Story: Employer and business organisations

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