NO!

A thousand, million, times - NO!

Jun 02, 2025

News that former Finance Ministers, Ruth Richardson and Steven Joyce were appointed Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit was not what many in Aotearoa New Zealand wanted to hear.

Steven Joyce? It’s difficult to think of anything outstanding he did in his stint as Finance Minister except threatening tertiary students for daring to speak out against his policies:

And a close encounter with a dildo, which was highly symbolic of him, his personality and his politics.

Whatever achievements justified his ‘gong’ remains a closely guarded secret shrouded in more mystery than an entire season of ‘The X Files’.

But the worst was the awarding of the New Zealand Order of Merit to Ruth Richardson.

This is the person whose 1991 Budget slashed welfare support for the most vulnerable in society.

This is the person whose austerity economic policies caused the most harm and misery to those who could least afford it. Her “Mother of All Budgets” exacerbated an already worsening unemployment crisis brought on by two international oil shocks; the United Kingdom joining the EU in 1973; the sharemarket crash in 1987; and Roger Douglas’s privatisation which resulted in thousands losing their jobs. The abandoning of import tariffs flooded the local market with cheaper goods, driving New Zealand companies out of business, adding to unemployment.

Then came Richardson’s austerity budget which reduced welfare benefits as well as government spending:

That fueled the bonfire, with more losing their jobs as the economy contracted.

In 2024, Max Rashbrooke put it simply:

“Ruth Richardson slashed benefits by around one-fifth of their value.”

As Laura O’Connell Rapira wrote in 2019:

“Overnight, and with the stroke of a pen, Ruth Richardson trapped tens of thousands of people in a poverty whose harms continue today. My mum and I lived with my grandad and aunty in Māngere when that budget was passed in 1991. There were a lot of families in our neighbourhood who relied on income support at that time. In South Auckland in the 1980s, adult unemployment was 40-50%.
The community was still feeling the impacts of Robert Muldoon’s racist dawn raids and the previous Labour government’s terrible economic reforms had started to wear folks down. A stock market crash in 1987 meant that one in three manufacturing jobs were lost and freezing works and factories were shut down. The only reason my mum and I got by was because we had whānau support, but not everyone is that lucky.”

Welfare support was already meagre to begin with. Richardson’s slashing by 20% added to people’s nightmare.

Predictably, child poverty shot up spectacularly (and by “spectacular”, I don’t mean in a good way):

And this is the person which someone in this government thought it would be a good idea to lionize by “honouring them for their services”?!

No!

No. No. No. A thousand times no!

We honour those who work tirelessly in the community, helping those less fortunate than others who were lucky to have been born into better circumstances. We honour those who volunteer to work in Food Banks, charity shops, and many other community organisations. We honour those who support local initiatives like Pataka Kai (food banks), as Emily Writes described recently.

But ‘honouring’ a person who contributed to poverty?

By what possible stretch of imagination, morality and simple humanity is that even possible to consider?!

Ruth Richardson and her neo-liberal mates deserve only one thing: our disdain.

And then consign them to the rubbish bin of history.

End of story.

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over
humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the
habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”

– Herman Melville, 1819 – 1891

References

RNZ: Two former finance ministers receive King's Birthday Honours

NZ Herald: Minister to students - 'keep your heads down'

BBC: New Zealand happy to forget the UK's 'betrayal'

Sharesies: 1987 share market crash: a short history

The Global Economy: New Zealand — Government spending, percent of GDP

The Spinoff: What happened last time we had a beneficiary crackdown?

Statistics NZ: Child poverty statistics Year ended June 2023

The Spinoff: How Ruth Richardson’s Mother of all Budgets is still f*cking us today

Emily Writes: Is it time for more Community Survival Programmes?

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