By FRAN O'SULLIVAN
Prime Minister Helen Clark plans to use the "Catching the Knowledge Wave" conference to forge a consensus for a platform of innovation policies.
Her plans will be judged by the urgency with which her Government forms a subsequent action agenda.
Conference organisers are unanimous that the time for incremental change is over. Plenty of hype has been generated by the organisers' PR firm, Baldwin Boyle, as expectations are built for the three-day event.
But with more than 50 news media people signed up to cover the August 1-3 conference, those expectations must now be met.
At the weekend, organisers were hunkered down developing strategies on how to to distil the essence from the forthcoming conference into action plans.
Implementation plans are not expected to be formulated until University of Auckland vice-chancellor John Hood and his steering group meet for a fourth day after the three-day public part of the event is concluded.
The Government has been active while conference preparations take place.
It has collated a raft of policies under each of the five broad conference themes: people and capabilities, economic strategies, innovation and creativity, entrepreneurship and social cohesion.
Some policies are part of the broader Knowledge Wave project launched late last year. The Government's infamous "smoked salmon offensive" charmed the business sector onside after a disastrous standoff threatened New Zealand's economic outlook.
But so far no big-ticket policies have publicly emerged.
Nor has a political agenda been unveiled which puts the emphasis on boldness and urgency. These two elements are essential to galvanising any major change process.
The other essential element to creating widespread support for change is to appeal to Labour's major opponent - National - to develop clear areas of bipartisan agreement between the two largest parties, so that a change drive is not derailed by the smaller parties.
Cabinet minister Pete Hodgson and National's Maurice Williamson have cooperated across party lines during the lengthy steering committee process to set the conference agenda.
Lifting that level of cooperation inevitably carries risks for the party in opposition.
But if all the political patter about holding a national conversation is to result in enduring strategies, the two big parties must consider their responses. Do they endlessly undermine each other? Or, more craftily, take the opportunity to ratchet up their respective performance levels by developing even bolder policies based on a generally agreed platform?
National's Jenny Shipley talked the talk at her party's conference this weekend, committing a future Tory Government to policies which it hoped would double New Zealand's growth rate to 6 per cent.
The Shipley speech was carefully crafted to play up the benefits of a high economic growth strategy to ordinary New Zealanders by claiming such policies would swell their average annual take-home pay from $27,000 to $54,000 by 2020.
National's revitalisation plan stroked the usual conservative planks: moving to lower tax rates; rejecting monopolies; reversing the current employment laws; revising the Resource Management Act and removing business red tape.
Let us put to one side, for now, that National passed up the opportunity to deliver in many of these areas during its last nine years in Government - despite constant urgings from the business sector. A period of opposition goes a long way to driving out arrogance.
National has finally cottoned on to the need to provide a clear innovation strategy and the action plans to achieve it. Its Bright Future policies were remarkably unambitious.
Mrs Shipley has foreshadowed National is developing a talent-grabbing immigration policy, attractive inward investment policies that would transfer skills to New Zealand businesses, quality investment in research and development, private sector financing for learning centres, time-limited benefits and plans to work with industry leaders to manage land resources sustainably while maximising returns.
Inevitably, she and her team will have to cool their heels while the Labour-led coalition steals a march by implementing many such policies before the 2002 election.
There is little sense in inviting the team of international heavy-hitters to Auckland for a three-day jamboree if no action plans are forthcoming. Mr Hodgson has been aligning Government policies to the five conference themes - many of which have already been unveiled.
Helen Clark has pulled together teams to develop programmes to attract talent and foreign direct investment to New Zealand and has instructed her Science and Innovation Advisory Council, led by businessman Rick Christie, to develop a draft innovation plan before the Knowledge Wave conference starts.
Deputy Prime Minister and Alliance Leader Jim Anderton is working with industry to produce plans to deal with the "wall of wood" - the large streams of forest plantings which reach maturity over the next decade.
Some of these programmes are not timed to take effect until next year's Budget round.
For instance, Mr Christie's team has been asked to advise the Government on how to position New Zealand as a knowledge-driven economy and society which is also socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable. The strategy is expected to identify critical elements for achieving the Clark vision.
The strategy will feed into the Knowledge Wave conference - but the action plan is not expected to be developed until November.
But Helen Clark should at least be able to depend on National to give its support to some of her Government's big-ticket items without threatening to pull the political house down for narrow and petty party politicking. Already a bipartisan consensus exists on free trade. Both Labour and National are committed to supporting the World Trade Organisation and a programme of bilateral trade agreements.
The inevitable quibbling around the edges will be just the usual stuff of politics. But a recognition is building within National circles that the business sector will be chary with its support if Mrs Shipley's parliamentary team simply dumps on Government initiatives when a clear consensus for change has been acknowledged.
Helen Clark sees a role for Government as a leader, facilitator, a coordinator, a partner, a broker and, where appropriate, a funder in spurring on economic development.
But she is also an incrementalist at a time when all indications point to a need for bold change. Just how far she lifts her own game will be pivotal to the success of the Knowledge Wave project.
href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=57032">Catching the knowledge wave
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