Roger Kerr Receives Prestigious Australian Awards

New Zealand Business Roundtable
MEDIA RELEASE

Business Roundtable Executive Director and Former Australian PM Receive Prestigious Australian Awards

New Zealand Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard were awarded Alan McGregor Fellowships by the Centre for Independent Studies chair Michael Darling at the Consilium conference in Coolum, Queensland which finished on Saturday.

Business Roundtable chairman Roger Partridge said the awards are given to honour individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the principles of free markets, a liberal society, and personal responsibility.

“This is a great honour for Roger Kerr and the Business Roundtable and it’s great to see the work he and the organisation have done over the years recognised in this way.

“That Roger and one of Australia’s longest-serving and greatest prime ministers were the only two recipients gives you an idea of the stature of this award", Mr Partridge said.

Mr Darling noted in his citation that Roger Kerr “has personally commissioned, overseen and made extensive editorial contributions to all of the work produced by the Business Roundtable, totalling more than 200 books and reports and well over a thousand articles, op-eds, submissions, media releases, speeches and policy backgrounders.”

Mr Darling also quoted New Zealand Institute of Economic Research chairman Michael Walls who, in awarding Mr Kerr the 2001 NZEIR Qantas Economics Award, said: “No single individual has done more over the past 15 years to persuade important parts of the business sector to support economic policies which, though often contrary to the interests of individual firms, were in the interest of the country as a whole.”

Consilium is the CIS’ annual ideas conference that brings together a cross section of Australia’s leaders of business, politics, academia, and the wider community to deliberate on the major economic, social, cultural and regional issues facing Australia and New Zealand. The late Alan McGregor AO was a former CIS chairman who played a major role in the organisation’s development and success.

ENDS

© Scoop Media