Free Republic

Grey Power has spurned both major parties and wants its members to vote for one of three minor parties that support a rise in the pension. The 84,000-strong group is urging its members to give their party vote in this year’s election to Winston Peters’ New Zealand First, Peter Dunne’s United Future or Jim Anderton’s Progressives. All three parties support lifting superannuation for a married couple from the present 65 per cent of the average wage to at least 66 per cent. Grey Power president Graham Stairmand told the organisation’s annual conference in Rotorua yesterday that the country’s 500,000 elderly...

As the New Zealand Labour government's Minister of Finance between 1984 and 1988, SIR ROGER DOUGLAS was responsible for introducing radical and wide-ranging economic reforms dubbed 'Rogernomics' that liberalised the economy and laid the basis for a revival in the country's flagging fortunes. The author of There's Got to be a Better Way (1981), Unfinished Business (1993) and Completing the Circle (1996), he is now Managing Director of Roger Douglas Associates, an international consulting firm specialising in advice on economic restructuring and structural adjustment. He spoke here with Susan Windybank about the new reform agenda in New Zealand. Susan Windybank:...