Last Thursday night, former Australian Prime Minister Hon John Howard spoke at The New Zealand Initiative's inaugural retreat in Auckland. Below is an edited excerpt of his speech in which shared his views on think tanks and how they influenced him during his time as a politician. 

I want to remark upon the importance of what are now generically referred to as think tanks in political democracies like Australia and New Zealand. Dr Oliver Hartwich of course was associated with the Centre of Independent Studies (CIS) in Australia until recently.

In many ways, when it came to policy making, the most productive years I had in Australian politics were the years I was in opposition. As deputy leader and then as leader of the opposition, I had the responsibility for parts and parcel of the ups and downs of Australian politics. That responsibility and the interest I had in labour market reform sustained me, as did the contribution made to that debate by think tanks.

Think tanks had worked out ahead of political parties, government advisers, and certainly the leaders of even the largest corporations, that the centralised wage fixing system was going to hold Australia back.

Think tanks like the CIS and the research department of the National Farmers’ Federation became strong advocates of labor market reform, partly because of the incredibly damaging impact of the practices of the Maritime Union on Australia’s export industries. The experience of interacting with think tanks gave me not only tremendous intellectual input but also the excitement of the economic debate and knowing that we were participating in a debate about the economic future of Australia.

We had an opportunity to build on some of the reforms that the Labor government led by Bob Hawke, to its great credit, had carried out in areas such as financial deregulation – and which had the strong support of the opposition in those years.

So I want to commend The New Zealand Initiative because I believe politics, whether in Australia or in New Zealand, is above all else a battle and a debate about ideas, values and everything that makes political parties relevant.

And it is always important to renew that debate.

Long may The New Zealand Initiative do what think tanks do best – keep the feet of the political leaders to the fire on necessary economic reforms.