The Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in New Zealand was an annual media campaign run since 1997 by two activist organisations, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa and GATT Watchdog. The winners were chosen by a group of academics, activists, businesspeople and trade unionists. In April 2018 it was announced the 2016 Roger Award would be the final award, due to a declining number of nominations.

Background

The awards bear the name of former

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Finance Minister Sir

Roger Douglas Sir Roger Owen Douglas (born 5 December 1937) is a retired New Zealand politician who served as a minister in two Labour governments. He became arguably best known for his prominent role in New Zealand's radical economic restructuring in the 198 ...

, who introduced far reaching market-oriented reforms in the 1980s (also taken into account during the naming decision were New Zealand Business Roundtable director

Roger Kerr Roger Lawrence Kerr (17 January 1945 – 28 October 2011), a public policy and business leader, was the executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, a free-market think-tank based in Wellington, New Zealand. Early life Kerr gre ...

, the verb "to roger", and the term "

Jolly Roger Jolly Roger is the traditional English name for the flags flown to identify a pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century (the later part of the Golden Age of Piracy). The flag most commonly identified as the Jolly ...

"). These changes, reinforced by successor

Ruth Richardson Ruth Margaret Richardson (born 13 December 1950) is a New Zealand retired politician of the National Party who served as Minister of Finance from 1990 to 1993. Her 1991 budget, which she dubbed the "Mother of all Budgets", formed the catalyst ...

in the 1990s, made the country's economy one of the most open in the world. Through this period, the role and profile of multinational companies increased. The privatisation of

Tranz Rail Tranz Rail, formally Tranz Rail Holdings Limited (New Zealand Rail Limited until 1995), was the main rail operator in New Zealand from 1991 until it was purchased by Toll Holdings in 2003. History The New Zealand railway network was initially ...

and

Telecom New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digital division) ICT services to businesses. It was know ...

, companies that have won multiple Roger Awards, remain particularly controversial - since being given their first awards, they have been re-nationalised and unbundled respectively. The Roger Award has been used as the model for similar campaigns overseas.

Criteria

The winner was selected by evaluation of the judges made on four criteria, "Economic dominance"; "Impact on people"; "Environmental damage and abuse of animals"; and "Political interference". This last criterion was judged on the basis of whether the nominee is "running an ideological crusade". Having "won" on three occasions,

was inducted into the 'Hall of Shame' in 2003. It has ceased to exist having been absorbed by

Toll NZ Toll Domestic Forwarding (TDF) is a division of the Toll Group specialising in freight forwarding by road, rail and sea within and between Australia and New Zealand. Toll is Australia’s largest mover of freight. Toll New Zealand is New ...

, a two-time nominee, and subsequently

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

KiwiRail KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail ...

by the

Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand The Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand was the List of New Zealand governments, government of New Zealand from 10 December 1999 to 19 November 2008. New Zealand Labour Party, Labour Party leader Helen Clark negotiated a coalition with Jim A ...

. Telecom New Zealand was nominated each year since 1997, and has since been succeeded by

Chorus Limited Chorus is a provider of telecommunications infrastructure throughout New Zealand. It is listed on the NZX stock exchange and is in the NZX 50 Index. It is the owner of the majority of telephone lines and exchange equipment in New Zealand. It is ...

and

Spark New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line plain old telephone service, telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet service provider, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digi ...

Past winners

References

{{reflist

External links

CAFCA
- Roger Awards Ironic and humorous awards New Zealand awards Awards established in 1997