"Don’t get me wrong. I am not nostalgic for the past. There were attitudes we thought once thought were acceptable that I am delighted to have seen the back of – strapping and caning children, imprisoning gay men, denying work, promotional and aspirational opportunities to women simply on the basis of gender."
"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."
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.
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?