High profile economist Gareth Morgan is launching a political party.

He's calling it The Opportunities Party, which he details in the letter below, and discusses in the video above.

Dr Gareth Morgan

I am pleased to announce the formation of a new political party: The Opportunities Party.

I know that as a country we are not fulfilling our potential, that with the right policies we can materially improve fairness, and give many more New Zealanders the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations.

If we do this we will not just be more prosperous, but will improve our overall well-being in terms of

fairness,

reduced poverty,

housing affordability,

environmental sustainability and making the most from our natural capital, and

national pride.

I’m reasonably sure there does exist a suite of policy initiatives that will do this. But we have to break from the lethargy that Establishment parties and career politicians have us locked in. Their fear of losing votes makes them champions of inertia and only ever reluctant proponents of incremental change.

Our programme

The next few months for us at TOP is all about convincing you the voter that what we propose will produce a substantial improvement in well-being, and that we deserve your support in chivvying the government along – whoever they may be. The changes I’m talking about will benefit us, our children and our grandchildren. But to effect change we need to be in parliament and in sufficient numbers to have undue influence.

Today is Ground Zero for us – this is where we begin. Our first target is to get enough members and to do this we intend to; Release our policy priorities by the end of January,

Convince New Zealanders that we have a strategy to make New Zealand more prosperous but at the same time make New Zealand fair again. You cannot boost prosperity by protecting privilege.

Call to Action

TOP is a rebellion against the politics of mediocrity, against the inertia of the Established parties. I look forward to engaging New Zealand on the topic of how we do better – a lot better. If you want to be part of this, keeping up with what we’re doing, contributing to the discussion, or becoming a member then go to www.top.org.nz and register.

Finally I have resigned as a trustee of Morgan Foundation to focus on this political campaign. MF will continue the work on the public policy research, environmental projects and projects as it has been since its establishment in 2006.