Australia has benefitted greatly from the two-way trans-Tasman trade in policy ideas in the last 40 years. In the early 1980s, a New Zealand Labour government led by David Lange and his remarkable treasurer Roger Douglas introduced deregulatory economic reforms later adopted by the Hawke government.

Thirty years later, the incremental reforms and philosophical clarity of the National Party governments of John Key and Bill English inspired some of the successful policy initiatives of the Abbott government, notably in welfare policy.

Does the evident warmth between Anthony Albanese and NZ PM Jacinda Ardern signal a meeting of minds on domestic policy? And if so, how scared should we be? NZ is after all the most woke jurisdiction in the Southern Hemisphere and its economy is officially going backwards.

In this Watercooler Conversation held live before an audience in Sydney, Nick Cater and Oliver Hartwich weigh up the threat of contagion from sub-prime Kiwi policy in Australia.

Oliver Hartwich is Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative. Subscribe to his weekly newsletter here: https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/

Nick Cater is Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre.

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Email Nick Cater: watercooler@menziesrc.org