Different Routes Up the Same Mountain? Neoliberalism in Australia and New Zealand

Neoliberalism is commonly considered to be an orientation towards social and economic life that prioritizes market-based competition over other modes of organization. Recent studies have stressed the international rise of neoliberal patterns of governance, but also their flexibility over time and the varied forms they take in context. Through depicting neoliberal reforms in Australia and New Zealand from the 1980s to the present, the aim of this article is to highlight contingencies and variations in neoliberalization processes. Australian and New Zealand neoliberalisms share origins in the structural liberalization of trade, labour and financial markets effected by centre-left governments and legitimated by discourses about necessary economic modernization benefitting all. Subsequent governments have largely maintained the underlying reforms, but in articulation with varying social agendas and approaches to fiscal discipline and welfare. Inchoate concerns about inequality have recently led to increased questioning of neoliberalism on the mainstream left, somewhat fracturing the pragmatic continuation of neoliberal consensus that has been evident in both countries.