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As part of the Confidence and Supply agreement between the National and ACT parties reached immediately after the 2008 election, the Government committed to closing the income gap with Australia by 2025 and to establishing an advisory group both to report annually on progress towards achieving that goal and to make recommendations about how best to achieve it.  As a result, the 2025 Taskforce was set up by Government in July 2009 with Don as chair and with Dr Bryce Wilkinson, Judith Sloan, Jeremy Moon, and Hon David Caygill as members. The Taskforce's first report, Answering the $64,000 Question: Closing the Income Gap with Australia by 2025, was released on 30 November 2009 and can be downloaded by following this link. A summary report is also available for download.

The next report by the Taskforce on the Government’s progress towards the goal of closing the income gap with Australia is due by October 2010. You can read more about the Taskforce and have your say by visiting the Taskforce website.

Outside the ranks of the six “default providers”, Huljich Wealth Management (New Zealand) Limited is one of New Zealand’s largest KiwiSaver providers with more than 75,000 members. Don was chairman from the company’s inception in 2007 and became managing director and chief investment officer in March 2010.

Don is a director of ANZ National Bank. As New Zealand’s largest financial services group, the bank employs over 10,000 people and provides banking services to one in every two New Zealanders - primarily through the ANZ and National Bank brands in New Zealand. Don is currently on an indefinite leave of absence from the board, following his appointment as managing director of Huljich Wealth Management in March 2010.

Don is a director of Transpower, the State Owned Enterprise tasked with the ownership and operation of New Zealand’s national electricity grid – the network of high voltage transmission lines and substations that connects generators with towns and cities across the country.

Don is a director of this newly-established company, chaired by Dr Keith Turner.  It aims to establish a fully integrated milk processing facility – owning all aspects of the value chain from the ownership of farms through to milk powder production, initially based in the South Canterbury region.

Don is chairman of the Centre for Resource Management Studies Trust.  The trust has as one of its objectives “The promotion of a heightened awareness and understanding of, and knowledge about, the environment and environmental issues within the community in New Zealand”.  It devotes a great deal of effort trying to encourage resource management legislation which both protects the environment and facilitates economic growth.

The Plunket Foundation is chaired by Katherine Rich, and exists for one purpose only – to help mothers and their babies by supporting the Plunket Society, and enabling it to do more of the things which are really important to New Zealand’s future.

Don was appointed an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law and Management at La Trobe University in Melbourne in 2007 and has given a range of lectures for the University including, in 2008, the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial Lecture, named in honour of the first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Don was appointed an Adjunct Professor of Banking in the Business School at AUT University in 2008, and gives occasional lectures at the university’s Auckland campus.