Think tank seeking economic shrewdness, hopeful for social progress under new Government

AUCKLAND – The New Zealand Powerhouse Institute, a market liberal think tank, has expressed hope for a socially progressive agenda under the new Labour-NZ First government while remaining concerned about their economic program.

The Institute’s Chief Executive, Mitchell Palmer, particularly raised concerns about a possible return to the interventionist and protectionist policies of Muldoon's and other governments before his. He said, “We should not retreat from the hard-earnt economic respectability this country has benefitted from since the brave reforms of Roger Douglas and his Cabinet colleagues in the Fourth Labour Government.”

Mr Palmer was particularly concerned by the Prime Minister’s comments before her appointment that “capitalism has been a blatant failure”. He called these comments “entirely counterfactual and representative of a general and poor effort to condense the complex, economic realities of market failure and inequality into a saleable soundbite.”

The Chief Executive also said attacks by all parties of the new Government on immigration and immigrants as well as the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement could mark a dangerous return to the nativism of past governments. Mr Palmer also accused the Government of a misplaced nostalgia for poorly-understood days past, saying “The recreation of programmes like the Forest Service and a government building scheme represents an attempt to rekindle a non-existent era of successful state intervention in the economy.”

Mr Palmer did, however, express much hope for the social agenda of the new Government. He said the Government’s modernizing stances on abortion and marijuana law reform, inter alia, were very welcome and “represented a good step forward in the fight for personal freedom and evidence-based policy making.” He expressed a hope that similar reasoning could be applied in the economic realm.

The final word of advice offered to the incoming Prime Minister by Mr Palmer was simple. He said, “the cornerstone of any successful government is humility: having an understanding that Government doesn’t always know best and that families are generally well-suited to determining their own future.”

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