Rogernomics were the neoliberal economic policies promoted by Roger Douglas, the Minister of Finance (1984–1988) in the Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand of 26 July 1984 to 2 November 1990. Rogernomics featured market-led restructuring and deregulation and the control of inflation through tight monetary policy, accompanied by a floating exchange-rate and reductions in the fiscal deficit.
Douglas came from a background of (left-wing) Labour Party politics. His adoption of policies more usually associated with the political right (or New Right), and their implementation by the Fourth Labour Government, became the subject of lasting controversy.
In February 1985, journalists at the New Zealand Listener coined the term Rogernomics as a portmanteau of Roger and economics. It echoes "Reaganomics", similar neoliberal economic policies promoted by United States President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
Douglas became a Labour member of Parliament at the 1969 general election. He showed his interest in economic policy in his maiden speech, in which he argued against foreign investment in the domestic economy. His case for external protection of the domestic economy and government involvement in investment was characteristic of the Labour Party of the time. From 1972 to 1975, Douglas was a junior minister in the Third Labour Government, where he won a reputation for his capacity for innovation. This government followed a broadly Keynesian approach to economic management.
As a minister, Douglas was innovative in the context of the public sector. As Broadcasting Minister he devised an administrative structure in which two publicly owned television channels competed against each other. He was among the government’s leading advocates of compulsory saving for retirement, which he saw not only as a supplement to public provision for retirement but as a source of funding for public investment in economic development. The superannuation scheme he helped design became law in 1974, but was disestablished by Robert Muldoon almost as soon as the National Party won the 1975 election.
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New Zealand (Aotearoa aɔˈtɛaɾɔa) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu)—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area and lies east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions.
The economy of New Zealand is a highly developed free-market economy. It is the 52nd-largest national economy in the world when measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and the 62nd-largest in the world when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). New Zealand has a large GDP for its population of 5 million, and sources of revenue are spread throughout the large island nation. The country has one of the most globalised economies and depends greatly on international trade, mainly with Australia, China, the European Union, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States.
Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy.