Strange as it seems, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen may be revolutionaries.
Listener: 24 January, 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
The standard New Zealand histories cite 1890, with the election of the first Liberal government, and 1935, with the first Labour government, as years of “revolution” –– albeit constitutional and evolving ones –– when the economy and society took on a new direction. So much so that the Reform government came to power in 1912 and the National government in 1949 primarily as consolidators rather than reversers.
Fact: New Zealand has a national portrait gallery. Not many people know that.
Listener: 17 January, 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
You would hardly know that New Zealand has a national portrait gallery, hidden on the busy corner of Wellington’s Bowen St and Lambton Quay in the debating chamber used when Parliament House was being refurbished. The local bookseller tells me that he constantly has to point the way.
Listener 10 January, 2004.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
The Netherlands produces annually about $9 billion of flowers and related products, of which it exports almost $8 billion (and imports and exports another billion). In contrast, New Zealand exports a paltry $70m. The difference is all the more astonishing because Michael Porter in The Competitive Advantage of Nations argues that the Dutch have no comparative advantage in the growing of flowers. Rather, they have built up a technological excellence and maintain a quality edge at the forefront of world production and distribution.
