'From the cradle to the grave'

Whilst her indoors was celebrating the birth of the Welfare State in the snow, the very mention of Nordy got me thinking. Heinrich Arnold was the given name at birth in Germany, but it was slightly changed to suit the NZ condition.

Nordy, as he was commonly referred to, not only established intergenerational welfarism with the 'from the cradle to the grave' concept in this country, but also delivered the 'Black Budget'.

When Labour won the 1957 elections Nordmeyer was made Minister of Finance and was ranked third within the government. A short time after taking office Nordmeyer reached the conclusion that the country was on the brink of a balance of payments crisis and decided to take strong measures in response. His first Budget (generally known as "the Black Budget") introduced a number of unpopular changes, including significant tax increases. The particularly large tax increases for alcohol and tobacco, coupled with Nordmeyer's strong religious background, also created the impression that he was trying to impose puritan-like social reforms. Labour was voted out of office in the 1960 elections, something that many historians blame on Nordmeyer's "Black Budget".

Typical Liarbour, couldn't manage finances to save themselves. Tax everything and anything to implement social engineering, forcing their unwanted puritanical reforms on the unwashed. MJ Savage's reforms were not left enough for him.

At least the country got rid of him for the Holyoake years which got the country back on an even keel financially.

I often wonder how an epitaph for her indoors will annotated in Wikipedia once the government wallahs allow Wikipedia to tell the correct story.

Maybe something along the lines of "... an academic who made it a career to become the second female PM in NZ. Never worked in the private sector. Oversaw several fraudulent minority coalition governments which resulted in the most corrupt government NZ has ever experienced as desperation to retain control at any cost became the focus in 2008."

Yes, it will be interesting to see how history deals with her indoors. Her predecessors have not had favourable writeups.