FRAN DOESNT GO FAR ENOUGH

We have been quite gentle on the incoming government but it would be fair to say that we think that Fran does not go far enough in sharing her concerns of the lack of breadth of Nationals response to the Economic downturn. There are murmurs of disquiet rippling through Wellington and Auckland business communities. While Fran rightly points out that Nationals policy has been largely targeted at the construction sector we agree there is much more that can be done. We are watching very, very closely to what National will do in the IT sector, for instance.

Fibre to the home seems like such a worthy ideal but increasing business capability is where the effort should be targetted at. We again think this article in the NYT sets out the pitfalls succinctly

We also wonder if the Government has invited some companies to the Job summit who are new on the scene , who have grown in the last couple of years despite the downturn. They are the ones who are bucking the trend who will have the entrepreneurial thinkers at their helm. We hope that the Job summit is well managed but like Cactus Kate we are starting to wonder just what is so special about Weldon who apparently is a very uninspiring speaker and interestingly he does not have a huge amount of support throughout the business community. So as eye candy goes - he is a stawberry chuppa chuppa but as an inspirational leader - he apparently is a sugar free boiled lolly - someone even suggested " boring as batshit" . And in the next few weeks we need to see some inspirational leadership we have had glimpses of in the past , as our future more than anytime in the last 50 years, is in their hands.

So less of the dinners and photo ops and thinking inwards and relying on stale advisors who haven't been off the hill in ten years. We need to hear and understand your plan. We remain loyal but you need to work to keep our trust.