Rogernomics — the economy is deregulated
- When
- 1984–1990
- Reach
- Nationwide
A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets — the fastest liberalisation in the developed world.
Muldoon’s snap election was followed by a currency crisis and then by reforms nobody had campaigned on. Finance minister Roger Douglas moved at deliberate speed to make reversal impossible. Whole state departments became corporations and then private companies; the Forest Service, Railways and Post Office shed tens of thousands of jobs, hitting small towns and Māori employment hardest. Unemployment reached double figures. The reforms are still the sharpest dividing line in New Zealand political argument.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
Related
The great Māori urban migration
Māori went from about 25 percent urban in 1945 to nearly 80 percent by 1975 — one of the fastest urbanisations recorded anywhere.
The influenza pandemic
About 9,000 people died in two months — roughly half as many as died in four years of war. Māori died at more than seven times the Pākehā rate.
The 1951 waterfront dispute
Lockout and strike ran for 151 days. Emergency regulations made it a crime even to give food to a watersider’s children.
Wellington waterfrontTe reo Māori becomes an official language
Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori
Te reo Māori gained official status and the right to be spoken in court, fifteen years after the language petition and following a Waitangi Tribunal finding that it was a taonga.