Prime Minister Jim Bolger and Māori Queen Dame Te Atairangikaahu sign the Tainui deed of settlement in May 1995. Photo / Tai Moana, Te Tai Treaty Settlements
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Welcome to Inside Politics, on the day of Jim Bolger’s funeral. Of all the tributes to the former Prime Minister in the past week, one of the most unexpected magic moments came on Tuesday night from an unlikely source, Green MP Steve Abel, when he was speaking against the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill.
He began by recounting a story he heard from the poet Sam Hunt, who once found himself on a plane next to Jim and Joan Bolger.
They were all headed to the same Anzac service, so Hunt recited a James K Baxter war poem to them. It began like this:
A Māori gunner lay dying On a battlefield north of Saigon And he turned to his Pākehā cobber, ‘I reckon I’ve had it, man!
‘And if I could fly like a bird To my old granny’s whare, A truck and a winch couldn’t drag Me back to the Army... '
Abel recited the whole thing from memory, and it ended like this:
‘... So go tell my sweetheart To find another boy To cuddle her and marry her And laugh when the bugles blow,
‘And tell my youngest brother He can have my shotgun To fire at ducks on the old lagoon, But never to aim at a man,
‘And tell my granny to wear black, And carry the willow leaf, Because the kid she kept from the cold, Has eaten the dead man’s loaf.
‘And go tell Keith Holyoake, Sitting in Wellington, However long he scrubs his hands, He’ll never get them clean.’
Steve Abel: “Sam Hunt turned to Jim and Joan Bolger, and both of them had tears streaming down their faces because they are people of empathy, and they understood the meaning of that poem and its context of our colonial history.”
Indirectly, Abel linked the bill being debated with Bolger’s efforts in beginning Treaty settlements to address the wrongs of the past.
“No good can come from a bill of this character,” Abel said. “It is a bill that explicitly leads into those worst mindsets of colonisation that, at every turn, Māori are cut against and undermined and undone. And for all the efforts of this chamber and this House to make amends for those cruel histories of colonisations, this bill forces the Crown back into a position of dishonourability.”
Bolger had a good innings, many people may think, making it to 90 before dying last week.
But the saddest part of his death, besides the loss for his family, is that, despite his age, he still had so much to offer the country – and at a time when his counsel has never been needed more.
Given that his mother lived well past 100, it was not unreasonable to expect that he might have had a few more years left to contribute.
“Remember my mother lived to 104, so, with modern medicine, I should make 110,” he joked in my last interview with him, in May, just before his birthday.
I had several encounters with Bolger at his home in Waikanae in the past few years, the most important of which were at times of worrying polarisation over Māori-related issues.
One was in 2022, at the height of anxiety over the concept of “co-governance”, which National was opposing.
Bolger was a compass. Through bitter storms that put us off course, he could usually be relied on to point north, even if it seemed a long way off.
He could be relied upon to be non-partisan and to criticise his own party if he felt it was warranted.
He knew the power of National and Labour together shifting the middle ground in New Zealand.
In the case of co-governance, he was extremely critical of Jacinda Ardern for what he saw as her failure to explain the policy properly.
He was also critical of the concept itself, on the basis that it implicitly divided New Zealanders by putting them in two camps.
“Co-governance, I think, is an alien term to New Zealand because it suggests we are a divided society and somehow we are going to bring them together in something called co-governance,” he said.
“The uncertainty is leading to huge anxiety and anger … My concern as a mature New Zealander is that we are dividing New Zealand as we’ve never seen it before.”
His philosophy was simple: that we are better together.
Expectations that divisions would heal with a new Government were low.
Four months before the 2023 election, Bolger was in Wellington to launch the book Te Ohaki Tapu, John Stuart Mill and Ngati Maniapoto (Steele Roberts) by Dr Maurice Ormsby, a former diplomat, who is of Maniapoto descent and was born in Te Kūiti.
It’s an incredibly well-researched book, as befits someone with a PhD from Oxford, and is about the deal Maniapoto struck with the colonial Government seeking land for the main trunk line.
Bolger launched the book with an 11-page speech, which he later gave to me. He delighted in the new insights the book had given him, saying it should be required reading for all New Zealand schoolchildren.
He said the timing of the book couldn’t be better, “as I fear that in the lead-up to the general election in October, we will hear and read much that misrepresents our history regarding Māori interaction with the new settlers …”.
The divisions he was so concerned about under Labour have not, by any measure, improved this term.
Nobody at Bolger’s funeral in Waikanae today will say it, at least not in the eulogies, but the gulf between his worldview and that of the current Government, including National, couldn’t be more stark.
He could be emphatic in his judgment, but not about everything. He kept a strong sense of curiosity, essential for an open mind.
He was known as a pragmatic leader, but was driven by conviction.
His moral authority strengthened with time. He knew how to use that authority in life after politics, and it will be deeply missed.
The funeral will be live-streamed on the Herald website from 11am.
• Apologies are owed to both Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins. Luxon was reported as saying Hipkins was talking “dribble” over his first policy release on the NZ Future Fund. Luxon actually said “drivel”, which we are certain Hipkins would prefer.
• Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was the subject of a front-page story in the Herald this week over failures to declare properties as required under Parliament’s rules. She took to Instagram to suggest she was being picked on as a Māori, and that, when others make errors, it was forgiven as part of the job. Tell that to Whanganui MP Carl Bates, who got the front-page treatment in the Herald for the same errors and is the subject of an inquiry, and to Gerry Brownlee, Jo Luxon, Ayesha Verrall, Mark Patterson and Damien O’Connor, whose errors were all revealed on the front page of the Weekend Herald. Not to mention the Prime Minister, whose rates bill made the headlines today. Big ups to Herald data editor Chris Knox for being on the case of every MP.
• All going well, Foreign Minister Winston Peters will be donning his tuxedo for an Oxford Union debate at 8.30am tomorrow (NZ time) in a moot titled, “This House believes that courts are undermining democracy.” Peters is on the affirmative team. The negative team includes Andrzej Duda, former President of Poland, and Asa Hutchinson, a former Governor of Arkansas.
“It is the dumbest thing you could possibly do.” Speaker Gerry Brownlee on Te Pati Māori MPs burning the foreshore and seabed bill in a rubbish bin at the front of Parliament.
“I think that the dumbest thing that’s ever happened out there is what David Seymour did [driving a Land Rover up the steps].” Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
What is the name of Jim Bolger’s former King Country electorate, and who holds it? (Answer at the bottom of this article.)
Goes to Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Let me count the ways: not knowing that his first new policy in two years, the NZ Future Fund, was virtually identical to an NZ First policy, not having enough detail, and not knowing his second policy in two years, GP funding, had just been announced by his health spokeswoman in NZ Doctor. Messy.
Goes to the person in Winston Peters’ office who had the brainwave to come up with the social media headline “Chris ‘Temu’ Hipkins rips off NZ First policy”, and the Peters-Hipkins composite photo.
Foreshore debate: Former AG Christopher Finlayson accuses Govt of overreach with Māori
Bill burning: Speaker condemns Te Pāti Māori MPs burning foreshore and seabed bill on Parliament forecourt
Taurua controversy: Call to suspend Netball NZ funding until Dame Noeline Taurua issue resolved
Property disclosures: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer failed to declare two properties under Parliament’s rules
PM’s rates: Christopher Luxon gets rates relief after challenging luxury Waiheke property valuation
Fund announcement: Chris Hipkins defends lack of costings for first economic policy as PM labels it ‘drivel’
Opinion – fund announcement: Jenée Tibshraeny: Labour’s economic policy really about spotlighting asset sales
Policy surprise: Chris Hipkins taken ‘by surprise’ by health policy questions
MP’s resignation: Labour MP Duncan Webb to resign as MP, won’t seek re-election
Covid inquiry: ‘Still haunts me’ – why Auckland MP Andrew Bayly is speaking out about Covid lockdown
Bill bungle: Marama Davidson apologises after her bill was dismissed as she was late to show up
Quiz answer: Taranaki-King Country is held by National’s Barbara Kuriger, the Deputy Speaker.
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