 
Sender: "Jon C. Slenk" 
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 16:01:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Jon C. Slenk" 
Subject: Fwd: [clari.world.oceania.new_zealand] New Zealand marks i
	own	Bastille Day
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From: Barry Brumitt 
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To: js9b@andrew
Subject: [clari.world.oceania.new_zealand] New Zealand marks it own Bastille Day
Reply-To: belboz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Barry  Brumitt)

New Zealand! Here I come!
Barry

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From: clarinews@clarinet.com (Reuter / Simon Louisson)
Newsgroups: clari.biz.economy.world,clari.world.oceania.new_zealand
Distribution: clari.reuters
Subject: New Zealand marks it own Bastille Day
Copyright: 1994 by Reuters, R
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 94 21:50:10 PDT
ACategory: financial
Slugword: NEWZEALAND-ROGERNOMICS-(FEATURE,PICTURE)
Priority: daily
ANPA: Wc: 884/0; Id: a0049; Src: reut; Sel: reuap; Adate: 07-14-N/A; V: (feature picture)

	 WELLINGTON, July 14 (Reuter) - The French celebrate it as 
Bastille Day; for New Zealanders, it marks the 10th anniversary 
of a different kind of revolution.
	 On July 14, 1984 the leftist Labour Party led by David Lange 
swept to a landslide electoral victory and launched a reform 
drive that would turn the nation upside down.
	 In the next six years, New Zealand society was transformed 
from one of the most closed and regulated in the industrial 
world -- where wages, rents and consumer prices were fixed -- to 
one of the least regulated and most open.
	 "It amounted, in my view, to a revolution," said political 
commentator Colin James, who wrote two books on the period.
	 Those six years of market-led economics have been dubbed 
"Rogernomics", after Sir Roger Douglas, Lange's finance minister 
and architect of the most visible and measurable changes.
	 These included freeing interest and exchange rates, 
deregulating banking, scrapping import licensing and most 
tariffs, abolishing subsidies, radically reforming the tax 
system, giving the central bank autonomy, privatising many 
government businesses and trimming back central government.
	 But James says the economic reforms were only part of the 
revolution. "Rogernomics was just one facet of a complete change 
in our national expression of society. The most important thing 
was that New Zealand became independent."
	 He said the country entered a post-colonial era, shaking 
itself free of remnants of dependence on Britain, its former 
ruler, and on its post-World War Two protector, the United 
States.
	 In 1985, Lange banned ships carrying nuclear weapons or 
propelled by nuclear power from New Zealand ports, causing a 
rift in the ANZUS military alliance with Australia and the 
United States which has not healed to this day.
	 Douglas took his monetarist reforms to their extreme after 
Labour won the 1987 election, when he proposed a flat income tax 
rate of 24 percent and a minimum wage.
	 But Lange scuppered the flat tax plan and, showing 
increasing disillusionment with what he has called the "New 
Right" policies of Douglas, sacked Douglas in 1988.
	 "It wasn't until after 1987 that what was sensible turned 
into some kind of ideological pursuit," Lange said recently.
	 But reform continued, and when Labour were thrown out of 
office in 1990, Rogernomics was extended under then National 
Party finance minister Ruth Richardson.
	 The conservative National government deregulated the labour 
market, extended the privatisation programme and partly 
dismantled much of New Zealand's extensive welfare state.
	 Despite five years of deep recession, much pain and social 
disruption when unemployment rose to 10 percent, economic 
fundamentals suggest the reforms have largely worked.
	 The economy is growing at an annual rate of over five 
percent, inflation is under 1.5 percent, foreign debt is falling 
rapidly and the government has just posted its first budget 
surplus in 17 years.
	 But unemployment, while falling, is still at nine percent.
	 Ironically, both Lange and Douglas are re-entering the 
political arena after a spell out of the limelight.
	 In his book, "Unfinished Business", Douglas outlines how he 
would extend his reforms into education and health. He plans to 
replace state funding with voucher and private insurance schemes 
in return for cutting income tax to zero for most families.
	 He plans this month to launch his lobby group, the 
Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, as a fully fledged 
political party to take part in the nation's new electoral 
system of proportional representation.
	 Lange, now opposition foreign affairs spokesman, quit as 
prime minister in 1989. Douglas predicts Lange will supplant 
unpopular Labour leader Helen Clark before the next election.
	 "It's my view she won't be there at the next election, 
instead we'll probably have David Lange," he said.
	 "It's the same David Lange who fronted every reform that I 
sponsored and has subsequently disowned every one of those 
reforms since then," Douglas told Reuters.
	 Douglas said he was re-entering politics to finish the job. 
"The tragedy for New Zealand is that we didn't continue 
the reform programme. We would have, but Lange stopped it in 
'87."
	 When he sacked Douglas, Lange said New Zealanders needed a 
"tea" break from reform.
	 Douglas believes the present government is also taking an 
extended vacation, satisfied the reform process is complete.
	 But he believes that just as the government has got out of 
business' hair, it should get of people's lives in health, 
education and pensions, confining itself to setting standards.
	 "Make one simple change -- give people back the money that 
the government currently spends in those areas so that they 
make the purchasing decisions," he said.
	 He said his reforms in the 1980s gave people independence.
	 "I want to give them a feeling of independence and self- 
worth by allowing them to spend that money themselves."
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	   ---------------+--------------------+--------------
	   angst+@cmu.edu    carnegie mellon     everything is
	   jon slenk          pittsburgh pa         disclaimed

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