Biography
In recent years, Don Brash has been a director of a number of other companies, including the New Zealand subsidiary of the ANZ Bank and Transpower, the government-owned company which operates the New Zealand electricity grid. He was for several years an Adjunct Professor of Banking in the Business School at AUT University in Auckland, and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law and Management at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
In 2009 and 2010, he chaired the Government’s 2025 Taskforce, charged with investigating the reasons for the recent decline in New Zealand’s productivity performance and making recommendations on the steps needed for New Zealand to achieve Australian living standards by 2025.
Don was a Member of Parliament from 2002 until early 2007. In 2003, after just 16 months in Parliament, he became Leader of the Opposition and in the election of 2005 came very close to becoming Prime Minister, having increased the National Party’s share of the vote from just 20.9% in 2002 to 39.1% in 2005, National’s highest share of the vote since 1990.
Before entering Parliament, Don was Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand for almost 14 years. During his tenure running New Zealand’s central bank, inflation in New Zealand was reduced to its lowest level for several decades. Don also led the Bank through the enactment of the Reserve Bank Act 1989, a pioneering piece of legislation which led to New Zealand becoming the first country to adopt a formal inflation targeting regime for monetary policy.
Prior to his time as Governor, Don’s career spanned a wide range of organisations. He spent five years in Washington working for the World Bank Group, including a year spent on the staff of the Pearson Commission on International Development, before returning to New Zealand to head up the investment bank Broadbank Corporation. In the eighties, he was managing director of the New Zealand Kiwifruit Authority and later managing director of Trust Bank.
Also in the eighties, Don was appointed to chair the Advisory Panel on the Goods and Services Tax – the committee which designed New Zealand’s GST – and four subsequent consultative committees set up to advise the Government on various aspects of taxation reform.
Don was a member of the New Zealand Monetary and Economic Council (1974-78), a member of the Committee of Inquiry into Inflation Accounting (1976), and chairman of the Economic Monitoring Group (1978-80). He was a foundation member of the New Zealand Planning Council (1976-80).
He has a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University, with his thesis on American investment in Australian industry being published in 1966 by both Harvard University Press and the ANU Press. He holds a Master of Arts degree with First Class Honours in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Economics and History, both from the University of Canterbury.
Don won the NZIER-Qantas Economics Award in 1999 and in the same year was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Canterbury. He was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his role in “guaranteeing the independence and integrity of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand”, and in 2007 was made a distinguished fellow of the New Zealand Association of Economists “in recognition of outstanding contributions to the profession”.
He has three children, and his main recreational activity is tending the family kiwifruit orchard.
In 2014, he published “Incredible Luck”, a largely autobiographical book, which also included several chapters setting out his views on a number of important issues.
