It is a waste of time debating with people who have their own facts. But for Brian Easton’s claim that silence proves he is right I would not bother to reply to his claim Rogernomics is causing misery even today.
The facts that Easton relies on are just not true. Here is a sample: “The privatisation of public monopolies, such as Telecom.”
I was in charge of the Telecom sale. The government deregulated telecoms before the privatisation. I am amazed Easton has not noticed he has a choice of telecommunication providers.
READ MORE:
* Professor Bob Gregory: Political beliefs masquerading as science
* Don Brash: Rogernomics? Non, je ne regrette rien
* Brian Easton: ‘People suffered, Don; they were not nearly as lucky as you’
Then there is the extraordinary claim that “the consumer and efficiency suffered”. Nonsense. When I became Postmaster-General the waiting time for a telephone connection was up to six months and the cost of toll calls was outrageous. After ‘Rogernomics’ if your phone was not connected in a day, the first month rental was free and the cost of toll calls was slashed.
“Little support for the unemployed, and virtually no attempt to use the redeployment to build up the skills of the labour force.” No. I chaired the cabinet committee that introduced the biggest retraining scheme ever, Access, which trained thousands in employment skills.
People were affected by the deregulation of the economy. Those most effected were the holders of import licence monopolies and recipients of government subsidies. Even those people have never requested the return of a central government regulated economy.
Easton is selective in his choice of statistics to claim that the economy stagnated. Successive governments kept the Rogernomics liberalisation because it has resulted in 30 years of growth. It is only this government that is returning to Muldoonism.
Don Brash is correct. The results of Rogernomics was, for three decades, very stable income distribution. The growing income inequality in New Zealand today is due to the failure of the housing policies. Even Easton cannot claim the failure of KiwiBuild is due to Don Brash and Roger Douglas.
His central thesis is that the people suffered; that they were not nearly as lucky as Don Brash. “The consequences of their measures haunt us to this day”.
But Robert McCulloch, in his blog Down to Earth Kiwi, has eviscerated the claim that Rogernomics has resulted in a people in despair. Well after Rogernomics, and well before this “wellbeing” government, New Zealand has participated in international surveys asking questions such “how close are you to the best possible life?”
The surveys report New Zealanders, far from being in despair, are among the happiest people in the world.
Easton is guilty of projecting his own feelings to assume we are all miserable.
I spoke at many meetings to those affected by the reforms that I am responsible for. I never received a single letter complaining about being made redundant. Perhaps this is because, except in a handful of cases where people refused retraining, redundancy was voluntary. I received dozens of letters from people complaining they had not been made redundant.
My own son-in-law was one of those who took redundancy. He used to attend an annual Post Office “redundancy” function. He reported that they overwhelmingly agreed that the reforms had been good for the Post Office and taking redundancy had transformed their lives for the better.
Some had used the redundancy to set up their own businesses. Others, like my son-in-law, were able to buy a house he could have only dreamed about owning.
They discussed inviting me to their annual function to thank me but decided, “Prebble is still a bloody politician”.
After Rogernomics, Wellington Central – the home of the civil service – elected me their MP. That’s not the action of people in despair.
Easton’s most dangerous claim is to downplay the important of defeating double digit inflation by claiming it was the result of a more flexible economy, “together with the international disinflation”.
We are about to discover inflation is a problem that is not easily remedied.
Don Brash can rightly be proud of his part in not only taming inflation but setting us up for 30 years of stable prices.
The most incredible claim is “had the neoliberal policies succeeded, the Rogernomes would be loud in their self congratulations. Their silence, in Brash’s case in the key areas of macroeconomics and distribution, tells you that even they think they failed”.
Where has Easton been? Roger Douglas himself has written books, advocated real welfare reform, and founded a political party. I have written four books. The late Roger Kerr, one of New Zealand’s great economists, published a whole library. Don Brash has hardly been silent.
Any amount of reading would reveal Brash is recognised internationally as one of the world’s great central bankers.
