Roger Douglas thinks Act has lost its way

Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, July 20th, 2023 - 33 comments
Categories: act, election 2023, national, roger douglas - Tags:

Roger Douglas, who as Finance Minister under the fourth Labour Government caused major harm and the founder of the Act Party, has publicly declared that he has lost faith in the Act party and is now a swing voter.

From Adam Pearse at the Herald:

[Douglas] claimed Labour and the Greens promoted policies that made people dependent on the government in order to get their vote, while National “stand for very little” and didn’t introduce “new and exciting policy”, Douglas believed.

But he reserved a stinging criticism for his former party, claiming recent Act articles and policies reinforced a view among New Zealanders that it “represents only the wealthy”, citing his displeasure with Act’s opposition to ending “bracket creep”, which increases tax paid by average wage and salary earners because doing so would require higher taxes on wealthier people.

“This was never the intention of those who founded Act. I know that with absolute certainty because I was one of those people,” he said.

“Act in my opinion lost the plot circa 2001, when they dropped their savings-based approach to welfare and joined the other parties in a pay-as-you-go approach to welfare.

“While I have voted Act, in the last nine elections, since 2002 I have not done so with much enthusiasm. As a result, 2023 finds me as a swing voter for the first time.

“Some people will be surprised [to] see me criticise Act and their approach to welfare as much as I do. It needs to be remembered I have always said what I believe to be the truth not what others would have me say.”

His claim that New Zealanders have a view that Act only represents the wealthy is more than just an opinion, it is a clear reality.  You just have to note who is funding the party.  It is essentially the same wealthy donors that also support National.  It is no wonder that Act’s policies are so attuned to supporting the wealthy.

Douglas is correct in saying that Act lost the plot in 2001.  Ever since then it has become National’s play thing, saved by National gifting the Epsom seat so that the right could have representation disproportionate to its actual support.  All that we have now is a party that would introduce Ruth Richardson style austerity on steroids if it has the chance.  There is no fresh thinking, no radical ideas, just a desire to inflict extreme cruelty in pursuit of an Ann Rand dystopian future.

I am pleased that Douglas may see this election out.  Hopefully a bunch of his mates will do the same.

33 comments on “Roger Douglas thinks Act has lost its way ”

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  1. Dennis Frank 1
    20 July 2023 at 9:35 am

    It would be interesting to encourage him to run an ongoing political commentary over this election. However I'd anchor him into a panel format with a sampling of our youngest generation of political activists. That would compel him to articulate relevance instead of regurgitating long-dead ideology. His view that

    Labour and the Greens promoted policies that made people dependent on the government [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-act-founder-sir-roger-douglas-not-voting-for-act-for-welfare-wealth-tax-concerns/NFSQJSV4UVBVPGWPDA6QIENOZI/]

    isn't wrong. Democracy was designed to be a patronage system in the 19th century for us to inherit – the governance portion of neocolonialism. Can't blame either of those two parties for fostering dependency relations in the minds of their target market.

    They want to have political careers as caring patrons, which is exactly what the imperial provision of self-governing statehood for NZ was intended to enable. They were christians, those in govt at the time in the UK, and colonial policy was driven by their humanism. Creation of a positive alternative to oppression was their noble aim.

    • SPC 1.1
      20 July 2023 at 1:37 pm

      More a case of a property ownership franchise parliamentary government system (until they were dependent on conscription of the working class and as Labour had promoted a vote for all men and women, this meant universal suffrage. A political form of Fabian Leveller ship over centuries).

      They simply bequest the colony it's own affiliate parliament during this process.

      Labour and the Greens promoted policies that made people dependent on the government

      The opine of someone who wants people to self-fund service delivery, rather than have them taxpayer funded. Universal provision has its advantages, if one wants equality of opportunity and a modern more egalitarian society.

      After all, business is dependent on taxpayer funded infrastructure – transport, broadband, tertiary education and Crown research etc.

      • Dennis Frank 1.1.1
        20 July 2023 at 2:29 pm

        Yes I agree with your more nuanced view. Dependency is a state of mind. Subjective, not objective What Rog sees ain't necessarily so for many citizens who vote for left parties. The 11 elections where I voted Green, I never felt dependent on them or Labour. I've always been too independent for that psychology to affect me.

  2. James Simpson 2
    20 July 2023 at 10:03 am

    Its funny how Roger Douglas thinks ACT has lost its way at a time when ACT is likely to be the third largest party in parliament after the election and has support he could have only dreamed of when he was leading.

    • lprent 2.1
      21 July 2023 at 9:28 am

      Depends what you define the purpose and success of the movement is.

      ACT == Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, which it was. It was a ginger group designed to try to push the government of the day towards different policy sets, more like Taxpayers Union. A lobby group that tries to push policies that favour their large donors.

      As far as I could see it wasn't originally envisaged as a political party. Wikipedia has a good description of the formation and the happenstance of becoming a political party. I've put the quotes together out of order to give a clearer view of the timeline.

      The name comes from the initials of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, founded in 1993 by Sir Roger Douglas and Derek Quigley. Douglas and Quigley intended the Association to serve as a pressure-group promoting Rogernomics—the name given to the radical free-market policies implemented by Douglas as Minister of Finance between 1984 and 1988.[57] The Association grew out of the 'Backbone club', a ginger group in the Labour Party that supported Douglas and his policies.[58] In 1996, New Zealand switched to using the MMP electoral system. The new electoral system gave smaller groups a much better chance of entering Parliament, and encouraged the Association to transform into a political party and contest elections.[59] The nascent party's manifesto was based upon a book written by Douglas entitled Unfinished Business. Douglas served as ACT's first leader, but soon stood aside for Richard Prebble (his old ally from their days in the Labour Party).[60]

      ACT was built mostly by Douglas' former party supporters as a new political party for 1996. The introduction of proportional representation gave minor parties a greatly increased chance of getting into parliament. Former Labour MP Richard Prebble unexpectedly won the safe Labour seat of Wellington Central, and served as ACT party leader from after the election until 2004.

      Under Douglas, ACT had languished at 1% in opinion polls, but with Prebble's populist rhetoric the party increased in support.[61]

      On 2 December 2004, both Douglas and Quigley announced that they would step down as patrons of ACT. They stated as the reason that they wished to have more freedom to disagree with the party publicly.[66]

      The political party was almost an accident. It started as a way of getting publicity. But got transformed mostly as a result of Prebble's populist campaigning. So Douglas's tenure as 'party leader' of ACT (rather than the body it formed from in 1993) was pretty short. As I remember it was about a year from 1995-1996, and before they ever got into parliament.

      While he became a ACT MP in 2008, he retired in 2011 – but was noticeable for disgreeing with the party leadership at that time as well. He was a prolific private members bill writer, noticeable for getting them defeated.

      Say what you like about Douglas (and I certainly have been nasty about him and his policies), but he was a pretty consistent economic neolib from that late 1960s to now. I'm not surprised that he is critical of the tradition now of populist pandering that seems to underlay all of ACTs’ policies.

      But he certainly isn’t someone who is hypocritical about what he believes in.

  3. Tiger Mountain 3
    20 July 2023 at 10:05 am

    Traitor Rog’.

    This country has endured 39 years now of his “tender mercy” and subsequent Natzo extensions such as the 1991 union busting Employment Contracts Act. Following the wrecking ball Douglas, Prebble, Caygill, Bassett and the rest swung through the provinces and manufacturing, there is an embedded underclass, substantial penetration of public infrastructure by private capital, and basically a failed state for working class people in what should be a land of plenty. The public sector is full of leakers and fifth columnists happy to take a taxpayer funded salary while despising social programmes.

    In terms of the 2023 General Election, NZ National did it to themselves via the Epsom MMP deal with Act–a rotten little party indeed–Mr Seymour has managed mostly to keep his motley crew of MPs well away from public statements and view.

    I hope Te Pāti Māori and the Greens inspire enough new gens to vote and keep these dirty filthy neo libs out of political office so that the NZ monetarist state can finally be overturned.

    • Tricledrown 3.1
      20 July 2023 at 3:58 pm

      Ever since Rogernomics handed even more wealth to the already wealthy and taken away the safety net and replaced it with impoverishment homelessness imprisonment. The haves who are hoarding money are monopolizing every aspect of our economy making New Zealand one of the most expensive countries in the world.Roger Douglas has told us freedoms would bring more competition cheaper prices ,When the opposite has happened prices of basic needs have become to expensive for 60 to70% of New Zealanders!

      Money talks and looking at the funds big business monopolies are paying into ACT and National $12.5 million compared to Labour Greens $2.5 million.Fair Democracy no longer exists in NZ.

      Rogerp Douglas is lying again when he said ACT gave away its anti welfare policy 2001.That is pure 100% pigshit remember Douglas's foray into proving he was good at private enterprise he came up with an idea to house pigs in a multistorey building on top of one another. The pigs all died from neglect and he should have been imprisoned for extreme animal cruelty.Then Circa 1996/97 ACT under the leadership of another idiot ex Labour mi inter Richard Pebble brain decided to follow Argentina's policy of the day,canceling all Social Welfare payments including the Pension. Over night Argentina's unemployment went from 6 % to 38% .ACT hadn't even read the news about the collapse of the Argentine economy but continued to push the policy for several months but canned 6weeks out from the the 1997 election pulled the plug on Roger Douglas's no welfare policy idea.Pebble brain then decided to prove himself in private enterprise thing and set up a shrimp farm it ended in similar circumstance all the shrimps died the farm went bankrupt.The only thing ACT can do is prove is if you suck up to big business and big money is you will be well rewarded even if you have no talent .

  4. AB 4
    20 July 2023 at 11:47 am

    It was obvious from the start of the Douglas project that it favoured the wealthy, would always would do so, and would in fact accelerate that upward redistribution of wealth. To claim that this was "never the intention of those who founded Act" is an interesting stretch. How do you explain it when someone's actions flagrantly contradict their stated intentions?

    • Patricia Bremner 4.1
      20 July 2023 at 12:26 pm

      That is being "Two faced" A public/ and private face

      He and Bill Birch did endless harm.

      Having peoples' backs in hard times, helping trades, passing good law does not make people dependent.

      The Victorian notion of "pull yourself up by your boot laces" presupposes you have boots.

      The contract Act drove wages to the lowest bid every time in a downward spiral.

      This Government is endeavoring to bring our wages to a liveable level, but is battling "Greedflation", and Profit takers.

      His petulant remarks sound like sour grapes… and he started that right wing nastiness full of self interest with no regard for community.

      • gsays 4.1.1
        20 July 2023 at 9:32 pm

        "This Government is endeavoring to bring our wages to a liveable level…"

        They hide it well, immigration is running at peak Key levels and the nurses are headed for strikes next month.

        The government have dragged their heels, undermined the nurses position and used bad faith tactics during negotiations ( Little conflating wage rates with settlement in the pay parity discussions and just recently talking to the media before the offer had been presented to members).

        • Patricia Bremner 4.1.1.1
          22 July 2023 at 8:48 am

          If the National and Act Parties make better offers to Nurses I will be amazed!!

          Talking to Media… the nurses association did that regularly, so why not the Minister? (Past Minister) .

          You are ignoring the laws brought in by this Government to allow negotiation.

          That does not mean the Government will bow to every wish.

          Of course voters have the right to go back to 50c an hour rise… take it or leave it. That is the choice.

  5. Thinker 5
    20 July 2023 at 12:37 pm

    If ACT lost the plot in 2001, that must be early in the piece. Wasn't it formed in 1998? So who was leading ACT and National in 2001?

    AB, it's obvious to most that ACT favours the wealthy but I've always wondered if Douglas really believed what he spouted. Maybe still does. After all, in 1984 there's no doubt the NZ economy was in trouble and people from all over the globe were telling Douglas he was the only one who could see reality and had the strength to do what America and England were doing at the time.

    Remember that TV ad where the bloke goes onto the motorway off ramp and told his wife there was a whole lot of people going the wrong way?

    But, Douglas's current thinking surprises me. The few people I know who like David Seymour (two, of which only one would vote for ACT) like him because they say he talks 'common sense'.

    And, if Douglas is a swinging voter, where which new tree will his swinging take him? Not National, Labour or Greens it would seem, from the article comments. L

    • Patricia Bremner 5.1
      20 July 2023 at 1:07 pm

      Strange "common sense" Do away with the Treaty, Do away with Human Rights, Do away with a Gun Register.surprise Idiocy more like.

    • SPC 5.2
      20 July 2023 at 1:47 pm

      1993.

      Maybe he's now between ACT and TOP? He clearly sees ACT as beholden to privilege, thus part of the problem as he saw our insular economy (tariifs, assembling imported parts, import license privilege etc, subsidy to agriculture etc) back in 1984.

      • SPC 5.2.1
        20 July 2023 at 4:32 pm

        The name comes from the initials of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, founded in 1993 … to serve as a pressure-group promoting Rogernomics.

        In 1996, New Zealand switched to using the MMP electoral system. The new electoral system gave smaller groups a much better chance of entering Parliament, and encouraged the Association to transform into a political party and contest elections

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_New_Zealand

    • Tricledrown 5.3
      20 July 2023 at 4:03 pm

      ACT was founded in 1995/96 the beginning of MMP a mixture of National and Labour right wingers who knew it was a good idea to suck up to big business as they paid well.

  6. Corey 6
    20 July 2023 at 12:46 pm

    Act feels like it wanted to originally be some weird mix of the liberal democrats, the 4th labour govt andthe German FPD party (whose yellow pink and blue colours it literally stole)

    I feel like it saw itself as a original as a party that could hold the balance of power, much like the FPD.

    They probably would have, had it not been for the Alliance and NZ First freaking Labour out and forcing Labour to atleast pretend to disavow the reforms of 84-96.

    If Labours didn't have two populist anti neoliberal parties breathing down its neck and occasionally beating it in the polls, forcing it to atleast appear to recalibrare, I can 100% see Helen Clark going into coalition with Act much like the German SPD goes into coalition with the FPD

    When it no longer had any chance of being the balance of power it just lurched further right overtime.

    National and Labour are both centre right neoliberal party's, virtually indistinguishable from each other, more alike than any other party…there's no real reason act and labour can't work with each other, other than keeping up the facade that labour is of the left.

    • SPC 6.1
      20 July 2023 at 1:26 pm

      FACT CHECK

      TODAY

      ACT cannot even work with National unless they abolish the top rate of tax – 39 cents within the first term.

      Labour established the top rate at 39 cents.

      FUTURE

      I 100% cannot see Labour ever forming a coalition with ACT, both would regard the other as the one other party, they would never be in coalition with.

      PAST

      ACT has never aspired to be a centrist party, but a radical reform party.

      The criticism by Douglas of it, is that it has become a creature of class privilege, rather than a reform party.

  7. Ad 7
    20 July 2023 at 2:27 pm

    Well lordie I'd hate to see Helen Clark in print about whether Labour has a 'way' or not.

  8. Dennis Frank 8
    20 July 2023 at 2:43 pm

    Gordy reports: http://werewolf.co.nz/2023/07/gordon-campbell-on-sir-rogers-lament-and-the-commonwealth-games/

    Douglas, 85, has reportedly penned a 22 page letter of complaint about how the ACT Party of David Seymour has strayed from the one true path

    Straying from the one true path can have consequences. Jesus told everyone how to be a better jew like him. Soon as he died his followers strayed from that true path. They became so crazy they even started a new religion called christianity & pretended it was his initiative!!

    We have been here before, of course. Fifteen years ago, Douglas was not a Jolly Roger when ACT’s then-leader Rodney Hide also fell into error, and strayed from the founder’s firm belief that a political party can survive on pure economic theory, so long as enough multi-millionaires keep on writing it cheques… It was only after Seymour re-invented himself as a Peters-style populist (via end-of-life legislation) that ACT clawed its way to relevance.

    Populism = hard right?? Winston wouldn't agree. I suspect ACT's appeal is to an amalgam of groups. Admirable that Rog expanded his critique to 22 pages though!

    • Ad 8.1
      20 July 2023 at 2:51 pm

      Amazing you have a direct line to understanding the original truth about Christianity.

      Your theological knowledge is awe inspiring.

      Also great work comparing Roger Douglas to Christ.

      • Dennis Frank 8.1.1
        20 July 2023 at 5:27 pm

        smiley Yeah, they thought they had me thoroughly brainwashed as a child. Transcendence eventually catalysed a different view. However the reporter didn't actually establish that Rog was correct in using his true path analogy, note.

        So you may have jumped the gun making the comparison. Your generosity in crediting me with making the same jump is appreciated but inaccurate since Rog has never seemed Christ-like to me. More like an accountant.

        • Ad 8.1.1.1
          20 July 2023 at 8:26 pm

          You made the comparison.

          Re-read the Gospel of Mark for yourself.

          Failing that have a go at LaudateSi: one of the best theoretical interplays between environmental destruction, climate change, global poverty and global inequality.

          .https://laudatosiweek.org/

    • SPC 8.2
      20 July 2023 at 3:11 pm

      Populism

      Lock up the coloured underclass

      Kiwi not Iwi, post WT and Treaty re-write and the fingers to UNDRIP, the nice younger version of WP re-assuring those of the pavlova paradise that assimilation Enzed is safe and anything else is "leftie PC race wokeism".

      And no HRC, no pesky liberals in the way of gun rights, expression of religious and class cisgender supremacism, climate change denialism and promotion of faith based provider work for welfare reform.

  9. SPC 9
    20 July 2023 at 2:54 pm

    The original Douglas

    Back in 1983 his alternative way merely proposed stock standard market reform. It could have been written by someone at Treasury as the way ahead after the completion of CER in 1983 (and note Muldoon's own accounting reform in the public sector paved the way for the SOE reform). Our post UK in EEC/loss of the colonial farm status project.

    The only anomaly, he stated that he preferred an assets tax, rather than a CGT. At the time we had both an estate tax (removed by RR in 1992) and gift duties (removed by JK and BE in 2011). In the end he did neither, possibly on the grounds that this should wait until the impact of the reforms had been realised.

    The applause junkie Douglas

    Drunk on the support from the right, he proposed a flat rate of tax. Labour held to progressive taxation and so the final curtain call of his place within the party

    The interegnum

    He witnesses the Caygill (defeat in 1990) and Richardson (removed because of near defeat in 1993 – saved by the Labour/New Labour division) eras come and go.

    The "libertarian" reinvention – ACT 1993.

    The now revealed breach which began because he wanted "unemployment insurance" and is now permanent because of its focus on privilege.

    The future non aligned Douglas

    One suspects he secretly likes Cullen's NZSF (but would have employee and employer contributions, rather than tax funded) and KiwiSaver as paths back to Labour's original Super Scheme of the 70's.

    Presumably he favours education vouchers and Oz style medicare payments and possibly compulsory income insurance to cover sickness.

    The future

    Is not breadth of tax the best way to lower income tax rates?

    1. Why not restore gift duties and an estate tax to catch inter-generational wealth transfer?

    2. Is not the Greens annual wealth tax a form of targeted assets tax, the best way to finance adjustments to income tax/tax credits/income support?

    3. Is not a CGT on residential real estate, a check on leveraging wealth to compete with first home buyers for property?

    4. Is not restricting the mortgage payment as a cost against rent income to new builds, the best way to encourage real investment?

    5. Is not a surcharge on residential property mortgages a little goldmine?

    6.. Is not a FTT also nice?

    7. Why not the American style progressive tax rates on companies, thus the Oz banks/retail/retirement villages pay the top rate, allowing a lower rate on developing local companies.

    There has to be a better way in tax.

  10. Hunter Thompson II 10
    21 July 2023 at 10:11 am

    Douglas can't expect ACT to be the same party it was when he was active in it.

    All parties change with time – Labour and the Greens have certainly shown that. But maybe that just reflects changes in our society. It used to be a stand-off between Labour (workers/unions) and National (farmers/employers) but not any more.

    Perhaps it's an inter-generational divide now, with young people facing a bleak future in areas like home ownership, careers, state of the environment?

    Both Labour and National seek the middle ground these days.

  11. Phillip ure 11
    21 July 2023 at 10:45 am

    I don't see the current act as having 'lost their way'..

    They have always been about making the rich richer..

    And fucking over the poorest/gutting the welfare state ..

    So what's new…?

  12. Mike the Lefty 12
    21 July 2023 at 12:59 pm

    I am certainly not a fan of Roger Douglas. In fact I think the Fourth Labour government did a lot of irreparable harm to NZ society with its emphasis on "survival of the fittest" policies, the forerunner of today's ACT Party.

    Douglas's announcement quickly became a "yeah right" moment for me. Just like Jim Bolger did some years ago admitting that National's labour market reforms in the 90s went too far.

    I didn't believe Bolger then and I don't believe Douglas now.

    But one (the only) positive thing I can say about Roger Douglas is that he was no way a populist like ACT leader David Seymour is today.

    Douglas always maintained that the pain his policies inflicted on New Zealanders (and he did acknowledge this – somewhat) were for the eventual greater good of New Zealanders, but if this lost him votes in the meantime tough bikkies, he wouldn't be changing anything or promising them jam today to compromise tomorrow. He gave us mortgage interest rates of 16% and inflation about the same without blinking an eyelid or backing down one step.

    Compare that with the leaders of ACT, National and Labour today. They will seemingly say and promise anything if it might win a few votes here and there. The ultimate populist policy of NZ politics might be the Mad Hatter's Tea Party promise in the 1972 election – "free cheese for all".

    I have a historic dislike of populist politicians. They usually promise everything and deliver nothing.

  13. Joe90 13
    21 July 2023 at 6:05 pm

    Perhaps Douglas knows what these fuckers are up to.

    Thread

    @vebatevic

    ACT's healthcare policy is dangerous. Funnel money to private providers by using more private hospital facilities (how about investing in public facilities instead). But more dangerously… 1/

    We would not own our public hospitals because they want to hand them to "global infrastructure investment groups" to refurbish our build new and leaseback to taxpayers…. 2/

    […]

    Looks like Roger Douglas agrees that ACT is about privatising healthcare and he disagrees with them.

    https://twitter.com/vebatevic/status/1681097239572398080