I want to talk about agile thinking. Because that’s how small but industrious countries like ours get to be world-class. You’ve only got to look at the amazing job our country has done competing for and winning the America’s Cup to realise that out-of-the-box ideas are the difference between maintaining the status quo and creating that transformative breakthrough.

It took Kiwis to come up with foiling mono-hulls that fly across the water at stunning speeds, and yet that sameinspiration seems to fail those people who are tasked with bringing the same level of imagination to the big challenges facing our country.

The tourism industry in New Zealand is facing a $6 billion hole after a summer without foreign tourists and we’re heading towards the winter ski season with the prospects not looking that much better. And yet there is a solution if we think imaginatively. The Australians are doing it; talking about two-way travel with Singapore. The Australian and Singaporean governments think that people who have been vaccinated against Covid should be ok to travel. This is going to be a huge boost for the Aussie tourism and education sectors. Already shares in Australian and Singaporean airlines are surging on the news. So where are we in those conversations? Why can’t our universities start to pull in revenue from vaccinated overseas students? That industry was worth at least $1.25 billion a year before Covid.

The point I’m making is that there isn’t just one way out of Covid, but it does take smart thinking to come up with the alternatives. That’s why I completely understand leaders in the business community when they get frustrated and ask to be involved in our country’s Covid response planning. These are agile thinkers. They don’t want to threaten our Covid-free status, but they do want some ingenuity brought to the challenge.

In a country of just five million people there is no ‘us and them’; we’re all in this together and it’s incumbent on our leaders to make sure that the brightest minds are contributing to the solutions we need.

That agile thinking is in short supply where it’s needed most has been made glaringly apparent in the decision to axe ferry services out of Stanley Point. We’re told it’s because the service wasn’t well supported by the local population, but the real reason according to Auckland Transport is the exploding demand in the new suburb of Hobsonville Point. By 2024 the number of people expected to be living at Hobsonville is 11,000. That’s a big jump from the current 6,250. So what happens then? Should we expect that more ferry services are going to be sucked out of the Shore in order meet Hobsonville’s demand?

The idea that there are a finite number of ferries to go around a city blessed with such a magnificent harbour regardless of population growth is ridiculous. There are cities reeling from the effects of Covid where ferries are being mothballed. In Singapore, up to 80% of services were cancelled on one route. So why aren’t we buying up underutilised ferries to build up our stock here?

The demand for ferry services will be directly linked to the convenience and regularity of the services offered. It’s mass transport like any other. Once you cut a service, you kill demand – how smart do you need to be to understand that simple equation?