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Speaker 1: Growth is the name of the game for the government

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, Lux and yesterday reshuffling his cabinet.

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Speaker 1: You would have seen this already, also reshuffling what was

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Speaker 1: the economic development portfolio In the process, Melissaly is out,

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Speaker 1: Nikola Willis is in. It's no longer economic development, it's

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Speaker 1: economic growth. And Alan McDonald is the AMA's head of advocacy,

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Speaker 1: finance and strategy. That's the Employers Manufactured Association.

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Speaker 2: Allen, good morning, Lodding Roy.

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Speaker 1: Is this window dressing in your eyes? Or are you

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Speaker 1: expecting actual change for growth?

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Speaker 2: Well? I don't think Minister Willis is into a window dressing,

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Speaker 2: but she's been handed a pretty tough job because things

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Speaker 2: are going, as we all know, much slower than everyone

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Speaker 2: would like. But it's really good to see that focus

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Speaker 2: on growth because we do need it.

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Speaker 1: What is one big, bold idea you can offer up

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Speaker 1: this morning for her, because it sounds like she's open

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Speaker 1: to all and any ideas and she's going to corral

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Speaker 1: a team of ministers to implement them.

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Speaker 2: There was possibly two things, actually, Ryan. One would be

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Speaker 2: around this rapid depreciation we've been pushing for for a while,

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Speaker 2: which is basically allowing businesses to claim back more and

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Speaker 2: claim back faster if they're investing in new tech or

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Speaker 2: new machinery. They did it in Australia post COVID. It

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Speaker 2: does give a bit of a sugar hit, but it's

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Speaker 2: a really strong signal to business that we're investing in

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Speaker 2: you and its investment rather than cutting back on spending.

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Speaker 2: So that would be one. And I think really getting

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Speaker 2: a couple of decent size, good infrastructure projects away. I

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Speaker 2: know they want to do this, they've been trying to

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Speaker 2: get the settings right, but we actually need to get

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Speaker 2: something away because we're losing a lot of people that

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Speaker 2: are sort of designed legal engineering top end of the

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Speaker 2: infrastructure pyramid, but also at the other side the people

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Speaker 2: who are going to build stuff. So we do those

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Speaker 2: and get them away.

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Speaker 1: That great good ideas to appreciate infrastructure. Both of those

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Speaker 1: ideas are going to mean a hit to the government's

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Speaker 1: bottom line. Are we too focused? Do you think? And

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Speaker 1: perhaps this is something that Nicolaillis could look at. Focused

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Speaker 1: at getting back to surpus at the expense of growth.

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Speaker 2: I thought we possibly are at the stage. New Zilda's

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Speaker 2: is very good at understanding the cost of everything that's

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Speaker 2: out looking at the value and I think we're at

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Speaker 2: that point where we're just going to have to bite

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Speaker 2: the bullet, maybe go to go push our debt levels

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Speaker 2: out a bit higher than we're possibly comfortable with Orthough

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Speaker 2: possibly targeting, but actually spend some money to make some money.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting remit for the Minister certainly, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: What about some of the asset recycling that's been spoken about.

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Speaker 1: Roger Partridge did a really incing piece in the Heild.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you've read it the other week,

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Speaker 1: talking about exactly this. We need to open up foreign

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Speaker 1: investment and we need to start recycling some of those assets,

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Speaker 1: a huge portfolio of the government owns.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a good piece by Roger and it's

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Speaker 2: something that's worked really well in other jurisdictions. MAT's our

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Speaker 2: New South Wales's got its big infrastructure building projects underway

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Speaker 2: and we've seen the difference that that's making to Sibity. Yes,

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Speaker 2: can be very disruptive, but we also have to get

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Speaker 2: out of that mind set where you know it's privatization

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Speaker 2: by stealth or whatever you want to call it. We've

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Speaker 2: got to look at what we've got on how we

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Speaker 2: use it and that's asset recycling. But also I think

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Speaker 2: too we really must move quickly on opening up for

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Speaker 2: overseas investment. That's worked in other jurisdictions our size Ireland,

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Speaker 2: for example, the Prime Minister's seen that work. We've got

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Speaker 2: to open those stores, we've got to bring in that

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Speaker 2: money and if needed, bringing a workforce too.

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Speaker 1: Allen, thank you for that. Alan McDonald's AMA, head of Advocacy,

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Speaker 1: finance and Strategy.

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