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January 15, 2006
Meeting Roger Douglas then Driving up the Coast
This morning Em and I headed downtown to meet Roger Douglas, a Finance Minister of New Zealand from the 1980s who was the driving force behind the free-market reforms of the period. These reforms, which included the liberalization of trade, elimination of business subsidies, and deregulation of the labor market are to this day extremely controversial.
We talked for a little over an hour and I left quite impressed with the man. Regarding the reforms I was particularly interested in the fact that the Labour Party (i.e. left-of-center) had put them through. It is obviously a question he gets asked about frequently. In summary, the principle he embraced was to remove privilege from the government's operations. But it required doing it across the board, rather than inadvertantly picking and choosing winners and losers. He also stressed that it was easy to get into office and to stay there forever by telling people what they wanted to hear. It was another thing to go in and push for real and positive change, even though it might be politically costly. Another point that he repeated about the reforms was that "Speed doesn't kill, uncertainty does." He stressed that while people have since embraced the new system introduced by reforms they had implemented in entirety (i.e. such as the elimination of farm subsidies and accrual accounting for the government's books), other reforms that went only half-way are still riddled with problems (i.e. health-care).
In terms of future reforms he recommended his book Unfinished Business. He also passionately discussed reforms specifically in health, welfare and particularly education. Several times he took away my notebook and to scribble down notes and examples to make sure Em and I were following him. All-in-all it was a great discussion and I'll have more on it at a later date.
Next up we headed to Budget Rent-a-Car where we were able to get a great deal on a car. There are so many people that rent cars in Auckland and drive them Wellington that they need people to drive them back. For this we got a nice car for $20 and we could return it with an empty tank, provided we got it to Auckland in 48 hours. Since our flight leaves in about 42 hours it works out perfectly.
We picked up our stuff at Edy and Wayne's and then hit the road. Wayne reminded me to stay on the left side of the road on our way up to Auckland. We encouraged them to come and visit us in California in July. And with that we were off.
The drive up the north island was beautiful and we pulled into Rotorua around 9:30pm where we had reserved a room at the youth hostel. After dropping off our stuff we headed to the thermal hot springs the town is know for which were open to 11:00pm. Once were in Em noticed that our $8 silver wedding rings from Tijuana had turned green and gold. I thought they would permanently stay that way and in a way it added to their character. But we showed the attendant of the springs and she had a remedy all ready to go as tarnishing of silver and copper is a frequent occurrence in the mineral rich waters. Tomorrow we head to Auckland where we will be staying with the Hides before leaving for Sydney on Tuesday morning.
Posted by Peter Mork at January 15, 2006 10:18 PM
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