by Richard Cleroux, from the CCPA Monitor

Faced with a mounting debt crisis 15 years ago, peaceful, agricultural New Zealand made a dramatic economic move and in one fell swoop bought all the New Right economic theories.

Overnight it became the poster-boy economy for the Canadian Neo-Con movement. It was lauded by Conrad Black and his columnists, by Brian Mulroney, Ralph Klein and Mike Harris.

New Zealand did everything it was told by the New Right. It swallowed in one gulp the entire Neo-Con prescription for economic success that is still being peddled in Canada today.

It privatized government-owned electric and telephone companies, cut taxes for the rich (supposedly it would create jobs), cut education spending, reduced subsidies to farmers, slashed generous social programs.

A decade and a half later, the conclusion is that New Zealand’s Great Neo-Con Experiment has failed.

New Zealand is worse off. Unemployment is higher (around 6%), the family farm economy has been destroyed, taken over by large corporations, there are fewer jobs in the cities, young people are leaving (11,000 people left last year for other countries).

New Zealanders discovered that foreign corporations run their economy. Their telephone company is owned by Americans, and there are frequent power blackouts in major cities that were unknown before privatization.

The promised jobs never materialized, the rich simply took the tax cuts and invested their money in safer economies elsewhere. The spending power of the poor dropped 25% and the economy went into a slump.

The quality of life went down the tubes. Teen prostitution soared 800%. Urban crime became a major problem.

The most famous right-wing experiment in the world may have produced the most famous First World basket case in history. Almost 25% of New Zealanders are so desperate that they are considering joining neighbouring Australia, which never bought into the Neo-Con experiment.

Last December, New Zealanders had enough and turfed out the old Neo-Cons, and brought in a new government that will raise the taxes of the rich from the current 33% to 39% and restore as many of the former social programs as it can.

It’s too late to buy back the telephone and electric companies, but they can still spend more on education programs to keep the young people at home.

The new prime minister, Helen Clark, tells anyone who asks about Neo-Con economics: "Don’t try it. It won’t work."

You don’t hear the New Right in Canada talking very much anymore about New Zealand. Perhaps Canada won’t have to learn to the same lesson the hard way.