put it this way. I don't think we've got the
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  Speaker 3: time or the effort here in New Zealand to be
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  Speaker 3: able to sort of make these very minute decisions over
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  Speaker 3: what and on the map gets sort of you know,
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  Speaker 3: certain economic advantages and not surely we're small enough where
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  Speaker 3: we should be able to do it wholesale across the country.
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  Speaker 3: If it's good enough for one area, it's good enough
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  Speaker 3: for the rest of us.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, good point, Brad, Thanks so much for that brand
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  Speaker 2: of Olsen from Informetrics. With us is the principal economy.
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