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Kōrero: Employer and business organisations

Resisting reforms

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Resisting reforms

The 1980s and 1990s, when import licensing ended and tariffs were cut, were a difficult time for many manufacturing businesses. Manufacturers’ resistance was short-lived but vehement. This is the first page of a 1990 pamphlet, in which the Manufacturers’ Federation asked if further tariff cuts were based on ‘blind dogma or … some known factual basis’, and contrasted consumers’ gains from tariff cuts with the possibility of unemployment.

Image courtesy of Business NZ

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: Eph-B-MANUFACTURING-1990-01-front

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Megan Cook, Employer and business organisations – The Manufacturers’ Federation, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/ephemera/24720/resisting-reforms (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Megan Cook, i tāngia i te 2 March 2010.