- Gerry Harvey slams government ministers for lack of business acumen
- Says leaders are ill-equipped to guide nation out of cost-of-living crisis
Billionaire businessman Gerry Harvey has blasted the nation’s politicians saying they are ill-equipped to deal with the country’s spiralling cost-of-living crisis because they’ve never had a real job.
The Harvey Norman executive chairman said he was continually frustrated by the standard of leaders running the country and believed they needed to be paired with proven business leaders with track record of financial success.
‘I do think that it’s a bit of a shame that all our politicians come from mostly unions or lawyers, and union people have never run a business, and the lawyers have never run a business,’ Mr Harvey told ADH TV host Chris Smith on Wednesday.
‘Now, we put the two of them together, the little mixtures there…and you think to yourself, “Oh, they make a lot of mistakes. How can we help them?” They need help badly.
‘Let’s go out and get a whole heap of business people that could be an adviser … and you’re not allowed to be a minister unless you’ve got a business advisor to help you, because you make too many mistakes.’
Billionaire business Gerry Harvey has blasted the nation’s politicians saying they are ill-equipped to deal with the country’s spiralling cost-of-living crisis
The Harvey Norman executive chairman said he was continually frustrated by the standard of leaders running the country
The outspoken octogenarian retailer confessed he was not particularly impressed with US President-elect Donald Trump (pictured with wife Melania)
The maverick entrepreneur and one-time vacuum salesman, who founded his iconic retail chain in 1982, went on to suggest that government ministers would ideally need to get an accomplished businessperson to sign-off on all their plans before any were actioned.
‘It’s a bit like having (U.S. president Donald) Trump in charge: you say to the minister, “Alright you can’t do anything, unless you get the okay, anything you want to do, I’ll give it the tick, or you don’t do it”,’ Mr Harvey told Smith.
‘And maybe then we’ll get a little bit more of a country run in a business-like manner, because at the moment, some of the things they do, and you just look and you think, “Oh, they didn’t do that” but they did.’
Although the outspoken octogenarian retailer confessed he was not particularly impressed with President Trump, he thought Europe was continually producing the world’s best leaders with proven business acumen.
‘Let me say I’m not a wonderful Trump supporter, but I’m not a great supporter of the girl that lost either [Kamala Harris],’ he told Smith.
‘It’s like, where did these two people ever come from?
‘But then you look at what’s happening in so many other countries, and you look at the quality of the people that are leading those countries, like in the UK or in France or in Spain or Italy or Russia, Ukraine, all of these places.
‘When you look at all the people that are running it, you say, “Oh, they’re good”.’
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