Roger Douglas

As finance minister in New Zealand's 1984 Labour government, Douglas floated the dollar, ended farm subsidies, corporatised and sold state enterprises and introduced a goods and services tax, none of which Labour voters had been promised. The reforms are credited with ending a sclerotic, heavily regulated economy, and the GST and Reserve Bank model have lasted. They also brought high unemployment and inequality, split the party, and the voter backlash helped bring in proportional representation in 1996.