Taskforce to probe NZ productivity

Tuesday 21st July 2009

Former National Party leader Don Brash is to lead a productivity taskforce charged with identifying how New Zealand can close the income gap with Australia in the next 16 years.

The five-member 2025 Taskforce will deliver its first report in October this year, and further reports in 2010 and 2011, said Regulatory Reform Minister Rodney Hide.

Other members of the group have yet to be named. Its creation was part of the confidence and supply agreement between National and its coalition partner, the Act party.

The income gap with Australia, which has continued to widen over most of the last 30 years, is "one of the reasons we lose so many talented, hard-working New Zealanders every year", said Hide. "The October 2009 report will identify the policy settings and changes that will deliver the productivity growth necessary for a stronger, more prosperous economy."

The announcement follows a speech last week by Prime Minister John Key outlining six areas of policy priority to raise New Zealand's sluggish productivity performance, and a speech by Treasury Secretary John Whitehead yesterday which offered public servants "carrot and stick" options for improving the output from government agencies without significant additional spending.

Whitehead raised the prospect of major realignments of government service delivery, including consolidation of services under a smaller number of larger agencies, and greater use of non-government and private delivery of government-funded activities.

Hide said Brash was ideally suited to the role, having been Governor of the Reserve Bank for 14 years before entering politics in 2002 in part because of his concern about the widening income gap with Australia.

Businesswire.co.nz

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