"We must prioritise on all fronts to ensure we're actually doing things that will make the most difference."
There's a very big difference between what people will intuitively think is good for the planet, good for education, or anything, versus what actually will make a difference, and that requires quite sophisticated prioritisation, reckons Whineray.
"The creativity of individuals, organisations, scientists, universities, businesses and governments will help find, with all this rapidly changing technology, what will work and what won't. There will be some people who get it right and some that don't, but without that creativity in the market we will have a suboptimal outcome," he says.
"We need the creative destruction of the market in a sense to work out what's going to be best for New Zealand — so let the true goal be set then let everyone work towards that."
Whineray says six chief executives from the energy sector spent a full day with the Interim Climate Change Committee which includes three PhDs. "They're so confident in their own ability to rationalise and understand, and they want to be convinced by facts and science.
"They're not ideological, and they're willing to thrash it out with almost 200 years' worth of experience in the room.
"That was amazing consultation — the best consultation I've seen."
Whineray backs the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, saying this is a real opportunity for a progressive Labour-led Government to leverage businesses and markets and achieve long-term goals more quickly.
"Whether it's on the environment, education or health, I don't think there is too much disagreement on what things should ideally look like in 20 or 30 years' time for the New Zealand we want to have."
He says the advisory council is an important opportunity. The Government can present clear direction and work with businesses and organisations, which can change things in 10 minutes.
Businesses can shift financial and human capital faster and over more sustained periods than governments can because of the political cycle, and because new governments inherit a bureaucracy that has a certain direction and can be quite titanic to shift.
NZ Initiative study tour
Whineray is leading The New Zealand Initiative-organised business mission to Denmark next June and he says learnings will feed back to the Prime Minister's advisory council.
Last year he led the Go Swiss mission, also organised by the NZ Initiative business think tank.
"Last time Switzerland turned into a four letter word with the previous Government. They heard about it from so many of us that it drove them insane, so I think we'll have to think about how we influence and manage this time around.
"We'll absolutely feed back the bits that are relevant and contextual."
Whineray says the Danish tour will be different to Switzerland.
He had already researched their high-value food and prison system, and met with the Danish Ambassador from Australia.
"I always do my best thinking about New Zealand when I'm not there and have something to contrast it with," he says.
Fraser Whineray's big issues
Top three business priorities next 12 months?
Digitisation to drive simultaneous customer experience and productivity
Executing our re-positioning for growth on top of yield
Human capital competitiveness
Biggest achievement in the past 12 months
Achieving simultaneous records on customer experience, employee engagement and financial performance
Biggest regret
None — it was the best year in the company's history. The team performed extremely well!
Single biggest factor that would assist Mercury to remain internationally competitive from NZ
A long-term bipartisan low-carbon energy policy. This would simultaneously project a positive demand profile and reduce regulatory wobble, and provide a much more globally diverse equity base and increase the attractiveness for us and the sector for quality human capital.
