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Prime Minister John Key has opened the much anticipated job summit at Manukau, vowing action to stem rising unemployment.
The job summit is part of Key's "rolling maul" of initiatives to stimulate the economy as it is struggles with the recession.
Key says the job summit is an opportunity to come up with practical and achievable steps to save and create as many jobs as possible.
In his address to the 200 attendees, which include business, union, local government and community representatives, Key outlined three main steps to achieving positive outcomes.
Firstly, he says there will be policy initiatives that can be funded through the government's books.
However, he says any proposals that require government funding will have to pass a "high hurdle" due to the amount of money needed to finance them.
"There are limitations to what the government can responsibly fund. The country's books are in the red. Debt is forecast to rise dramatically over the next few years. We have to get on top of that debt," he says.
Secondly, Key says the government will look at law and regulation changes that will make it easier for businesses to expand or take on more staff.
"I am keen to remove red tape, to lower barriers and generally give some backing to the entrepreneurs and employers, who with a little bit of consideration from the government could do more to keep staff and create jobs".
Key also says there will be business-led initiatives that employers and their staff and wider communities can act on alone.
As he brought his address to a close, Key highlighted the importance of a cohesive and collaborative approach as a way of the country getting "its arms around the problem".
"We are not a country of whiners. We are not a country of slackers, and we are not a country of selfish individiuals...we are people with big aspirations and the will to see them through."
Summit take two
The summit is the first of its kind since the Labour-led government held an economic summit in 1984.
The summit back then was criticised as being a PR stunt, with the economy slumping and employment skyrocketing post-summit.
All the more reason that Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard, also speaking from the summit, emphasised the importance of the event in the face of global economic issues.
Bollard describes the current state of world affairs the "biggest destruction of global wealth the world has ever seen".
"We've stopped talking about billions of dollars, and we're talking about trillions of dollars," he says.
He says that northern hemisphere banking systems have already lost $2 trillion, the housing sectors $4 trillion and debt it is still growing.
New Zealand's summit is just one of many actions being taken around the world, with Bollard saying the world has embarked on the biggest level of economic stimulus since World War II.
NZX CEO Mark Weldon, who is chairing the summit, says the current economic downturn is not a "conventional recession" but one with unique threats.
"There is tremendous uncertainty around the length, the depth and the shape around what is going to come at us," he says.
Weldon says solutions will require flexibility from central and local government, business, unions, non-government organisations and iwi.
"This is fundamentally about jobs, but there is real opportunity to grow muscle into the economy and to emerge from this with significantly increased strengths so we need to keep our eye on those factors as well".
TVNZ will have comprehensive coverage of the Jobs Summit
with live coverage of the event on
TVNZ
7 and TVNZ.co.nz, as well as reports throughout the day from
TVNZ reporters on site.
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