O'Sullivan: Blake's life a lesson for the country

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN

Sir Peter Blake's memorial service at the Auckland Domain yesterday brought into sharp focus exactly the attributes that we must all - from politicians to business people and sports players - employ to make this nation sing.

If New Zealand is to achieve its goal of getting back into the top half of the OECD by 2010 - a goal that politicians from Prime Minister Helen Clark through to Opposition Leader Bill English have endorsed - it will require the single-minded focus that Sir Peter brought to his international yachting quests.

It will also require the strong leadership skills, the never-say-die approach, the competitive surge and collective emphasis on lifting our sights that Sir Peter brought to his every endeavour.

The politicians will be quick to endorse the continuation of his global environmental quest - watch for governmental contributions to blakexpeditions' work.

But will they go that one step further and instil in this country an absolute sense of self-belief?

Will they set the strategy and ensure we achieve the many vital steps along the path to national success that New Zealand will enjoy if it regains First World status?

Right now that goal of reaching the top half of the OECD looks elusive.

It requires New Zealand to post repeated economic growth rates averaging 5 to 7 per cent every year.

Securing such growth requires us to lift our game in a fashion that the Government politicians currently shy from.

We must toss aside their ideological focus on high tax rates and move to bring greater investment into our economy and concentrate on expanding the economic pie.

But dealing with the hard facts that underlie success, Helen Clark will have to achieve an absolute focus on the nation's goals - and importantly, a concentration on what the competition is doing - if New Zealand is to arrest its inexorable drift to Third World status.

Forty years ago New Zealand was the world's third-wealthiest nation. Now it sits at 21st place and is poised to fall out of the OECD altogether if the competitive urge is not stoked.

Anyone who thinks this view unnecessarily alarmist can just look at Argentina's slow slide into economic disaster over the past decade.

But despite the Knowledge Wave conference and the advent of Competitive Auckland, there have been precious few tangible steps this year to get growth moving strongly.

This failure to grapple with the necessary - and hard - steps to achieving success would have appalled Sir Peter.

His visionary streak enabled him to take on the tough challenges - not baulk at the first unpopular reaction or consign tough measures to the too-hard basket.

As fellow sailors related yesterday, Sir Peter liked the tough challenge: "If it's not going to be hard, why do it?"

He coupled this approach with strong determination that saw him come back from repeated failure until he finally won the Whitbread Round the World Race.

Sir Peter, as friend and former sponsor Doug Myers related, embodied the spirit of competition that has somehow become lost in "this age of political correctness".

His vision was one that touched us all with its concentration on how New Zealand could itself achieve a higher place in the world than mere size would dictate.

Some of the Blake factor has rubbed off on Helen Clark.

She has matured as an international leader, and after initially dropping the ball when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, gave strong support for the war in Afghanistan.

Next year she will take New Zealand's quest for a free trade agreement directly to Washington. Her officials are negotiating with the White House over a date for a meeting with President George Bush.

The meeting - expected to be in late February - will be Clark's chance to play her gambit.

She will need to adopt the single-minded focus that Sir Peter employed if New Zealand is to get its closer economic partnership with the world's richest nation.

If Sir Peter's untimely death teaches us one thing, let it be the ability to set a greater vision for this country and achieve it.

That's all for 2001 - I wish my readers a great Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

* Fran O'Sullivan's column will return on January 21.

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Peter Blake, 1948-2001