You can say that again, with Pike River, the Christchurch Earthquake, the Te Aroha meatworks fire, financial companies collapsing and a lack of stimulus being injected into the economy.

Without dwelling on tragedy it is of serious concern that New Zealand’s future direction is unclear. Two years into a National government we have not seen any injection of ideas and enthusiasm to grow the manufacturing base of the country.

We hear about a trade agreement with Russia in a few years time and how we are getting on better with the Americans.

We have plenty of industry specialists and business consultants who continually offer their words of wisdom on what we need to do next to get ahead.

We have a government which thinks we can catch up with Australia without clearly showing us how this may be possible.
So who is listening to whom? Are the words only posturing without action being seen? To be fair, at least Stephen Joyce recently talked about putting in place vastly improved broadband services.

Are all the experts not experts after all, who tell us how it is, who don’t have the clout to make things happen?

So what do we make of 2010? It was a year where our small businesses kept their fingers in the dyke, desperately seeking ways to get ahead and to stop any more financial leaks.

It was a time of acknowledging that our key markets overseas are best serviced by our export companies themselves. No incentives please, we’re Kiwis!

Going through the back issues of NZ Manufacturer for the year, I can read of some inspiring developments by some of our innovators. Very creative people who get through on the smell of an oily rag, make a lot of the running for success, who jump on large planes and go into even larger countries to find new markets.

The eternal Kiwi spirit of entrepreneurship lives on. And it can go from strength to strength with a new breed of business leaders showing the way.

Forget the consultants – roll your sleeves up and get stuck in!
It really is time to start a new website called WikiManufacturing – everything else has been tried.

Best wishes for a peaceful holiday period and a successful 2011. It will be a year to see if government really does have it in them to make business conditions possible. Remember it’s only one year ut from the next election so anything is possible.

-Doug Green