I often find people characterising Rogernomics and the neoliberal economics of the late 1980s and early 1990s as ‘privatisation’; that is, the sale of state owned enterprises (SOEs) to the private sector. Yet, there may be better candidates to symbolise the policies of the time, including

            - the opening up New Zealand to the world economy by the removal of border and related protections and subsidies;

            - commercialisation; that is changing the way that the economy and the state sector were managed by giving priority to business principles;

            - the light-handed regulation of business which has led to sizeable inefficiencies. The cost of ‘leaky buildings’ may be as high as $47b alone and people have died.

            - the attempted ‘Americanization’ of the public health system driven by ideological stupidity and again resulting in deaths and unnecessary health discomfort;

            - the tax and benefit cuts which sharply increased inequality.

So why does so much of the public concerns focus on privatisation?

Perhaps it was because of the lying. After all, the Lange-Douglas Government promised that it would not allow National to privatise state-owned enterprises; they fulfilled the promise by doing it themselves. Roger Douglas even admitted that 'I am not sure we were right to use the argument that we should privatise to quit debt. We knew it was a poor argument but we probably felt it was the easiest to use politically'.

Another source of the disgruntlement is how often the privatisation was botched. In two cases – Air New Zealand and the railways – the private owners managed the businesses so badly that they had to be renationalised. One might add that the failure of the private banking system to meet customer needs meant that the government had to set up Kiwibank.

Perhaps an even bigger botch was the privatisation of Telecom into a monopoly business which certainly resulted in massive profits for the owners, and poor service and high prices for customers. This was demonstrated when the Clark-Cullen Government introduced changes which removed the monopoly power; the share value of Telecom promptly collapsed because investors no longer expected monopoly profits. Today Telecom, now called Spark, is a very ordinary company.

However, I suspect that what really stuck in people’s craws was that the SOEs symbolised the control they had over the economy. I do not particularly agree that public ownership is necessary for democratic control. Sometimes, when the purpose of the business is essentially commercial, we get better control by properly regulating private business. On the other hand, some economic activities have a public purpose that even the best forms of commercial regulation cannot provide effectively.

Perhaps it is that the disgruntled are economic nationalists seeing the economy as an integral part of their view of New Zealand. On the whole, our nationalism is pride in a liberal, progressive and multicultural community although even here, as elsewhere in the world, there are nationalists who are illiberal, reactionary and exclusionist.

The Rogernomes denied that the economy was relevant to nationalism. I think they are wrong; you cannot separate out the economy from the wholeness of life.

Yet it is instructive that I do not detect the same warmth towards SOEs that there once was. I can remember the time when having struggled through the congestion of the Heathrow or Los Angeles airports one boarded an Air New Zealand plane with the thought ‘I’m home’. The New Zealand cabin crew still show the hospitality I remember; it is the bureaucracy above them that seems hostile and out of touch. They should send their grannies or grandchildren on a trip (no, not in business class – I assume that is where they travel) and have them report the experience.

I was struck by the safety video on a recent flight which announced that AirNZ was ‘crazy’ about the All Blacks and wanted to rename itself ‘Air All Blacks’. Not all New Zealanders think the All Blacks are the only, or even the most important, part of their national identity. Personally, I’d rather fly an airline which was crazy about its customers.

The disconnection of head office from its clientele is not confined to airlines. This is the time of year when various arts organisations send out brochures setting out next year’s program. They are brilliantly designed but useless for anyone who simply wants the list of next year’s events. That the head offices seem unaware of this obvious defect means either that they never look at the brochures or that when they do they are so disconnected from the audience that they cannot identify with the audience’s perspective. A lot of websites are equally dismissive of their users. Such designers could not run a corner grocery.

Is it head office which means that AirNZ is a JAFA – just another airline – despite its being largely publicly owned? There is a more fundamental problem. The government requires the business to run as if it was privately owned and return to it the maximum sustainable dividends. Such a business has no room for being a national icon, other than by providing pathetic safety videos. Is that what we want?

The issue sharpens with the proposed merger of TVNZ and Radio New Zealand. Given the media convergence, I support RNZ’s acquiring a television channel but not one which has to be funded by advertising, for that will distort the public purpose of RNZ. The separation of the commercial stations from the National Program thirty years ago was the right decision, for they involve very different cultures; just look at the difference between their program presenters.

Remember how the Clark-Cullen Government tried to rescue TVNZ with a charter and extra funding? It was not a success because TVNZ remained focused on its advertising.

One is fearful that the same forces which led to the privatisation of so many SOEs all those years back will press for the TVNZ-RNZ merger, because they do not understand the difference between a commercial venture and one with a public purpose. The public does, at least intuitively. It might, however, have little influence on the puppets who will front the proposed merger.