18/10/2026
Trust the people more than your institutions 🇲🇾🇳🇿
ASLI was honoured to co-host a dialogue with Rt Hon Sir Bill English, former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of New Zealand, together with Sunway Business School.
Sir Bill opened with a keynote on the limits of long-term thinking in public policy. Drawing on his years as a farmer, Treasury official and politician, he argued that governments spend heavily on restating long-term problems and very little on creating the political conditions to solve them. Development goals, including the SDGs, only matter if they change the lives of ordinary families.
In conversation, he reflected on steering New Zealand through the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes, why a team needs both long-term thinkers and people who can put out fires, and why collaboration is a means to get things done, never an endpoint. He also spoke candidly about policies that did not survive, including the pension reform his government announced.
On trust, Sir Bill said people respond to authenticity and to leaders willing to deliver bad news. With AI making analysis cheaper by the day, he pointed to “technical empathy”, the ability to genuinely connect with the people you serve, as the skill institutions will need most.
We thank Sir Bill English for his generosity and candour, and Sunway Business School for co-hosting.
🌱 Empowering Leaders, Advancing Societies
