John MacDonald: Briscoes boss has buyer's remorse and I can see why

When the Prime Minister is doing all the shake and howdy at the investment summit in Auckland, I bet he’ll be feeling like a harassed parent who —despite all the chaos behind the scenes— somehow manages to arrive at a family wedding with the kids in tow looking cool, calm and very happy to be there.  

Even though one of the kids had been refusing to leave the house and you all had a big bust-up in the car on the way to the church.  

“But we’re here now guys - smile everyone”. I bet you that’s how Christopher Luxon is feeling.  

And what will be making it worse is the fresh criticism coming from Briscoes Group managing director Rod Duke who’s telling Luxon and his government to “get their A into gear” and “actually do something” to help the economy. And I agree with him.   

Because are you really doing any better than you were a year or 18 months ago?  

This isn’t the first time Rod Duke has made these kinds of comments. I remember him saying a while back that he was prepared to give the Government until this month to deliver some results and, if he didn't see results, he’d be putting a rocket under them.  

And that’s what he’s doing now.   

He’s obviously had a gutsful of the Government blaming everything on the last government and he wants more action.  

He says: “I think they’re of the view that up until now they’ve been able to blame the prior government, which is typical of a lot of governments I guess. But you know, the time has just about come where you’re going to have to make your own mark.  

“You’ve had enough time to study, to tighten, to understand what the books look like, and now you’ve got to put some policies into place.”  

He says everyone’s aware of the situation Luxon and Co. inherited from the previous government, but they’ve had enough time and should be able to show more for their efforts of the past 15 or so months. 

Duke doesn’t seem to be doing what Luxon would probably ask him to do. You know, the line CEOs like to use about not going to them with problems but going to them with solutions.  

But I think Rod Duke is right. The Government hasn’t delivered when it comes to the economy and it does need to get its “A into G”.   

The problem is though, the Government has fallen into the trap that pretty much every government falls into – especially first-term governments. The trap of trying to do too much.  

When you're in opposition, it’s very easy to sit there and have all these big ideas. Because when you’re in opposition, that’s all you have to do.  

Different story when you get into government, though. For starters, you realise that the things you promised to do aren’t quite so easy to do in reality. So it takes way longer to achieve something.  

And when you get into government, you have to deal with all the stuff that blows up in your face on a daily basis. You can lurch from one crisis to another and see your quarterly plan targets disappearing in front of your eyes.  

So if Christopher Luxon said to me: “Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions” - here’s what I’d tell him.  

I’d tell him to decide what his government is actually going to focus on and to stick with it. If it’s the economy, then make that your priority between now and the election.  

And be honest about it, this laser-like focus that the Prime Minister talks about can't go in all directions.   

I’d tell the PM to be upfront with us and say that if we want better health services and better education facilities and everything else that governments get lost in —as this government has— I’d tell the PM to be courageous and tell us that we’re going to have to wait for all those other things.  

Because for now, it’s the economy and only the economy we’re going to worry about.  

That might sound simplistic, but unless the Government ditches this idea that it’s going to fix everything ASAP, then it’s going to fail in all of them.  

And people like Rod Duke won’t just be telling the Government to get its A into gear, he'll be telling it to get its A out of here. 

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