Ruthanasia

Ruthanasia, a portmanteau of "Ruth" and "euthanasia", is the pejorative name (typically used by opponents) given to the period of free-market policies conducted during the first term of the fourth National government in New Zealand, from 1990 to 1993.

[citation needed] Ruthanasia was controversial as the National Party had fought the 1990 election on a manifesto promising "The Decent Society" and implicitly repudiating the radicalism of the Fourth Labour Government.

[3] The new Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, defended the move on the grounds that he had been badly misled in the run-up to the 1990 election as to the actual state of the New Zealand economy.

[citation needed] He was told by officials on Sunday afternoon, the day after the election, of two unrelated financial crises: the country's broke .... and the largest bank .... was bankrupt.

The partly state-owned Bank of New Zealand required an immediate injection of capital to avoid insolvency as a result of the poor performance of a NZ$2.8bn loan portfolio in Australia.

[5] Where Roger Douglas had deregulated the industrial, financial, fiscal and agricultural sectors of the New Zealand economy, Ruth Richardson, under the auspices of a National (predominantly conservative) administration, was able to focus on social services and labour relations.

Peters was viewed as an acolyte of Rob Muldoon's protectionist economic policies and had a substantial support base amongst New Zealand's senior citizens and their related lobby organisations.

[8] After Richardson's resignation, National retained power for six more years against a divided Labour Party and splintered opposition, hampered by its own legacy of economic retrenchment.

While several MPs seceded to form non-viable centre-right satellite parties before the 1996 general election National retained power by going into coalition with Winston Peters and New Zealand First.

National then governed for a further year, with the support of post-split ex-New Zealand First MPs, but the 1999 general election saw Helen Clark lead a centre-left coalition to victory.