#rogernomics — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #rogernomics, aggregated by home.social.
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"Four core pieces of legislation set the neoliberal norms and disciplines to guide the project: the State Sector Act 1988, the Reserve Bank Act 1989, the Public Finance Act 1989, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994. These were complemented by binding and enforceable international trade and investment agreements that expanded to diverse areas of policy."
#JaneKelsey, 2025
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"Four core pieces of legislation set the neoliberal norms and disciplines to guide the project: the State Sector Act 1988, the Reserve Bank Act 1989, the Public Finance Act 1989, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994. These were complemented by binding and enforceable international trade and investment agreements that expanded to diverse areas of policy."
#JaneKelsey, 2025
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"Four core pieces of legislation set the neoliberal norms and disciplines to guide the project: the State Sector Act 1988, the Reserve Bank Act 1989, the Public Finance Act 1989, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994. These were complemented by binding and enforceable international trade and investment agreements that expanded to diverse areas of policy."
#JaneKelsey, 2025
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One of the goals of the research I've kicked off on the legacy of Rogernomics is to identify undeclared conflicts of interest. Where politicians or people close to them benefited financially from neoliberal specific neoliberal actions taken by governments they were part of.
(2/2)
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In the 1980s, despite more than a decade of dysfunctional Muldoonist rule, almost everyone in Aotearoa was fed, housed, and employed, and had free access to healthcare and education. Most infrastructure entities were public-owned, and trained generations of tradespeople.
Today marks 40 years since the election of the #Rogernomics government. The origin of a neoliberal paradigm that has destroyed that prosperity, under governments led by both legacy parties.
Time for change.
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One point made in the 1996 Revolution documentary series is that the railways used to train a lot of the country's tradespeople. The same would be true, to a lesser extent, for other public organisations. So yes, from a purely financial POV, they became more "efficient" (ie could extract more profit) by firing 1/2 to 2/3 of their staff. But the current shortage of tradespeople, and the consequently huge cost of getting anything built or maintained, is a direct result of doing that.
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I'd forgotten what a sociopath Roger Douglas is. Watching these old interviews in the Revolution documentary series;
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/revolution-the-great-divide-1996
... reminds me that I've never heard him express a single shred of sympathy - in all the times I've seen or heard him interviewed - for the people who suffered as a result of his policies as Finance Minister in the 1980s, or his ideological twin Ruth Richardson's in the early 1990s. Not even in a 'sad but unavoidable' way.
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No discussion of the legacy of the 1980s/90s neoliberal coup in NZ would be complete without a #HatTip to Alister Barry's trilogy of documentaries about it;
Someone Else's Country (1996);
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/someone-elses-country-1996
In a Land of Plenty (2002)
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/in-a-land-of-plenty-2002
A Civilised Society (2006);
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/a-civilised-society-2006
As well as Jane Kelsey's book The NZ Experiment (1995), which I believe was an important source for the first of these docos.
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"We wanted to make Revolution because we believed that unless we re-run and re-examine our recent history we are in constant danger of forgetting, and forgetting can render us passive about the present and slaves of the future."
#MarciaRussell, 2009, Producer of Revolution, the 4-part 1996 TVNZ series about neoliberal coup of the 1980s/90s.
https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/revolution-1996/series/background/marcia-russell
Full series can be see here;
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"But, as for many, the sweet taste of social progress turned to ashes in my mouth. An economic crisis became the pretext for an ideological blitzkrieg that tried to impose a commercial model on almost every facet of our nation’s life. Change was needed, but by God we paid the price in terms of poverty, inequality, loss of productive capacity in our firms, and damaged generations. We are still paying."
#PhilTwyford, Maiden speech as Labour MP, 2008
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Grain of salt warning:
TheSpinOff aligned writers often seem to swallow the big lie of neoliberal coups; we're in a crisis, There Is No Alternative (sound familiar?). But their Juggernaut podcast about the 1984 election can be found here;
https://open.spotify.com/show/14elyKUvT9NNvkyGl6mTze
FYI It seems to focus on the Rogernomics labour government (1984-90), not the Ruthenasia National government (1990-99), which was just as crucial to the degraded state the country is in today.
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"The ECA massively deregulated the labour market, and can be seen as part of a continuum of [Rogernomics] reforms started by the previous Labour government...
The ECA swept away the system of “national awards” that had previously governed employment. Under the awards, whole industries would have the same baseline pay and conditions, which were hammered out every year by union and employer representatives."
#AlexBraae, 2021
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"The ECA massively deregulated the labour market, and can be seen as part of a continuum of [Rogernomics] reforms started by the previous Labour government...
The ECA swept away the system of “national awards” that had previously governed employment. Under the awards, whole industries would have the same baseline pay and conditions, which were hammered out every year by union and employer representatives."
#AlexBraae, 2021
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"The ECA massively deregulated the labour market, and can be seen as part of a continuum of [Rogernomics] reforms started by the previous Labour government...
The ECA swept away the system of “national awards” that had previously governed employment. Under the awards, whole industries would have the same baseline pay and conditions, which were hammered out every year by union and employer representatives."
#AlexBraae, 2021
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"The ECA massively deregulated the labour market, and can be seen as part of a continuum of [Rogernomics] reforms started by the previous Labour government...
The ECA swept away the system of “national awards” that had previously governed employment. Under the awards, whole industries would have the same baseline pay and conditions, which were hammered out every year by union and employer representatives."
#AlexBraae, 2021
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"But I do think that since the introduction of the Neoliberal “economic reforms” of the 1980s and 90s, New Zealand has forgotten that the purpose of an economy is not to make a few people very wealthy at the expense of the many, but to create the greatest good, for the greatest number of its citizens over the longest period of time."
#BryanBruce, 2024
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Just had a skim of the WP article on Think Big;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Big
... and the accompanying talk page;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Think_Big
It reminded me how contested and poorly documented NZ's political-economic history remains. To the enduring benefit of neoliberal ideologues, who still claim that Rogernomics and Ruthenasia were an unavoidable fix to problems created by Muldoonism.
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This year marks the 40 year anniversary of the #Rogernomics Labour government that made market fundamentalism and austerity policy the dominant paradigm of the NZ Parliament. This neoliberal coup was continued by the #Ruthenasia National government of the early 1990s.
It amazes me how few people in Aotearoa today seem to understand what the country was like in 1984, and what's changed since then. Anyone keen to help put together a factual and non-partisan website about this?
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Received products in mail from NZ business.
The wrapping is 6 pages torn out of a book about #Rogernomics (neoliberalism). I can't figure out if this is an effort to educate or a declaration of rubbish or #SomethingElse
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@emarktaylor @BrilleBhrealla @draftexcluder Yup. Muldoon had refused to float the NZ $ and left NZ in huge debt. New Labour finance minister Roger Douglas took the opportunity to sell/privatise NZ's many state owned assets and introduce neoliberalism. The man responsible for #Rogernomics went on to form the ACT Party.