UPfront A Cartoon History of Management

As Ruth Richardson’s ‘Ruthomania’ carried on where Roger Douglas’s ‘Rogernomics’ hadn’t quite finished off – transforming New Zealand into model New Right economy – the Treasury was probably more powerful than it had ever been. new breed of senior Treasury officials, younger than before and totally committed to monetarist economic view of the world, took advantage of two largely compliant finance ministers after Robert Muldoon’s lengthy interventionist sway. The average age of Treasury staffers dropped alarmingly as the department developed its rigidly ideological agenda. As Jane Kelsey wrote, in Rolling Back the State: “Most who disagreed with the party line had either to leave, or to conform.”