Let’s be honest: New Zealand keeps pulling the wrong lever.

We talk endlessly about equity, fairness, and giving everyone a fair go. Those are noble principles – part of our national identity. But somewhere along the way, we’ve confused equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. And we’ve convinced ourselves that raising the minimum wage is a silver bullet for national progress.

It isn’t.
Not on its own.
Not even close.

The Comfort of Easy Answers

Lifting the minimum wage feels good. It looks decisive. It lets politicians claim they’re “helping working families.” And for some, it does help – at least for a while. Wages go up. Pay packets look healthier. People breathe easier.

But those gains come at a cost:

• The cost of doing business rises.
• Margins shrink.
• Prices increase.
• Employers cut hours or automate tasks to survive.

And here’s the real kicker: most of those wage increases are not driven by higher productivity or greater value creation. They’re driven by regulation. By decree.

That’s not wealth creation – it’s wealth redistribution. And when regulation outruns productivity, something breaks.

We can’t legislate prosperity into existence. We can only produce it.

The Bigger Problem: A Productivity Crisis

This is the conversation New Zealand avoids – and it’s the one we most need to have.

For forty years, we’ve been sliding down the OECD productivity ladder. We work longer hours than most of our peers but produce less. We’re running harder on a treadmill that’s speeding up.

The Productivity Commission has said it bluntly: “New Zealanders work harder, but produce less, than almost every other developed economy.”

That’s not a temporary issue. That’s structural.

And the reason runs deep. We’ve built an economy that rewards sameness over scale, consumption over investment, and compliance over innovation.

We’ve relied on population growth, property inflation, and redistributive policies to create the illusion of progress. But underneath it all, we’ve starved the real engine of prosperity: productivity.

What Productivity Actually Means

Productivity isn’t a dirty corporate word. It’s not about squeezing more from exhausted workers. It’s about creating more value per hour, per person, per dollar invested.

When productivity rises:

• Wages rise sustainably.
• Businesses can grow without burnout.
• People earn dignity and independence, not dependency.
• The nation becomes globally competitive.
• We spend less on subsidies because people don’t need them.

In other words, productivity is the foundation on which fairness can stand. Equity without productivity is sentiment without substance.

The Real Choice: Value Creation or Value Control

At its heart, this is a philosophical choice.

Do we want a society built on value creation – where individuals, teams, and enterprises strive for excellence and are rewarded for results?

Or do we want a society built on value control – where mediocrity is managed, outcomes are equalised, and no one is allowed to stand too tall?

Somewhere along the way, we became afraid of excellence. We started treating ambition with suspicion. We told our best and brightest to “stay humble,” but what we really meant was, “Don’t make the rest of us uncomfortable.”

But excellence – not equity – is what drives nations forward. The moment a society punishes performance or tries to legislate fairness through the back door of regulation, it starts eroding the very meritocracy that sustains opportunity.

The Power of Personal Responsibility

At an individual level, productivity is personal responsibility in action.

It’s the owner who invests in systems to work smarter.
The employee who takes initiative instead of waiting to be told.
The leader who builds capability instead of coasting on yesterday’s results.

Every time someone steps up, learns a skill, innovates, or builds a better process, they create ripple effects that lift everyone around them.

That’s the quiet, unglamorous work that drives real prosperity. It’s not about slogans or subsidies – it’s about discipline, mastery, and ownership.

And the uncomfortable truth? We’ve lost some of that hunger. We’ve become too comfortable blaming “the system,” too quick to expect government to fix what only personal responsibility and enterprise can.

Excellence Is Not Elitism

Some will hear “meritocracy” and think “elitism.” But that’s a false dichotomy.

A healthy meritocracy isn’t about privilege. It’s about performance. It says: if you work harder, think smarter, and contribute more – you should get ahead. That’s not inequality. That’s justice.

Excellence doesn’t exclude people. It invites them higher.

But to build a culture of excellence, we have to reject mediocrity in all its forms – the sloppy habits, the low expectations, the “she’ll be right” complacency that quietly kills potential.

We need to stop rewarding effort alone and start rewarding results. Because effort is noble, but outcomes are what feed families and fund futures.

A New National Story

If we’re serious about building a better New Zealand, we need to change the story we tell ourselves about success.

Right now, we celebrate fairness – and we should. But fairness alone doesn’t build a thriving nation. Freedom does. Freedom from dependency. Freedom from debt. Freedom from underachievement.

That kind of freedom only comes when people and businesses produce value that others willingly pay for.

And that means:

1. Stop treating the minimum wage as a long-term strategy. It’s a patch, not a plan. A healthy economy lifts wages through productivity, not policy.
2. Invest in business capability and leadership. Especially in SMEs – where most New Zealanders work, but where systems, structure, and strategic thinking are often weakest.
3. Lift capital investment per worker. Better tools, smarter tech, and modern workflows multiply output per hour – they don’t replace people; they empower them.
4. Reward value creation, not compliance. Simplify the regulatory burden that stifles innovation and favours bureaucracy over boldness.
5. Tell a bigger story about success. Not just “fairness,” but flourishing. Not sameness, but strength.

When we change the narrative from “helping people survive” to “equipping people to thrive,” everything shifts.

The Mindset Shift

We can’t build a first-world lifestyle on third-world productivity.

If we want to close wage gaps, grow wealth, and lift living standards sustainably, we have to produce more – not just spend more.

That begins with mindset:

• Stop waiting for government.
• Stop blaming global headwinds.
• Start asking, “How can we add more value?”

It’s the same principle I teach every day in business coaching: You can’t outperform your own thinking.

When owners raise their standards, businesses follow. When businesses improve, communities prosper. When communities prosper, nations rise.

That’s how progress actually works.

Equity Matters – But Excellence Must Lead

Equity without productivity is like compassion without competence – heartfelt, but hollow.

If we truly care about fairness, we’ll focus on foundations – not handouts. We’ll build a culture that says:
“You are capable. You are responsible. You can do more – and we’ll back you to do it.”

That’s the essence of leadership. That’s the heart of nation-building.

The Bottom Line

New Zealand needs to reorient its economic compass. Minimum wages may ease the pain in the short term, but they don’t cure the disease.

If we want a country of thriving businesses, independent workers, and lasting prosperity, we need to get serious about productivity – at every level: individual, organisational, and national.

It’s time to stop papering over the cracks.
It’s time to rebuild the foundation.
Because true fairness comes not from pulling others down to meet the average – but from raising everyone’s ability to rise above it.