National leader Christopher Luxon is defending his comment about businesses being soft, laying the blame at the government's door.

Luxon has just returned from a 10-day overseas mission, seeking policy ideas from Singapore, Ireland and London.

While speaking to the right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange in London last week, Luxon said New Zealand needed to have more consistent micro-economic reform for "unleashing enterprise".

The public already looks to the government for all the answers and now businesses are "getting soft" and also rely on government backing.

Asked why he's criticising businesses overseas, Luxon told Morning Report that there was some great entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation among businesses but a government that is not empowering them.

"We've got a government that frankly adds cost compliance, red tape, doesn't support small medium enterprises whatsoever and makes their job incredibly hard."

The country needs a much more pro-business environment so they can grow but the government keeps changing the rules and people are not investing.

Asked again why he says businesses are getting soft, Luxon says there needs to be more businesses like Fonterra and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare that are of a global scale.

Reminded that New Zealand sat at the top of the World Bank's ease of doing business index, Luxon says in recent times the country's competitiveness and economic management has dropped in other tables.

In the last four years it has got "really tough" to do business in Aotearoa, leading to a lack of investment, he says.

He's impressed by Ireland which is tourism and agriculture based but also encourages its businesses to get out into the world and export.

"This [in New Zealand] is a government that frankly doesn't support businesses, it's a government that doesn't have many people that have run businesses."

Businesses need an environment in which they convert their commercial opportunities and can grow and become more successful globally.

NZ 'fearful, inward looking'

Regarding his belief that the rest of the world has moved on from Covid-19, he says none of his conversations in the UK, Ireland and Singapore were about the pandemic.

"Staying very fearful, very inward, very negative looking as I've said we've been in New Zealand for the last four years when we need to be much more ambitious and aspirational and positive and out there in the world. We've got to balance those things."

While the government has handled the pandemic well in 2020, in 2021 and this year it has been "a shambles", citing the vaccine rollout, slow availability of rapid antigen tests, MIQ and the traffic light system.

Luxon says with a health crisis in the country at present everyone should get a booster shot if they wanted one and healthcare workers should be able to test themselves before a shift (allowing the return of unvaccinated nurses and doctors).

The health sector had seen 30,000 cancelled surgeries and 57,000 people were waiting more than four months to see a specialist.

There are 500 unvaccinated nurses and 50 unvaccinated doctors and it will be a "pragmatic response" to allow them to work again, Luxon says.

-RNZ.