Liam Dann: Money Talks - Roger Douglas on losing faith in all the parties including Act

Extract from the Herald:

Roger Douglas, former Labour Finance Minister and co-founder of the Act Party, is plainly unimpressed with modern politics.

“Look at the last 20 years, you tell me anyone, any Government that’s done anything,” he says.

Douglas, now 86, probably has more right than most to make that claim, having been the key driver of an economic revolution in his four years as Finance Minister, from 1984 to 1988.

To many Kiwis it was a revolution that saved the country from bankruptcy, pulling it out of a spiral of debt and depression.

NZCPR Weekly: New Zealand at a Crossroads

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, in considering the economic crisis created by the Government’s over-reaction to the pandemic, we question whether our future will embrace freedom and liberty or increasing State control, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Sir Roger Douglas shares his plan for ensuring New Zealand emerges from this crisis as a stronger and richer society, and our poll asks whether you want the Government to be more or less active in the long term management of the economy.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Frank Newman: Straight Talk - Dump the RMA

If the government wants to get New Zealand working it should get rid of the Resource Management Act (RMA). Even one of its architects, Geoffrey Palmer, has said it's broken. It is, and has been for quite some time, which is why it's so frustrating that the problem has been allowed to persist for so long, more so because National's tinkering during its last term made it worse not better.

The RMA started out with great intentions. 

Dan Mitchell: New Zealand’s Road Map for Sweeping Pro-Market Reform

I wrote last September that New Zealand is the unsung success story of the world.

No, it doesn’t rank above Hong Kong and Singapore, which routinely rank as the two jurisdictions with the most economic liberty.

But it deserves praise for rising so far and fast considering how the country was mired in statist misery just three decades ago. That’s the story of this great video, narrated by Johan Norberg, from Free to Choose Media. It’s runs 56 minutes, but it’s very much worth your time.

Nicholas Kerr: New Zealand’s reforms and lessons for Washington

This is the text of a speech delivered to the Washington Policy Center monthly breakfast on June 27, 2017.

Many of you may be familiar with New Zealand’s reforms from an economic perspective, so I’m going to spend more of my talk focused on two other areas:

1. How policies before and after the reforms impacted individuals
2. How the key players succeeded in implementing the reforms

As a young New Zealander in the period before 1984 and the following decade of reforms, I’ll be speaking from personal experience about their impact. And I’ll be discussing their implementation as the son of an economist who was a key figure in making them come about.