Simon Bridges is the chief executive of the Auckland Business Chamber and was the leader of the National Party from 2018 to 2020. He has also served as the Minister for Transport, Economic Development and Communications. He has also worked as a senior Crown prosecutor in the Tauranga District and High Courts.

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.

NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones. Photo / Mark Mitchell

There has been a lot of political silly business in recent weeks: the leaked Stuart Nash text, Shane Jones and the kneepads, Paul Henry playing “shoot, shag, or marry”. Dog whistling was followed by virtue signalling across the political spectrum.

Yet these stories are near meaningless. Voters don’t vote basedon politicians talking about themselves or their political adversaries. I’m not normally judgmental – this personality stuff can be entertaining. I enjoy a bit of japery as much as the next buffoon.

But right now, we’re in serious times. There is war and turmoil globally and higher inflation and interest rates without the commensurate wage rises and growth locally.

Such times reward seriousness and substance, focusing on the things that matter, as we in the Nats would have said in the period 2008-17. What matters now more than ever is the economy and the cost and standard of living we enjoy, or don’t, in New Zealand. Just ask any of our pollsters.

I thought about this as we mourned the loss of a beast of New Zealand politics, Sir Bill Birch, not exactly known for his hilarity but certainly for his depth of purpose. I was further reminded looking across the Ditch in last week, where former Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe and former trade union czar Bill Kelty have separately both warned Aussies about their nation’s lack of commitment and urgency on the economy and its growth and productivity.

Lowe told local media: “We need Australia to be a great place for business to invest, expand and hire people. It requires some more fundamental public policy reform”. Kelty lashed recent governments at a parliamentary inquiry, saying taxes and spending are too high, and noting “something is really wrong” when living standards are falling in a commodities boom. The Australian Government was too interested in symptoms and ignoring root causes, he said.

Doesn’t the same refrain apply with as much (or more) force here? I think so.

So far this year, almost all I see is political parties telling us how they’ll slice and dice our country’s cake; how they’ll redistribute our collective earnings. If we wanted to be charitable about this, we could say that at least they’re dealing with the symptoms of our economic malaise and so called “cost of living crisis”. Dealing with the symptoms can alleviate the pain for groups of New Zealanders who are targeted with state munificence.

But I don’t think this cuts the mustard and there are plenty of cases in point from all political parties of what I’m complaining about. The National Party’s pledge around increased paid parental leave is one such example, skilfully or cynically timed (or both) just after Nash’s foot in mouth disease. One of Labour’s most recent announcements was solar power subsidies for households. Both these initiatives may be great, but both spend taxpayer money helping those considered worthy of state support. Neither really grow our economy nor make it significantly more productive.

The only real way to substantially deal with our issues long term is to actually increase the metaphorical cake. We need to stop thinking mainly about who gets what and more on actually growing it.

What we need is policies focused squarely on growth and productivity. This should be the ruler we run over everything being promised. Does it, in Sir Peter Blake-like fashion, make the boat go faster? If yes, tick. If not, not so much. It might be nice to have but it isn’t where our politicians should be putting their focus at this time.

Parties and leaders adopting this test won’t just be doing what is right by us. They’ll also be playing good politics. I watched the polls like a hawk in my time in Parliament and I am positive that delivering policies that match the circumstances of a given moment is what gains the respect and support of swinging voters. The average West or South Auckland voter understands the economic gravity of things right now because they’re often the hardest hit by it in their day-to-day lives. They instinctively realise the need for pro-growth policies over flim-flam and charity for favoured groups.

What would such a growth agenda look like, exactly? Well, it’s got to be more than all packaging with little inside the box. That said, it doesn’t have to be massive or expensive.

Small but significant micro reforms can really add up, adding hundreds of millions to GDP here and there, and percentage points to growth in aggregate.

Take tourism, say, as just one component of what could be in our growth plan. We now allow Chinese visitors in if they have already got their visa for Australia. This has grown visitor numbers and spending strongly. Yet, when were we ever just another state of Australia? When did we decide to delegate our policies to them?

Instead, we should do what a rich country like Singapore does and allow Chinese tourists in, visa-free, for up to 30 days regardless of whether they’ve got an Aussie visa or not. If it’s good enough for Singaporeans, who barely need the tourist dollars to let them in, surely we can generate more commerce from Chinese tourists than just those Australia has already said yes to.

And why have cruise ship numbers fallen away so much in recent times when cruising is booming in most of the rest of the globe? These ships and their overweight foreign passengers are a godsend into the port cities of New Zealand. I recall as a local MP how crucial they were at Mount Maunganui for retail and hospo. All political parties should tell us their plan to clear away the hurdles and get them back, growing jobs and the economy in the process.

One more tourism-related thought. The Government put in place a temporary major events fund, which has been great for the likes of Auckland when the Tottenham Hotspurs come to town, for example. But the fund ends in the middle of next year and in the context of events that take multiple years of planning, this short-termism isn’t good enough. Which party will deal with this and give us at least a medium-term plan for a pipeline of events and activations throughout the country? We didn’t get the America’s Cup or Sail GP, which could have been serious economic boosts. Let’s not miss out on the future opportunities we could seize with the right government plan for growth.

Less silliness, more serious business is what I want from our political aspirants right now.

Simon Bridges is the chief executive of the Auckland Business Chamber and was the leader of the National Party from 2018 to 2020.

Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter – a weekly round-up of our best commentary.