Does everything have to change around here?

While the ‘heads in the sand’ and ‘kick the can down the road’ tactics have served the island and its government fairly well over the years, it also feeds the temptation to see just how long those tactics can continue to work for us.

And so some attendees of last week’s Institute of Directors mid-term debate, and others following it on social media, will have been more than slightly worried to hear the buzz around Dr Matthew Agarwala’s use of a quote in his presentation: ‘If we want things to stay as they are, everything needs to change.’

Everything? That’s not how we do things around here.

There were plenty of examples in the debate of things that could be changed – or at least challenged – aside from the structure and purpose of our tax system, apparently collecting one of the lowest tax rates outside of the world’s war-torn nations.

Are we too complacent about our children’s future employment prospects? Do we really want to see those who go to university come back and contribute to their island and their economy? If so, how do we make this happen?

Do we do enough to leverage the strengths of our financial services industry?

As young people increasingly seek out purpose-led careers, can we do more to reinforce increasingly popular ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles into our finance offering to enable this opportunity to gain more recognition locally?

How committed are we towards flexible working and quality of life?

Will we take a serious look at our use of limited land and use it more efficiently? As has been said, we probably have enough beds to house all islanders – but too many of them are in the wrong places.

You know, maybe not everything has to change – but, faced with massive challenges, as an island we need to show we are prepared to change more than we will at the moment.