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Max
at the opening of the Mamaku Fire Brigade
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Max Before Parliament
Career Before
Parliament
A career in finance, economics and labour relations preceded Mr Bradford's
entry into Parliament. Mr Bradford received his tertiary education
at the University of Canterbury where he obtained a Master of Commerce
degree with honours in economics, business management and computer
science.
He joined Treasury in 1966
and became section head in the energy, economics and industry divisions
concentrating on the oil crisis. Between 1969 and 1973, Mr Bradford
was seconded to the International Monetary
Fund in Washington DC as the country economist for Sweden,
Norway, Iceland and Denmark.
While with
Treasury, Mr Bradford was a consultant to the Norwegian Central
Bank (Norges Bank) for development of their computerised economic
analysis systems. He installed major macro-economic computer systems
in the New Zealand Treasury, the Department of Statistics (which
became the INFOS data retrieval and analysis system) and the Norges
Bank.
Mr Bradford
coordinated the 1976 Budget, working directly to then Minister
of Finance, Robert Muldoon, and Secretary of Treasury, Henry Lang.
He was also responsible for wages policy and renegotiation of the
State Services Employment Act in 1977.
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Judging
the bull - Rotorua A&P Show
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In
1978, he joined the New
Zealand Employer's Federation as Planning and Policy Coordinator
and later became Director of Advocacy with responsibility for annual
wage negotiations on behalf of NZ employers.
Mr
Bradford was closely involved in path breaking work on labour market
reform in the employer movement, much of which was incorporated
into the Employment Contracts Act.
He was a member
of the Industrial Relations Council and chief employers'
negotiator on the Long Term Wage Reform Committee in 1981.
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In
the rural Heartland
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In 1985 Mr
Bradford became chief executive of the NZ Bankers Association,
involved
in financial sector deregulation as it affected trading banks. He
introduced the private financial sector scheme to manage the farm
debt crisis and was responsible for overseeing the overhaul of the
commercial bank settlement clearing system in 1986.
Between 1987
and 1988, Mr Bradford was Secretary General of the New
Zealand National Party with organisational responsibility
for steering major reform through the party. He left the party in
late 1988 to become a financial consultant, working to successfully
defeat the Labour Governments proposal to introduce a capital gains
tax.
In 1989 he
sought the nomination for the Tarawera Electorate, and won the seat
in the 1990 election.
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