Mood of the Boardroom: ‘Cut the red tape and give firms a break’

Brett O'Riley. Photo / Supplied

Businesses are feeling under the pump and need a break from increasing government regulation, says EMA chief executive, Brett O’Riley.

“They are not getting a lot of support, and are being loaded up with extra complexity,” he says. “We’ve never had so many businesses saying ‘why am I bothering to take risks and bringing in capital’. There’s not a lot of incentives to do that.”

O’Riley says there have been signals around wealth taxes. “Entrepreneurs I have spoken to respond ‘does the Government forget that we are the ones that take risks?

“If we work hard and become successful, we don’t mind contributing in other ways. The Government wants to tax us and make it hard for us to operate. Yet they will spend taxpayer money in a way we would never do in our business’.”

O’Riley says the government (after the election) must make it easier for companies to do business. The current Government has clogged up businesses with regulation, high costs and made it harder to hire people.

“The fair payment agreements under negotiation are quite unwieldy and have created confusion; we have been waiting four years for the passing of the Holidays Act; and reintroducing 90-day trials across the board gives young people a chance to work.

“The complexity adds costs to businesses, and they are having to get legal advice just to participate in the process.”

O’Riley says the public and private sectors have decoupled in the pace of operating and there needs to be significant public sector reform.

“Government should also collaborate on policy-making — far too many policies are shaped in a vacuum. Take the immigration policy. Since I’ve been at EMA [five years] we’ve been working with the department on the accredited employer scheme. We don’t want to see immigrant workers exploited. We can help triage employers and immigrant applications but we are told that is a regulatory process and we can’t be involved.”

O’Riley says EMA has been working on a model to partner with Immigration NZ. “We have our own legal team with the capability and resources to work alongside them. But there needs to be a political will, and we were starting to get there with Minister Michael Wood before he resigned.”

O’Riley is pushing for more foreign direct investment.

“We need a significant investment increase, other than government, to reduce the infrastructure deficit. We have gone from one of the most attractive places in the world for investment to the opposite.

“We need to streamline the Overseas Investment Office (OIO).

“With the work we are doing in China, we know there is interest in investing in New Zealand’s productive capacity to supply food.

“If we don’t want foreigners buying land, then we can match investors with landowners — iwi have land available for cultivation.”

O’Riley says the investor migrant scheme needs to be fit-for-purpose — the terms don’t align with the China banking rules.

“If you want people to invest in infrastructure, you have to make sure there’s infrastructure funds available to put money into. Investor migrants will invest wherever you want them to, provided there is a return, whether it’s ports, airports or other infrastructure.”

“We just need to be clear what investment and outcomes we are looking for, and make sure the OIO has very clear rules and is well-resourced to deal with issues.

“The Australians have done this successfully and we are well behind.”

Brett O’Riley’s top three business priorities

• Remove red tape and barriers to employing people
• Encourage foreign and domestic investment around productivity and climate change
• Reform of the public sector and delivery of services.