Bolger says many people have been disappointed at the Government's "timid response on Green issues" over the past three years, despite having the Green Party in Cabinet for the first time.

At the same time, however, NZ First acted as a handbrake on some of the Government's key marine conservation commitments including the Kermadec Marine Sanctuary, cameras on fishing boats and banning new mines on public conservation land.

"Essentially we've done nothing apart from passing a Zero Carbon Act, and that had the support of the whole of Parliament. Moving to green vehicles and all that, none of that's happened," says Bolger. "And I'm sure that the green-leaning world will be very disappointed."

It is now time to stand up and be counted, Bolger counsels Ardern.

"I think she should move on the policies she laid out three years ago. I'm looking particularly at reducing the pollution that our very large vehicle fleet is emitting; the government has control of a large number of those vehicles and they could make a difference starting tomorrow."

Bolger is hopeful we'll now start seeing faster progress on environmental issues. It's not something we can stop with a vaccine - there isn't one for climate change.

It will take "hard, difficult and often unpopular policy decisions," says Bolger.

"We have to see whether the new government will want to face up to that."

Greenpeace New Zealand's Russel Norman agrees with Bolger's assessment.

Norman, who is also a former Green Party leader, is concerned Labour might spend the next three years "watching their polling and taking no risks" because they don't want to fall below 45-50 percent.

"This is a moment for transformation - we need action on climate change and biodiversity - a price on agricultural emissions, phasing out nitrogen fertiliser, transition to regenerative agriculture, cameras on boats, and end to bottom trawling and so much more. The numbers are there to take action and there are no more excuses for failing to take action."

BERL research director Ganesh Nana wonders if Labour will give the Greens a role in government, given its majority.

"The Greens will probably want to be inside the tent; but it will remain to be seen how much the Ardern/Robertson leadership will view this as a mandate for change.

"Change with regard to climate policy and inequality will be on the table. This is the Covid opportunity - the question for now will be how much of this mandate will be used."

Source

• Newsroom
• Newsroom
• Image: Stuff

"Any expectation that we just simply allow that the market to dictate our outcomes for people is where I would want to make sure that we were more interventionist," Ardern told Radio New Zealand.

So what is neoliberalism?

As colleague Henry Cooke put it: "neoliberalism traditionally describes the political shift in the 1980s towards privatisation of government services, a focus on individual freedoms over collective good, and a general glorification of market principles".

Laissez-faire (let them do as they choose) was in, and intervention became something of a dirty word.

As well as rewarding individual toil, proponents believed that greater wealth creation by some would, as if by magic, trickle down to the less fortunate, and on average people would be better off.

Plenty argue it came off the boil in the 1990s and has never really recovered. Some on the Right claim a neoliberal agenda exists only in the minds of the Left, used as a term of disparagement.

When did it arrive in New Zealand?

While the Closer Economic Relations treaty between New Zealand and Australia came into force in 1983 (the significance of which is often overlooked in market reform terms), New Zealanders generally agree the 1984-90 Labour Government was the real start of neoliberalism.

Subsidies were broadly eliminated from most industries, dozens of state-owned companies were sold and the financial sector underwent major market reforms, including the free floating of the dollar.

GST of 10 per cent was slapped on the cost of practically everything and the top income tax rate, of 66 cents in the dollar, was halved over two years.

Later, under National, labour relations saw dramatic changes with the Employment Contracts Act, passed in 1990. Welfare payments were cut. University fees were hiked and have risen since. Continue reading

Sources

• Stuff article by Hamish Rutherford, Wellington business bureau chief at Fairfax Media
• Image: Independent Australia

Bolger was interviewed by Guyon Espiner as part of the RNZ series The Ninth Floor in which Espiner conducts extended interviews with former New Zealand Prime Ministers.

"That was the value system that I grew up with. And what it is - I mean the Catholic church fails many times but - it teaches a very strong message of social justice," Bolger said.

"And if everyone was to follow the teachings of the church on social issues then we would have a much more socially just world than we have at the moment."

Bolger admits some of the decisions he had to make, such as benefits cuts, jarred and challenged his values.

"How do you balance what is necessary against where do you share the pain," he asked.

"You have to make those decisions with the best information you have and to the best of our judgement we made them."

"If you went over them some of them you would probably make them differently, but that is common in all walks of life."

Bolger said that what most people want is a sense that they are being listened to, and that their basic needs, such as housing and employment, are being provided for.

He said one of the great challenges of the measure of a society is,"How are we dealing with those less fortunate... those on the margins."

Bolger thought that, against this measure, New Zealand would received a mixed report.

You judge a society "on whether you are building more prisons to lock people up, or whether you are building more schools or centres of learning to educate them."

He said three strikes and you're out law is "absurdity beyond belief".

Source

• rnz.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: nzhistory.govt.nz

Mr Bolger was speaking at a lunch organised in his honour by the United States-New Zealand Council.

He says western nations need to improve their understanding of the Asia-Pacific, especially the region's Muslim populations.

Mr Bolger says the greatest challenge the world faces is to understand what its demography will be.