The big ideas to get us out of the recession

KIM KNIGHT

SPREADABLE BUTTER. Jogging. Tranquilliser guns. Egg beaters. All invented by Kiwis.

New Zealand is the nation built on number eight fencing wire. It's the country that runs on the smell of an oily rag, that prides itself on punching above its weight on the world stage. Heck, once upon a time, one of us split an atom.

That was then. Last month, an OECD report noted our economy was among the developed world's most indebted. Our businesses were cutting employment and investment. New Zealand, it said, would remain in recession this year and recover only hesitantly in 2010. "Boosting productivity growth is critical," said the report.

Can the "can-do Kiwi" attitude save us? Possibly, says the team behind this week's Entrepreneurial Summit in Auckland.

It was always going to grab headlines: 100 entrepreneurs, 100 ideas. Ultimately, promised the press releases, a plan to double our GDP, to raise more than $100 billion.

Ideas would come from a hand-picked list of 250 of our best and brightest. Entry to the summit would be competitive ("the bar is set very high"). Invitees ran from filmmaker Peter Jackson to fashion designer Karen Walker. Neither is attending. The summit was delayed a month. And then, apparently in the face of an "overwhelming response", the concept was opened to the public. This past week, when the Sunday Star-Times asked to view some proposals, included in the batch was the following: "Fix the weather."

What the ...?

The Entrepreneurial Summit, being held on Thursday at Auckland's Ellerslie Events Centre, is sponsored by ANZ, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bartercard New Zealand and the AUT Venture Fund. It is co-ordinated by businessmen Chris Simmons and Tony Falkenstein, the Just Water chief executive who has just invested $1 million in that venture fund, and co-chaired by husband and wife business people, Tenby Powell and Sharon Hunter.

The thing about entrepreneurs, explains Falkenstein, "is we can be a bit chaotic. But we come up with the goods at the end of it".

On Wednesday, a very cross Powell called the Star-Times and said of the summit: "I can tell you now, it's not a joke. We've got every chance to add considerable value to this country."

So we persevered. The organisers confirmed The Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall was attending. So was Gavin Faull, a Kiwi who runs an international hotel management company based in Hong Kong. "He's so concerned about New Zealand he's flying back to join us next Thursday," said Powell.

Andy Hamilton, chief executive at business growth centre The Icehouse, has submitted "about five" ideas to the summit.

"I have 1000 good ideas before lunchtime normally." It was 10am when we phoned. Today's brilliant scheme? "I shouldn't drink so much kava when I go on holiday to Fiji."

But, seriously, he also thinks it would be a good idea if New Zealand was round, instead of long and thin. Because and this time he really is serious then we wouldn't have to duplicate so many services.

"Do we need to have seven Crown Research Institutes and five law schools? Crap."

Hamilton is being deliberately provocative. One of his big ideas is to collapse all the government agencies that support business growth into one super power.

"Our government needs to be true to the problems we have of scale, and it needs to get its shit together and stop having this plethora of bureaucracy that exists around economic development."

But wait, there's more. Hamilton wants the Immigration Department to get proactive attracting the "right" people here. He says if it reinvented itself as an executive search firm, and attracted 500 talented people to work for business or set up a business in New Zealand, "the pay-off would be high... $1 million per person is $500 million a year".

Powell estimates the best of the ideas presented to the summit could earn the country $25 billion a year. Ambitious? "There's a high reputational risk for everybody involved in this," he agrees.

"The summit is, in many respects, a logical extension of the job summit. Jobs are great and it's all about doing stuff in a recession. The nine-day working fortnight is, I think, a fantastic initiative, but in my mind it's a recessionary initiative. We need to look past that and say `where is the real growth coming from?"'

It was Powell who invited the deputy prime minister to receive the summit's top ideas. "Dear Bill," he wrote. "I wonder if I could capture your attention for a minute..."

Entrepreneurs, said Powell, are people who had punched through and taken responsibility for their ideas. "They see opportunities which other people do not. Dramatic changes in business have happened because of the foresight of entrepreneurs, not necessarily by politicians, trade unions or big business."

The ideas that make it through to next week (and no, "fix the weather" is not one of them) must enable positive national and regional growth, be implementable within 18 months and crucially require no government funding.

"We are not in the business of helping people and mentoring them to feather their own nest," said Powell. "There is a level of altruism here. We are passionate New Zealanders who want to see a better New Zealand."

About 150 ideas have been submitted to the forum. Some 30 will be refined on the day, and five to 10 of those will be presented to Bill English.

"We need to shape New Zealand into a globally competitive country," said Powell. "Shipping logs and steel is not going to do it."

At his company the New Zealand Rental Group he works on the adage, "we don't do recessions".

"There's nothing like an economic tail wind, the likes of which we've seen for really the last 10 years, to hide an awful lot of ills."

The ideas that have made the cut cover the spectrum from immigration to employment, health and tourism. Some will make money, others will save it.

Consider this: an exercise machine with a built-in computer. "Obesity issues are costly," says Megan Fowlie, communications manager with Counties Manukau District Health Board. "The computer could be used at home to keep active while whittling the hours on online games or, more likely, by sedentary workers to combat the burgeoning epidemic of obesity-related diseases and improve fitness and productivity in the workplace."

Wellington's Greg Howard wants to see a possum board established to market fur, pelts, leather and meat. Trappers, he says, could kill twice the pests as current poison programmes. He says paying a $5 bounty for a product that could earn $10 equates to "$100 million in export revenue".

Chris Simmons a recipient of a Volunteer Service Award by the global Entrepreneurs Organisation is proposing an adopted Kiwi programme, where eligible tourists (full medical insurance and the ability to place $250,000 into a government bond) would receive a 10-year multi-entry visa with a view to enticing them to retire in New Zealand.

"We could expect 10% more tourist days spent in New Zealand, adding $2.4 billion in overseas income."

How feasible are these proposals? Ask property wheeler and dealer Graham Wall. A couple of months ago, the national cycleway was "one side of one piece of paper".

Last Thursday, the government promised $50m to the idea that Wall had after a chat with the some English tourists.

"Good ideas come from being a bit childlike and a bit simple. You have to be unembarrassable. I'm one of those people who has never been fearful of making a fool of myself."

Wall's latest idea is free economy return airfares to tourists who buy a $10,000 debit card that must be spent here.

"Free airfares," he says; "initially you think, `that's a silly idea'." But government, he argues, is already the major shareholder in Air New Zealand. Long-haul flights have spare seats, thanks to the recession, "and all you would need to do is make the media aware of this offer and suddenly there's a headline and suddenly a million more people think about coming to New Zealand".

Wall: "Some very wise people say any dumb f--- can find the money. It's the idea that's valuable."

And the people that have them. Ben Ridler, managing director of business coaching company The Results.Group, says high-value companies "don't have bricks and mortar balance sheets ... it's ideas, it's intellectual property and concepts".

Which is why he wants government to identify high value industries and then guarantee a $50,000 trading bank loan for every person those companies employ.

"People are an asset, but banks will not lend on this asset, which restricts the employment and growth of these businesses."

Google, Microsoft et al, "would never have started" based on traditional lending models, says Ridler.

"We are brilliant," he says of local business. "The average New Zealand company does what it does better than nearly anyone else in the world. It finds better, cheaper, faster ways of doing things, and it does a great job of it.

"If we could access capital to employ people ... it's all about intellectual capital, it's all about talent. Then we could keep growing."

Auckland University-based business historian Ian Hunter says that for entrepreneurs, recessions are simply another opportunity. Back in the 1930s, he says, a young man was walking through an orchard in the Hawke's Bay "looking at a whole lot of rotting fruit, because they couldn't afford to pay pickers. And he says `no don't sell fruit, sell cans'."

That man's name? James Wattie.

- © Fairfax NZ News