high value industries that prosperous countries can boast of, and overweight on the businesses where your hourly input equates to a comparatively poor output. We work harder than almost any country, but we have comparatively little to show for it. Until we make big changes to the kind of work many of us do, and the investments we make, until we make big changes in how we invest in education and R&D then nothing is going to change. I have a strong belief in the centrality of innovation and science to our future prosperity. To put innovation at the heart of government policies. To do that will involve taking some tough decisions. We need to be bold. I think our next Government must be reformist. It must be prepared to make the big progressive changes needed to remake the economy. Nowhere is this more important than in industries like yours. The NZIER report commissioned by InternetNZ got it right when it said the internet "provides the possibility for transformative economic and social change". Most promisingly, the digital future and the weightless economy allow us to tame the tyranny of distance. It is a challenge that has plagued our economy for decades. Research by Philip McCann showed that the adverse effects of our isolation on our labour productivity (and therefore on our growth) were greater than for any other advanced country, with the exception of Australia. He said that OECD estimates suggest that the tyranny of distance reduces labour productivity by