Forum Archive Index - February 2002

[B Bourke <bbourke@world-net.co.nz>]

In reply to Hugh Webber
you say:

>Quite possibly and sadly true. After all it was Bolger who introduced the 
>Treaty of 
>Waitangi settlements and it was Bolger who brought in MMP....and its now 
>Bolger 
>advocating and running KiwiBank. We either need a strong ACT presence in 
>Parliament or 
>another Roger Douglas coming through the Labour Party. 


Hugh,   I 've  read your comments about a wealth tax and your possible remedy 
– another Roger Douglas -  but  I  would have thought that the last thing we 
needed 
was another Mr.R.Douglas.

My reasoning is this (and tell me if  I  am wrong)
Back in '84 Mr.R.Douglas got into power and imposed his hidden agenda 
(that fact that is was hidden was a bad omen)  I  dont necessarily think his 
ideas are nuts, 
its just that .......... well read on.
His new ideas opened up the economy to a new state, a – comparatively – 'free' 
economy. 
I  will use agrarian terms to continue. We will call the economy a 'new 
pasture' and 
upon this pasture Mr.R.Douglas cast some seeds and said – "there you are – its 
free
 for all. Go and mulitply"  Among the seeds were all sorts of plants. Besides a 
couple of
sunflowres and a poppy or two, nodding thistle, ragwort, dock, various broad 
leaf weeds, 
couch grass, etc, etc, 

For a couple of years the weeds ran rampant until one day in 1987 in october 
the 
farmer (back to the real world now – ie:  the investors) came to the conclusion 
that the usefulness of the weeds had come to an end and that they  were no good 
a
nd that the best thing to do was to get rid of them – especially the taller 
weeds.

And the rest is history.  Since that time the NZSE has gone down a further 40% 
(while Australia's and all others have not only recovered, but doubled or 
trebled in size) 
Lets consider why.

Back some time in the mid to late 1980's, a Mr. D.Myers ( I  think it was him)  
said to 
the business community  (probably at a round table meeting) that ...  "We have 
now got 
the conditions that we want and if we don't succeed it will be our fault"... 
How  prophetic. 
The trouble with Mr.R.Douglas's idea's was that – in my opinion - the business 
community just wasn't able to handle it the 'new' economy -  and still cant to 
this day.

Mr.R.Douglas would have done a much better job for this country if he had said
 something like this:
"In ten years time it will be necessary than anyone who is in senior management 
or 
on the board of directors of a public company will have to hold a degree in 
management, 
and half of them will need further degrees in their area of specialty.  
Further, the
re shall be no director that has not completed, and passed, a course in 
understanding 
the responsibility of directors." (and than he should have gone on to say that 
directors 
fees would – by law – be tied to company performance – since we were entering 
this 
new era of reward for result!!)

With things like Air NZ's ability to destroy shareholder wealth some 15 years 
after the 
conditions were changed to be Business friendly, it is apparent that to this 
day the 
quality of public company management is still simply not good enough to handle 
a 
free economy.  A look at yesterdays NZ Herald shows the scale of shareholder 
wealth 
destruction.   The big destroyers are often in monopolies and/or primary type 
products, 
and make up a big hunk of the top NZ companies (thats top by size, not 
management
 performance.) Most of them were also around back in 1984.
There a few true tall poppies – these are the people who run places like – 
Warehouse, 
Micheal Hill,  Auck Airport, F&P, and just a few others who have really grown 
wealth 
from within. Many of the rest are rather shorter poppies or further down the 
list, 
just weeds.  I  recall last year when the business people were wailing and 
crying about 
the fact that the government wasn't talking to them. Really!! They need to read 
that 
speech of Mr.D.Myers from back in circa 1986 .

No, with the ongoing paucity of good quality management and directors, the last 
thing 
we need is another Mr.R.Douglas.  His intentions may have been good, but as the 
good 
book says, you just cant build a castle on a sand foundation.
The really big concern is that the quality of senior management and 
directors shows no sign of improving.!!!!!!!!!






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