Roger Douglas was New Zealand’s Minister of Finance from 1984. In a few years he took New Zealand from levels of state intervention “unparalleled in any other developed Western economy” to one of the most open, market-oriented economies in the world — achieved by a Labour government. The Government (with David Lange as PM) then won re-election with an increased majority in 1987. James Breckwoldt’s essay distils Roger Douglas’s 1993 book Unfinished Business into ten practical principles for delivering structural change — applicable by governments of any ideological stripe.
1. Quality policies require quality people. Policy emerges from teams of capable, honest people — not party machines that recruit from a narrow gene pool and fill government with careerists who mistake shared assumptions for wisdom. But talented people also become passive inside systems that punish initiative. Change the incentives and the same people perform very differently.
2. Reform in quantum leaps, not increments. Groups that benefit from existing arrangements are concentrated and organised; those who bear the costs are scattered. Incremental reform is therefore the harder political path — each small change creates a focused opponent with no counterweight. Large simultaneous packages are the solution: no single group can claim it’s being singled out, and each gains from the removal of everyone else’s privileges.
3. Speed is essential. During reform, disruption arrives immediately; benefits arrive later. Governments that mistake this for a reason to slow down just stretch the painful phase. The Biden infrastructure legislation is the cautionary tale: by 2024, only 17% of $1.1 trillion from four major laws had been spent. Voters never felt it before the election.
4. Once you build momentum, don’t let it stop. Move to your next decision while opponents are still mobilising against the last one and you hold the high ground perpetually. John Boyd’s OODA Loop makes the theory explicit: success comes from completing the observe-orient-decide-act cycle faster than your opponent, presenting a new reality before they’ve finished responding to the previous one.
5. Consistency and credibility build confidence. If ministers cave whenever a group screams, promises of future benefit carry no weight. Ted Heath retreated under pressure and his authority collapsed. Thatcher’s “The lady’s not for turning” did the opposite — opponents gradually had to adapt to Thatcherism as the new status quo.
6. Let the dog see the rabbit. People cannot support a journey if they cannot see the destination. Vague goals — “smash the gangs,” “growth, growth, growth” — are worse than nothing. Ambitious targets are only damaging when unsupported by policies capable of achieving them.
7. Never sell the public short. Ordinary people make difficult trade-offs every day. Douglas wrote in 1993 about right-wing populist Winston Peters: “His monotonous allegations are unsupported by fact... Yet they set up a sympathetic resonance in many voters. The public feels instinctively that there is corruption somewhere deep in the system. And they are right.” When governments avoid hard conversations, problems worsen and voters eventually gamble on outsiders.
8. Don’t blink — composure is policy. People watch their leaders not just for information but to probe their emotional state. The easiest way to look like you know what you’re talking about is to actually know what you’re talking about.
9. Get the incentives and systems right. Systems deliver what they reward. Possession of formal power is not the same as actual power to govern — the civil service can slow timetables, narrow options and leak negative stories if its incentives aren’t redesigned early.
10. Why are you in politics? Politicians who optimise for short-term approval ratings avoid hard choices — and produce the drift that eventually costs them the popularity they were protecting. After 1987, Labour’s opponents got cold feet, Douglas was forced out, and Labour was crushed in 1990. Staying the course is not just principled — it’s the only strategy that works.
