Read the full 2nd report of the 2025 Taskforce here.

Current government policies show no sign of delivering the growth rates New Zealand needs to close the large income gap with Australia, according to the second report of the 2025 Taskforce.

"The government has taken several steps over the past year that are likely to increase our growth rate, but has also taken a number of backward steps. There is certainly no evidence yet that current policies will deliver the kind of accelerated growth we need," Taskforce chairman Don Brash said when releasing the report this afternoon.

The government has taken steps to lift New Zealand's sustainable economic growth but catching up with Australia will be a long-term challenge, Finance Minister Bill English said today.

"However the [second 2025 Taskforce] report shows just how challenging it will be to catch up to Australia by 2025, especially as we continue to recover from a recession - started under Labour - that Australia never had.

The government will announce the establishment of the Savings Working Group today.

Both the names of the group and its terms of reference will be included in the announcement, which will take place in a media conference at 11:45am.

Following in the footsteps of the Capital Markets Development Taskforce, the 2025 Taskforce and the Welfare Working Group, the Savings Working Group is the latest advisory group set up by the government to deal with a political issue.

Few, if any, are happy at the fluctuations in the currency, but the limited number of possible solutions seem to face major drawbacks.

As glaring weaknesses in the way money is lent and borrowed, moved and manipulated around the world were laid bare in a scary crisis, proponents of alternatives to the current floating exchange rate may well have gained added credibility.

But their arguments were countered in the late-November report from former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash's 2025 taskforce.