KEY POINTS:
Bill English wants a future for New Zealand where the sharemarket grows at a much faster clip than the Government's asset bag.
"We've got a Government balance sheet that has expanded a hell of a lot faster than the stock exchange ... we need to change that."
If
English gets a shot at being Finance Minister again (he was Treasurer from February to November 1999) expect him to try to put more of the Government's burgeoning surpluses back into New Zealanders' pockets so they can make their own decisions about where they invest, rather than leaving it up to Nanny State.
There will also be a greater focus on the Government's operational management ("with 35 per cent of GDP, it has to lift its own game," says English), partial floats of state-owned companies, a tax system which encourage business activity, depoliticisation of regulatory activity ("regulators no longer have the confidence to do what they ought to be doing") and a strong emphasis on building an innovative entrepreneurial culture that is swift and nimble rather than positioned to take advantage of economies of scale ("I am sceptical about the Australia-New Zealand single market - we should be looking beyond that").
English will spend the next few months "getting out and about as I did with the education sector", taking soundings from businesses and exporters as he starts to define National's 2008 economic policies.
He wants to widen the membership of the caucus economic team and bring in MPs with an innovative streak. Present members are himself, John Key, Don Brash, Katherine Rich, Lockwood Smith, Craig Foss and Chris Tremain.
Importantly, he will not be a sole operator in this area. Other National MPs will be expected to work on policy development, listen to business and take the message further.
He will be a voice for business, but not the voice of business, at a future National Cabinet table.
English has stepped into the shadow finance minister's role with the ease of a Southland farmer putting on his boots for a day out on the farm.
The politician, whose southern burr disguises a keen intellect, intends to come up with a bill of goods by the next election that will provide impetus for the budding entrepreneur to invest and expand international business from New Zealand, as well as provide comfort for our traditional exporters that a National government will try to nut out a macro-economic mix that will ensure their fortunes are not subject to the whims of a helter-skelter currency.
English has a lot of respect for Finance Minister Michael Cullen, against whom he has duelled when the two were head to head in their respective economic responsibilities. He admires the way Cullen was able to overturn initial business opposition to him to the point where he is now respected for a pragmatic operating style.
He will try to position himself as an innovator up against a Finance Minister who has run out of steam on the ideas front and is more into politics than progress.
Expect to hear a lot from English during the next couple of years as he takes Cullen to task about issues such as macro-economic stability, "operational management" of the Government's asset base, better regulatory environments ("not sexy - but the boring stuff that really does make a difference") and the Government's tendency to undermine the regulatory environment by direct political meddling.
These are all potentially fruitful areas for National to open up after months dominated by its campaign against Labour's election funding rorts. A fruitful area also as former National leader Don Brash - who many National insiders expect will leave politics before the next election - has basically been set up as the fall guy for the party's own barely ethical dealings with the Exclusive Brethren, exposed in Nicky Hager's The Hollow Men.
It is no secret that English - and the enlarged "brat-pack" that has long been associated with him - white-anted Brash after he sacked Katherine Rich as social welfare spokeswoman.
Key was also in their frame, accused of positioning for the leadership without doing the hard yards in the National Party.
But that's by the by as "brat pack mark II" readies itself for stellar positions in Key's new lineup.
Any white-anting would simply ensure English a quick loss of respect from the business community, which is looking to him and Key to differentiate National's economic policy focus so there is a clear choice at the next election.
During Brash's time as leader of the National Party, he initially gave Key his head as finance spokesman.
But he frequently appeared to pull rank when Key tried to differentiate the party's economic policies from Labour in the post-election era. Key was sent away to work up new economic policy platforms instead of continuing to take the fight aggressively to Michael Cullen by staking out bold new ideas.
But Key, a more confident figure than Brash, has been quick to this week cede territory to his own successor so the party can best steal a march on the Government.
English is not about to join Michael Cullen in some sort of ritualistic denigration of the "Rogernomics" and "Ruthanasia" eras to try to win swinging centrist voters.
But he will underline that he is not a cut from Brash's New Right jib.
He was one of the National MPs who worked to ensure that Brash did not put up policies that would have sat better under an Act umbrella.
English cut his teeth as Associate Treasurer during the 1997 Asian crisis when the National Government had to quickly knock $750 million out of planned spending to try to avert outright recession.
When he lost his Treasurer's job in 1999 election he could boast of an economy that was growing at 3 per cent a year with $3 billion of new activity, unemployment falling and tax revenue rising.
"That's the value of the 15 years of change," he said then.
"We've now got an economy that can take a hit and bounce back quickly without the policy crisis and massive costs of adjustment that characterised our recent recessions."
He will be hoping nothing drastic happens to the New Zealand economy before he gets his own chance at the financial tiller again.
