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Speaker 1: The government is considering a special economic zone for Marsden

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Speaker 1: Point that would reduce red tape to parently help turn

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Speaker 1: it into an economic winner. Brad Olsen is the Informetric's

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Speaker 1: principle economist who's back with us on this.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Brad, good evening.

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Speaker 1: So these special economic zones. We've spoken to the minister,

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Speaker 1: that's Shane Jones earlier on the program about this, his

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Speaker 1: ideas for it. What do you reckon?

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Speaker 2: Oh, look, it's always encouraging to think about the economic

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Speaker 2: growth potential coming through And look, I'm a Northander so

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Speaker 2: definitely understand all of that. But I really would hope

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Speaker 2: that if we can figure out how to make some

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Speaker 2: of these different proposals work in a special economic zone,

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Speaker 2: surely we can make them work for like the entire country.

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Speaker 2: And it would be better probably to do that more

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Speaker 2: broadly than to do it sort of at a more

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Speaker 2: specific zone by zone function. I mean, the worry I

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Speaker 2: guess I have is that you start to create winners

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Speaker 2: and establish losers if you have certain you know, more

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Speaker 2: business friendly regulations or different regulations that you don't have

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Speaker 2: to do within a special economic zone, but you still

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Speaker 2: have to do in other parts of the country. It

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Speaker 2: sort of does make other parts of the country less competitive.

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Speaker 2: It would be better, I suggest to, you know, try

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Speaker 2: and lift all boats or to eliminate all of those

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Speaker 2: regulations everywhere. If you can do it in one zone,

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Speaker 2: you probably should just do it everywhere. Overall.

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Speaker 1: Countries that do this tend to be massive. You know,

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Speaker 1: We're quite small, so it would seem odd to have,

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Speaker 1: you know, an arbitrary line between around a port basically

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Speaker 1: and NORTHLND.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, also for other

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Speaker 2: areas around the country where they might be going, well, geez,

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Speaker 2: you know I've got a port, can I have one

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Speaker 2: of these as well? And then okay, so you extended

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Speaker 2: out to all the ports, and then the airports want them,

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Speaker 2: then the inland ports want one, and at that point,

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Speaker 2: why don't you just sort of do it wholesale? I mean,

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Speaker 2: I think as well. Part of this is, I think,

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Speaker 2: is around the government wanting to test out some of

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Speaker 2: these options and hopefully using it as a bit of

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Speaker 2: an approving ground for how they might be developed out further.

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Speaker 2: And if that's the case, I can buy that justification

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Speaker 2: a lot more. But I think also, you know, looking ahead,

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Speaker 2: it would better if we can figure out a way

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Speaker 2: to make these sort of proposals work, then you do

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Speaker 2: have a much more expensive option. The work that government's

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Speaker 2: doing though around Marsden Point or thinking about around the

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Speaker 2: likes of fuel security. I do think that's important. I mean,

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Speaker 2: some of the analysis that the government's put out today

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Speaker 2: suggests that, you know, we can only cover about a

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Speaker 2: third of our usual amount of fuel use across the country.

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Speaker 2: If we had no fuel supply for ninety days, that's

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Speaker 2: two thirds of economic activity and transporting stuff around that

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Speaker 2: we wouldn't be able to do so. Aside from the

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Speaker 2: special economic zones, which you hope can broaden out, some

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Speaker 2: of this work on fuel security is going to be important.

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Speaker 2: It might be costly, but I think it's worth the conversation.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that comes with it's not just better

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Speaker 1: regulational easier regulations than especially economic zones, is potentially tax

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Speaker 1: breaks as well. How do you reckon that it go down?

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Speaker 2: And I think that's where a lot of other businesses

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Speaker 2: will sort of start to probably rightfully complain and go, well,

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Speaker 2: how come we can't get that as well? You know,

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Speaker 2: we're good hard earning export businesses throughout the country and

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Speaker 2: trying to do different things. You know what, why do

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Speaker 2: we have to uproot ourselves from different areas. So again

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Speaker 2: I can take the point that maybe it's a bit

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Speaker 2: more of that test case and that over time it

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Speaker 2: can sort of widen out. But I do think that there,

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Speaker 2: you know, could be some very valid complaints for people

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Speaker 2: going well, actually, surely we should do this across it

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Speaker 2: if we can make you know, some sort of tax

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Speaker 2: breaks and similar work for certain industries or certain parts

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Speaker 2: of the country. I sort of feel like you should

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Speaker 2: do that broadly. Put it this way, I don't think

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Speaker 2: we've got the time or the effort here in New

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Speaker 2: Zealand to be able to sort of make these very

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Speaker 2: minute decisions over what P on the map gets sort

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Speaker 2: of you know, certain economic advantages and not surely we're

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Speaker 2: small enough where we should be able to do it

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Speaker 2: wholesale across the country. If it's good enough for one area,

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Speaker 2: it's good enough for the rest of us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, good point, Brad, Thanks so much for that. Brand

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Speaker 1: Olsen from Informetrics with us as the principal economist There

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Speaker 1: for more from Heather Duplessyl and Drive Listen Live to

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