Kōrero: Ideas in New Zealand

In this cartoon from November 1984 the new minister of finance, Roger Douglas, is shown blowing up a statue labelled 'Muldoonism 1975–1984'. During his years as prime minister, Robert Muldoon had responded to economic difficulties such as inflation with an extreme level of intervention including control of wages, prices and interest rates. Roger Douglas and the Labour government argued that such controls distorted the New Zealand economy, so they set out to dismantle the so-called 'fortress economy' and replace it with much greater economic freedom. In these views they had been influenced by 'new right' economists.