Radio New Zealand featured Alan Gibbs on Sunday. It's worth a listen.
I love the story of Ralph Hotere installing an artwork at Gibbs's farm. Hotere was lauding communist Cuba, so Gibbs brought him to Cuba to show him what it was like. Travel to Yugoslavia and East Berlin had convinced a younger Gibbs that socialism didn't work; Hotere was a bit more immune to updating based on evidence.
His discussions of the import licensing regime under which NZ operated is also worth hearing - especially for the kids who hear all the critique of the reforms of the 80s but who are clueless about why they were needed. That's from around the 25 minute mark.
At the 35 minute mark, he describes how in the 1970s his trucking company had to get licences for each truck, with opportunities for his competitors to object. Fortunately there's nothing like that now.
When entrepreneurial energy goes into figuring out how to get import licences and local regulatory monopolies....
HT: Jenesa Jeram
