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Sir John Key welcome to my podcast well that's quite a title is it well it's
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crazy to be here beautiful actually looks beautiful you've got everything going on and it's kind of nice that your
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name is so short cuz that fits in perfectly so you know like it's it's all
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good Al so your shorter name makes it cheaper for the neon cheaper for the Neons yeah yeah um how are you uh
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remarkably well actually I am uh having quite a Cru life I mean I'm sort of um
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yeah obviously doing some work still um but a lot of what I do I'm on three boards of three different companies
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either cheer them on them and they're largely offshore you know us related and
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they can be virtual if I need them to be so I'm not in that situation now where
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you know when I was say for instance on A&Z group board or cheering A&Z New
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Zealand that was 17 board meetings a year and a lot in Australia and I had to you know dedicate my diary around making
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sure I was in the right place now I can kind of be I like and make them fit in um so yeah so I've got I've actually got
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a really nice work life balance now between that and traveling and playing golf and flying helicopters and doing
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all sorts of other different things so it's it's it's a really good balance you
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say it's quite cruisy but I think by most people's measure it's probably
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quite quite hectic but I think after the after the pressure of being prime minister how many years were you PM uh
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eight yeah after 8 years of of that job where you're working I don't know 18 20
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hour days we'll get to that later I'm guessing anything sort of seems cruy
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yeah it does yeah yeah and and that's right you you get used to I mean what is
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what makes it so much better now is this and this is the thing I mean I talked to
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Chris Laxon obviously a bit and and you know so much of what he's doing he'll
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send me a picture I go yeah I remember I was there and I went there nine times or
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whatever and I remember that person and all those things it's just it's a
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marathon so you're out every night you're away every day um yeah you might
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even get home on a Wednesday night or something and it's 10: at night you got
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to go and do some reading so it's midnight and then you get up in the morning and you Department North or
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something so what I don't have now is I now I have lots of nights when we're
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home like Bron and I went for a walk this morning well you're never going to
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do that when you promise or even even in my previous working life so we did that
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and then yeah I'm kind of busy I got a few things on and then tonight we're
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going out for dinner you know we and so you just have you have a life you know you feel like you can do things but but
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for all of that the things that I did um in my previous working career where they
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ultimately actually Bing about obviously clearly politics you wouldn't trade it
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for anything they were the most incredible unique experiences and I will be eternally grateful I ever did it but
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but it's nice having a bit of me time now oh 100% 100% yeah kind I remember um
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so when you first became prime minister uh whatever month that happened to be you came in to see us at the edge for a
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Christmas interview so you're like two or three months under the desk and um
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the biggest surprise you said at that time was just how much readings involved and I'd imagine it's one of those jobs
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where you're just always on the back well they basically deliver you a briefcase every day and the and the
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briefcase sort of goes from points of importance so it's what you're doing
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tomorrow by the way that's a good idea that you know where you are what you're
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doing who you're talking to who you've met before who you haven't that s thing
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and then there's all the things are likely to blow up in the media the next morning by the way there's quite a few
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of those and then it's oh by the way every stupid thing you ever said about whatever you're now in trouble of
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tomorrow and then but then it's just a mountain of paperwork is coming and that's every day
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so of itself if you actually if I gave it to you today and you went oh I've got
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to dedicate a couple of hour that I'll do that you'd go okay well that's fine
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but it's it's every day and um people always ask me what you Lumin when you
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were primin and I go just how much the body can function with so little sleep because you're really in a permanent
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state of sleep deprivation that's really where you're at um and and it is funny
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you wake up in the morning you don't feel good I think if you're honest you
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know you probably know when you go to bed you sleep incredibly well because you don't have time actually to lie
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around there thinking about things just go to bed and you're exhausted um and
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when you wake up for the first 5 Seconds you don't feel great and then you're
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into it and you're away so but there's a huge amount of adrenaline stuff going on
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and so that that that helps feed the beast but but you know certainly a decade of being on the job I remember
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the I think it was the the heral the Dominion Post ran a series of pictures of me over 10 year perod now everyone
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ages but man I didn't look good at the end of it look any better now but look
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good at the end of it um but the the the Aging thing happens really quickly you see it with any leader even I think he
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was like gray after year he's pretty great now I saw him at the Democratic Convention um you know and man's still
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an amazing got to be the best oror of the world's produced in you know decades
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abely great speaker um but yeah yeah you they they all age and I mean you know like Bill Clinton it's every look
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frankly it's everybody and if you're in that job for long enough that's what
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comes with it and as I said I don't think it's I mean there a lot of everybody ages that's the thing I mean
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they just have a Time series of you and so it's easy to see and um uh you know
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you don't want to do this but I went into parliament in 2002 and if you have
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a look at some pictures of me going in and my maiden speech and stuff you I look really young but I was 40 you know
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I'm 63 today so some people come up to me they go oh you're looking bit rough
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or something okay but it was 25 years ago you know give me a break you so everyone looks a bit different over time
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yeah yeah yeah oh what what is your um relationship with um Chris lexon really good yeah did you become friends when
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you were prime minister and he was of he was head of so he used to he used to ring me quite a lot he he I will say
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people like in the time that I was P because I came from a very unusual route I didn't really come from being a
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political person I was green as grass but I wanted to do it and I'd been a long-term member of the national party
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but that's quite different from working in the Research Unit being around this
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thing being actively involved I was a business guy you know and um so then a lot of other business people saw me do
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that and thought you know hey I would mind being prime minister maybe I could do this and of all the people that used
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to ring me or talk to me or contact me he was the only one I ever thought would go all the way and by that actually give
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up the job actually run and actually do it and and and he honestly he used to ring me at like 11:30 at night I'd be in
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my office of Wellington and he'd go I've just been watching question time
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question three why did you give that answer and I go for goodness sake Chris it's theater they're not asking a
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question they want an answer to they know the answer they just want they just want to wind me up or wind and so it's
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all about theater and so we've been friends for a very long time and um and you know and I'm you know I don't want
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to say I'm as Mentor because I like he he runs his own ship and his own thing
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but I'm probably one person he can talk to that at least has been there and knows what it's like good and bad and
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probably probably a person that can occasionally say to them hey you might actually change tack on that or maybe do
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something different there just on the basis that um you're in an unusual power
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position I actually finally had it with my chief of staff Wayne egleson who was I used to describe as the unelected
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prime minister of New Zealand he was the one person that would come on occasion and go yeah well you might believe what
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you said but tomorrow morning you're saying sorry and you're doing this and
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you're doing that or you're wrong and um and uh in in the entire 10 years we had
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together um there was only once I actually disagreed and said no I don't think you're right and I did what I
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thought I was right and and actually I think on the occasion I was right it was one in 10 years the other
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999 I had to follow his advice cuz I've noticed um just recently last couple of
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weeks um LX seemed um there's been times where he seemed quite Snappy with the
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media and I Part of Me part of me thinks has has someone told him that he needs to be more more defiant with them or is
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he actually like seeing the red my you never did did you no looked it's your
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own style I always sort of you right or wrong took the view you know the you know the famous line you know don't buy
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a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel you know like you can't win you
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won't win you can't win and I had it once actually we were in the middle of
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um I think it was um 2014 when was doing the Moment of Truth which by the way there wasn't a lot of
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Truth as we now know but anyway and the media were obsessed with the whole thing
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and oh then that book Hager written yet another book and it was all that stuff you forget it was a long time ago um and
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so Steven Joyce who was our campaign manager he said to me he said look uh what we're going to do with this press
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conference is you're going to do this stuff and when they when you've answered
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you know 10 mons of questions at the end of it end of that 10 months I want you to get up and say right it's enough to
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say you're walking out and I said well that's not what I've normally done I've
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always just burned them out he said no no but that's what we're going to do
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today and I went okay and everyone agreed so I said fine so I did that and the headlines the next day were
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something like you know prime minister rattled prime minister angry something like that and and I said to him I'm not
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doing that again I'll just burn these guys out and it doesn't matter if it
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takes an hour and 10 minutes I'll answer all the questions cuz I know the answer
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to every question they've got they might not like the answer but I know it um so
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M yeah mine wasn't mine was just sort of to say look yeah okay you can have a
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good relationship with them and they they may not always they may not always agree with you but the important the
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really important thing to remember is that you can be doing an interview and I might be doing an interview with John
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Campbell and John Campbell is not going to be voting for the national party and probably not a massive fan of my
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policies when I was prime minister but I'm not talking to John Campbell like
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I'm not talking to you now really I'm talking to the people that listen to
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your podcast right and so that's just a vehicle for communicating to those people and many of the people who
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watched John Campbell's show when you had Campbell live or whatever they were
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National Party supporters you know they they might not have agreed with lots of things that John personally thought but
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they were interested in show or they liked it or they found it entertaining or they you know they liked him
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personally but didn't like you know necessar his policies um or what he thought was right um and so when you get
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in there and you just give your in a relaxed way answer to the question then people that just gives some reassurance
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they go yeah am I guys on top of that that's his View and it's it's like I
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don't know whether you watch the vice presidential debate but I thought JD Vance who you know like a lot of people
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think is like Devil sort of thing and mean like he's said a lot of things that
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you know are way away from what I would believe because I'm actually socially
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liberal as you probably know I'm economically conservative he's obviously
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clearly very conservative he I thought he gave the master class yesterday because he did an amazing he's got an
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amazing back story if you haven't seen either the movie or his book you know
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either read the book or watch the movie bit quicker on Netflix amazing back story and he did a great job of feeding
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that and and looking likable and I think in the end that's what you're trying to
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do I think is is to be relatable so I mean you know but but everyone has their own style Chris has obviously decided
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I'm going to push back a bit harder and um and that's that's fine too I mean
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it's it's whatever style you like mean Winston's made a lifetimes work
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including at the United Nations recently so hey you know everyone's different
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well since since you bought up American politics um the the time we're recording
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this it's the first week of October um you're blown up in the news the last
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couple of days for saying you're backing Trump or something what no what I said
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was that I thought he'd win and I mean to be fair I said look it's 55 45 it's
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really close I mean this is the thing in the United States is we don't have first
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past the post now every vote doesn't count as sorry we don't have um in New
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Zealand we have m where every vote counts so it doesn't matter whether you're a national voter delivering mango
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we're not going to win the seat but that National vote counts cuz it's party vote
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that counts in the US it's just where you live so if you're that's why only
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half of all Americans vote because if you're a republican in California you know you know the Republicans aren't
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going to win the state so you don't vote and if you're a Democrat half the time
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you go well they don't need my vote so I don't bother so half of them don't vote
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um so it's going to come down to those real swing States so so sort of fly over
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Rust Belt states Pennsylvania will be the big one cuz it's got 16 or 17 Electoral College votes and um and so
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it's really tight but I I think Trump because Trump's personality is what it is I think he under represents
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in polls CU I think some people will vote for him thinking he'll be better for I don't know border control or the
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economy or whatever it might be don't want to say to a pul that they're doing
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that so I think he is a bit on the light side I mean it's really close have it
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been Biden completely different story but I think with carel Harris it's you know much
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much tighter but I I think he can get there um but you know it look equally yeah could I could I could convince
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myself be the other way but does it does it um annoy you though like that your words to care even though you haven't
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been prime minister for however many years um you you say something and you know it can sort of get twisted or
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turned and it becomes like a big headline yeah I mean look it's sort of clickbait isn't it in the world that we
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live in I mean what it surprises there's two things that surprised me more and
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like and it happened this morning when I was I was literally BR and I went for a
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walk and then we had coffee a guy came up to me and said um I did a fantastic job wish you'd come back and like BR
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goes you've been out of this thing for seven years people are taking selfies of
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you every day and coming up to you like that happens literally every day and it's a nice thing I mean it's really
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nice that people you know would want you me I person think Chris doing a great job and the government's doing great job
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so I need to go back but the point being that it's really nice that people do
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that and I will say yeah the older I get the better I was so you know it's like a
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lot of things in life I think probably like child birth you know he want you throw it you can sort of remember the
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good bits which is you know the baby um so uh look I think in that regard um yeah I'm not I I I am was surprised but
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it's it's just been there and I don't know you know like and I've sit with Max
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you know like he will he will literally buy buy a buy a site because he's a property developer and it'll make the
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news and it's like why is that particularly news with it's not but but but the simple facts of life art in the
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modern world that we live in they you know media needs people to click on their thing and if you just go and talk
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to the herald or something they'll be quite honest I'll tell you look with our
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nam's here people click on it and um I I remember saying to the editor of the
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herald one time you know you you writing way too many articles about Max it's a
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but unfair on a young guy to be doing that he said yeah I know but he said it just goes nuts every time we every time
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we put his name up we just get a lot of hits so they were quite honest about it you know so yeah I had Max on the
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podcast about a year and a half ago we had a had a great chat and it's um yeah
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he during those those years when you were prime minister he got a raw you look at it he got a raw deal he he he
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was unfairly treated really what how how old was he he was a kid when 14 15 you know that s of stuff I mean you're
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younger actually younger um so you know what it is was first you got to remember we were the first um you
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know family if you like for a while that that had had children so Helen had been
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there for for 9 years but didn't have children so it was a bit of a novelty at
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that point again for us to turn up with two kids that were relatively young secondly um it was the it was the start
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of social media and so you know that wasn't around really in Helen's day and
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even in my day you know Instagram was the thing you put up a photo on at the very end of my time being prime minister
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you weren't dming people and all of that kind of stuff and and I mean you know
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you weren't using like look at the modern world I mean the politicians of all Stripes all around the world try and
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go around the mainstream media not to be difficult because they hate them but because that's how they connect via
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where is Facebook or Tik Tok or whatever platform they want so that was all different so that was so there were many
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things and then to be fair you know Max sometimes CED it a bit he you know he had periods of LoveHate relationship
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with all but times where he liked it and Stephy is Stephy you know she's an amazing girl but she like I mean she did
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Cover herself and and Sushi and then photograph herself semi naked so yeah that sort of thing does get the media's
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attention occasionally you look back in hindsight that was rough like Steph it was an art project and M in terms of um
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um you know High Janks or whatever you want to call it teenage boys get out to it was fairly low level the um one thing
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that the thing where he um it was a Snapchat where he yelled out to a cyclist woman it was it was a dumb joke but it
00:17:06
was a joke by teenage boy how how do you hear about that do you hear about it from him or from the
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media it depended on the circumstances generally generally from him but sometimes from my press sex that would
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be like wow you're going to get that one I mean there were very I mean most for
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the most part I I really defend them and actually the New Zealand Public were amazing cuz they just sat there and went
00:17:28
well our do that stuff even if it was dumb or even if it was you know a bit sort of you know you know geish or young
00:17:35
young boy stuff I mean they go yeah okay but but our teenage son does that too you know like he's not on his own um and
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for the most part they were they were great kids you know they didn't do anything seriously wrong but something
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like that like are you are you telling them off are you on the phone saying what if are you doing there was one or
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two there was I can't remember it might have been that one or another one where
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I just said look yeah that's just that's just no um and but but but for the most
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part you know it would depend on the circumstance of what he was doing and what it was but I mean you know I
00:18:05
remember when he he came home that day and did a plank and he was in the he was it was when planking was the big deal
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and he was in the study and he yells out at me I'd been in Parliament all week I
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walk into the study and he'd set up the camera somehow in a way where he takes
00:18:21
that photo apparently we were single-handedly killed blanking but anyway worldwide or whatever a little
00:18:27
rough but yeah it was and then that was days of it and then he I know we we get in the spa one day he takes a photo and
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I'm there you know like you know and I mean it's not like I'm naked but I don't
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obviously got togs on so I mean yeah and stuff like that I mean when you look back on all of it it makes you laugh you
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know really um but at the time some of it was like oh so it was a bit draining but it comes back to what you said I
00:18:50
mean this is the problem and this is what I was try and say to people when they go into politics you know it's a
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weird world you're in because when you first go there you're cting the media
00:19:01
you know you want to be noticed you want them to you know like you and to promote
00:19:05
you and all that sort stuff and then all of a sudden when you turn them on just be careful because you can't turn them
00:19:10
off and um but you I remember like we we did commercial radio which obviously you
00:19:16
know you know J Mike and do yeah yeah um and you you're our favorite Prim out of
00:19:22
all the seconds of prises I've had Helen never played ball never wanted to play
00:19:27
ball no no it was all I was stupid enough to do but but but the thing was though I was worked on the principal a
00:19:33
lot again if you go back to what I was saying ear you're really talking to the
00:19:36
audience I reckon there were a whole you know hundreds of thousands of people that used to listen to your show who
00:19:42
weren't actually that interested in politics didn't really know much about
00:19:45
me didn't know really much about politics in general but I Reon they would have come away and said oh he's a
00:19:50
bit of a laugh he seems like an okay guy probably voted for us you know so there
00:19:54
was method in the madness in that um you're just trying to show them your person Al it a little bit and and to be
00:20:00
fair I've kind of got that personality where I've definitely an A type personality obviously so you know I
00:20:06
wasn't like I was trying to you know I got some dark personality and I was trying to turn it on when I was it just
00:20:11
as who I am um and for the most part it worked really really well for me and it was like you know the yeah like it like
00:20:18
when you build a bit of a following I I remember in 2014 like I said that was the time when we had the.com thing in
00:20:24
the book and everything and it was so internally it was feeling like oh my goodness gracious you know was all
00:20:28
feeling quite ugly I I remember ringing at Wayne you know my chief staff and saying this is nuts we were trying to
00:20:35
walk into malls on doing the Walkabout during the campaigns we if we couldn't
00:20:41
get through the double doors to get a little bit of space inside the whole thing was there was so many people come
00:20:48
around us taking F and it was just crazy it was like honestly hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people trying
00:20:54
to take photos and I said to way I said look I know I know when we do the standup every day it's like you believe
00:21:02
that you know we're in so much trouble it's not funny but I said it's like a
00:21:06
rock concert out there I've never felt anything like that and um and to be fair
00:21:11
I had a lot of it over the time over the over the sort of 10 years I was the leader and eight years I was prime
00:21:17
minister I had a lot of it but but it was a great barometer and I think by building that sort of I guess that
00:21:25
personality that just that it just it just meant that if if there was something negative in the media people
00:21:32
kind of um could see around it and I was thought like if I did a selfie with you
00:21:37
know some young person and then they show it to their parents and then they share it with all their friends and all
00:21:42
that stuff and then they go oh what was he like and then they go yeah he seemed really nice and he took it of us and all
00:21:46
this but you know that that personal support probably adds a lot more than an editorial which might be negative about
00:21:54
me because most people don't read the editorial whereas they actually listen
00:21:57
to the Billy who met me somewhere and goes oh he was actually way better than I thought or whatever yeah you were
00:22:03
great like when um there's there's one clip of you on coming on our radio show
00:22:06
singing the Mariah care oh god well there still the Shocker isn't it it's
00:22:10
had millions of views on Tik Tok um Millions when when and not in a good way when when you do when you did that like
00:22:18
did did you go did Leslie your press lady like tell you off in the car yeah yeah no no no no I got a pacing yeah but
00:22:26
every time I put on a hat I had to pay a fine I literally used to just pay the morning tea fine before I even left in
00:22:31
the week I just go like here's the money every time you put on a hat some stupid
00:22:36
hat they didn't like that and because they knew the media would take a photo
00:22:39
then they had some get another picture of me and they everywhere you go they go no hats and then they' give me some hat
00:22:44
and I put the bloody hat on and then I have to pay the fine which was morning tea for the press press secret and so I
00:22:51
know just basically was a direct debit from my account um but again you know it was like people yeah I tell you a really
00:22:59
interesting story Angela Merkel you know the chancellor of Germany she came to New Zealand so she comes over and she
00:23:05
was she's a great one I actually think she's one of the great leaders actually
00:23:08
I know there were one or two things that weren't perfect but there was a hell of
00:23:11
a lot right and she lead Europe and she was she made Germany the you know the strong man of Europe anyway she she
00:23:17
comes out and she was coming to the G20 and we were going because we're not we're the 53rd economy in the world so
00:23:22
we're not big enough to go to the G20 but we were going and um because you can
00:23:27
if you're the host you invite your friends so Australia had to invite us and Tony invited us over so we were fine
00:23:33
so Anga said I'm going to come down to New Zealand I'm going to come on the
00:23:36
Thursday and Friday or something and then we'll go over to um you know G20 which was in Brisbane so I said yeah
00:23:44
fine all good so she comes s here and I so I rang her up and I said what do you want to do and I knew it quite well so I
00:23:48
said what do you want to do she said John I don't want to do meetings let's
00:23:51
just do one little you know a meet and greet you know a little little thing a press conference but I want to do nature
00:23:57
you know cuz you know the Germans love nature right a lot of gym tourists come for nature so I said okay so we decided
00:24:03
we'd take her to motoro Island and to release a Ki right so anyway there's
00:24:08
this picture of her and she's holding the Kiwi I think I'm standing next to
00:24:12
her and then she releases this kiwi into the W anyway fine so you that's the end
00:24:16
of it there's tons of media and lots of people we've done same thing with Prince
00:24:19
William and you know he came out anyway fine all good so anyway on the Sunday she comes over she goes John John I go
00:24:26
go yes she goes the picture the picture and I go what picture Ang she goes the picture me and the kiwi and I go yeah
00:24:33
yeah it was a good picture she goes that picture has had five times more views than anything I've done at the
00:24:39
G20 this is like the to be the 20 big leaders of the world and people are looking at the picture of her with a
00:24:45
kiwi right in New Zeal and that's the point that most people in their lives they just say to politicians oh you get
00:24:50
on with the the hard stuff good better and different they're actually interested in human life they're
00:24:55
interested in and that's why you know celebrity pictures of their wedding or I
00:25:00
don't know on the holiday somewhere that sells because it's relatable and the
00:25:06
other stuff is just like I don't know what the oecd stanville what do they really do I know you know that kind of
00:25:11
stuff yeah yeah yeah that's true I suppose there's some people that are like super Super Hyper actively engaged
00:25:16
in politics but then 80% in the middle that just yeah they just sort of roughly good close enough is good enough um well
00:25:23
these are great Yarns hey um let's go um let's go all the way back I've got a
00:25:27
photo here to okay oh you're the State House 19 Holly for yeah I wanted to buy it actually
00:25:32
when the government was selling them off yeah so let's talk about the the early
00:25:35
years so so values and lessons so um that you were born in Orland and yeah born Inland yeah you moved into 19
00:25:42
Holford 19 hollyood was in crush so when I was about six I think dad died and had
00:25:48
this massive heart attack drop down dead um and so Mom had gone off to the accountant and said look my husband's
00:25:55
died he's got all these businesses I've got three children um he and the
00:25:59
accountant said come back in two weeks and he basically said you want the good news or the bad news and she said no
00:26:03
I'll take the bad news first and he said you're broke she what's the good news
00:26:07
and he's he said well I'm not too bad of an accounter I can get you out of quite
00:26:11
a bit of stuff her mom said nah that's not really how it work so she sold the
00:26:14
family home sold up all the businesses sold everything and moved us to kashish which is how we ended up in the infamous
00:26:20
kind of state house which was 19 Holly so yeah I remember her being there but you know the interesting thing with this
00:26:26
was we stayed there my other sisters older than me so Liz went off to London Sue was um 3 years older than me
00:26:32
eventually you know what all people you young young people did those say got a job at 16 and then you know went
00:26:38
overseas and um I convinced m m was M was a great worker and she was a cleaner she so that was the only thing she was a
00:26:47
night Porter cuz she cuz she could do something when I was in bed literally at night and she could go from work and
00:26:54
leave my sisters there at the time and then later on she was a cleaner but she saved enough money to buy herself an
00:27:01
ownership flat so she moved out so she moved to um you know 160 High Road actually I think it was but yeah what
00:27:07
are your Recollections of your dad uh virtually none I know it sounds really weird yeah but um Dad was dad was that
00:27:15
was his second marriage so we had two I got two half Brothers one of them was passed away actually but so dad was
00:27:20
quite a bit older than Mom and um they'd met after the war so they then they come
00:27:25
out to New Zealand so um so weirdly I have one memory of him um and it was he gave me some toy and he was I think he
00:27:33
was in trouble with Mom so I think I remember the ra um and to be FY drank a bit too much if you know what I mean so
00:27:40
there was a few issues but but but um but yeah I virtually no memories of him and um and Mom just sort of when dad
00:27:51
died mom just sort of really moved on she never she never remarried and um and she but she she was an incredible
00:28:00
person I mean she was this Austrian Jewish Refugee you know had got out when the Nazis invaded out of Austria she
00:28:07
always used to say to me look John you get out of life what you put into it and you you can sit around with every excuse
00:28:12
you want but ultimately you you're the master of your own destiny and it was
00:28:17
that and really education she used to say look you they can take money away from you they can do all of these things
00:28:23
but ultimately they can't take your drive and they can't take um your education away from you if you have both
00:28:29
of those things you can make it work and and so many people when I was prime minister used to come up to me and go
00:28:34
yeah mate I grew up in the state house I did this and they massively successful so which is not to say it's an easy life
00:28:40
for someone so I understand completely you how hard does for youngsters it might find themselves in a difficult
00:28:45
position but I do think ultimately ultimately if you want to make it you can and you will you even today and as
00:28:53
difficult as you can and you will I love that that's such you had a guy on the
00:28:56
the podcast a couple of months ago called um I don't expect you to know the name but abz nazari and uh his family
00:29:01
were on the uh the Tampa oh they're on the Tampa yeah yeah so they they um I
00:29:05
think John Howard didn't want them in Australia New Zealand and he he learned
00:29:09
he learned the English alphabet in the um Refugee Center in mang and now he he owns a couple of business his dad who
00:29:16
was stripped of his identity and everything and he came to New Zealand with nothing now he a like a car parts
00:29:21
business in kich with 20 staff like every single family member's done exceptionally well from this um State
00:29:26
housing environment and the opportunity they were given in New Zealand yeah and that's what you see on migration I'm I
00:29:31
was always Pro migration so when people don't like migration it's generally
00:29:36
speaking not that they're a bunch of racists I mean you know you can obvious
00:29:39
get people who might be like that but but as a general rule new zealanders are actually not racists and they and they
00:29:44
get on with their neighbors and they like their workmates and all that sort of stuff and all the rest of it right
00:29:49
what they don't like about migration is if they think that the the Ser Social
00:29:54
Services they rely on the school they send their child the hospital they might need to go to the road that they drive
00:30:00
on if they think they're overpowered by by lots of people coming in they don't
00:30:04
like that right and we basically have legal migration New Zealand so the big debate in places like the UK with brexit
00:30:11
or the United States with this all this build the wall and all that stuff that's
00:30:15
all driven off illegal migration but we've this massive SE round New Zealand
00:30:19
you might have noticed so it's quite tricking to get to and and so basically
00:30:23
our migration is legal so we can control tap and see why to say to people is look
00:30:28
it's good if you bring Capital as a migrant so you know these these people who come and they build businesses and
00:30:34
they're fantastic um it's it's good if you bring skills and high level of
00:30:38
Education again fantastic you can fit in but most of all bring the bring the attitude that you want to make New
00:30:44
Zealand your home and you want to work hard and I mean you can pick any combination you want right I mean I'm
00:30:51
just but but okay take the South African population um there's a huge number of
00:30:56
South Africans that have come to New Zealand of them live in ockland she last time I locked on and see many of them
00:31:01
being unemployed I mean they work hard they're entrepreneurial um you know they they
00:31:08
frankly they might still support the box and that's about it you know you know by
00:31:12
the way we're beating us a bit more than than they should be um but you know the
00:31:16
Filipinos I mean you go to any hospital and show me and show me how the place would operate without Filipino nurses
00:31:22
and so what are these people bringing they're bringing because you're a migrant and
00:31:27
because because you have to give up so much from where you were to make a new place home you have to give up your
00:31:34
family half time and your friends and the things that make you feel comfortable from foods and you know I
00:31:39
know drinks and newspapers and all that sort of stuff I mean of course in the modern world a bit more of it
00:31:44
supportable but not as much as it was um or not you know not nothing like being there you it takes a certain personality
00:31:53
to do that and that personality breeds in you a determination and that why you know look at the number of of Asian
00:32:01
parents that really push their kids now you can say maybe they're pushing them
00:32:05
too hard and you know there's too much you know study after school and ballet
00:32:10
and all that stuff but but in the end they're doing that because they came from highly competitive place they gave
00:32:15
up everything to be here and they they are literally dedicating their life for their for their children and those
00:32:21
children are very often going on to being partners of law firms and surgeons and whatever so
00:32:28
that's kind of why I'm Pro well it kind of goes back to the um the the mentor
00:32:32
from your mom you get out what you put on yeah and she was she was like that she was and she was hard like my my
00:32:38
mother was very very European in that regard you know how like you know like I I if you watch F1 but like Max for
00:32:45
Stefan most people don't seem to like Max for Stefan actually we went to F1 in
00:32:48
Singapore for semi work and obviously a lot of fun and I actually I like Max for
00:32:54
7 and I get it that some people don't because he's you know sounds a bit Gruff
00:32:58
or whatever um but he's just he's just that those sort of you know benx type
00:33:05
countries you know basically Germany Austria you know the Netherlands that they you know they are a bit more abrupt
00:33:12
sometimes um but but but they're just telling you what they think and they don't even mean it in a way that's we
00:33:19
might sugarcoat it a bit more but you know in a lot of ways I'd rather you tell me what you think I mean you know
00:33:23
it's actually fine I I can I can live with it it's it's probably if you tell
00:33:26
me one thing in mean something different that I probably don't like yeah absolutely so so you wanted to be um you
00:33:33
had like aspirations to be prime minister from a real young age like 10 I was about 10 years what did you why what
00:33:39
did you what did you associate with the job at that age did you associate money with it power well well I think you yeah
00:33:45
okay it's power and opportunity and money and Glamour and all of those things you know like these are the days
00:33:51
where you know New Zealand had one one TV channel oh by the way oops we're getting rapidly back to that situation
00:33:57
but you know yeah and so you watch the news and M was a massive sort of you know like she yeah I guess it was
00:34:04
probably that generation not we're still the same we still watch six o' news and
00:34:08
we watch both channels but um but you know she watched the news and and I was always s of and she loved political
00:34:15
debate you know she actually liked the discussion about things and she was yeah like I said my mother was very socially
00:34:21
liberal um and and actually more labor than than National cuz she you know the state house and all that sort stuff but
00:34:28
but but basically she was quite happy to have the discussion you know like she was interested in that and so I got
00:34:35
interested and then I just watched it and I think I think look your motivations when I ran I was 40 so your
00:34:41
motivations for becoming a MP and hopefully one day prime minister at 40 is very different from a 10-year-old you
00:34:48
know um but but you have to have that you have to have enough of an ego to really ultimately when you do it to
00:34:57
really believe you can change things and make a difference and oh by the way you're right you know and but when
00:35:03
you're 10 I think it's just you look at it and you go wow and it's like the the
00:35:07
biggest job in the country and nowadays it might be a little bit different maybe
00:35:10
you want to be Tay or something else but you know I can't sing oh yeah that's
00:35:14
right you know that cuz I've been on your show but I did have headphones on and no music just for the record like
00:35:22
it's like the three-way handshake that was nothing to do with me the French guy
00:35:25
came over the top leway we'll get into that um okay yeah so you even wrote to
00:35:31
the uh prime minister at the time yeah yeah and he wrote back and and that was one of the reasons when I was prime
00:35:37
minister I used to write to every single young person that wrote to me and the and the correspondence unit you have
00:35:42
four people in corresponden you four or five people and they are answering everything now some of them might be if
00:35:48
there's a generic campaign going on about climate change or whatever but you
00:35:52
know kids would go to school and they'd study your know Parliament or they'd
00:35:56
study you know you know Hector's dolphins or Maui dolphins or whatever and then I'd get you hundreds of letters
00:36:02
you but every child I'd write back with this little card they had a picture of
00:36:05
my face on the front of it and I'd write you know dear Katie hope school's going
00:36:09
well thanks for writing to me you know Jo and and I honestly it'd be one in the
00:36:13
morning I'd be in my office in Wellington that every single light would be out except the ninth floor I don't
00:36:19
trying to make people feel sorry for me and then I put that little silver through pin and i' do hundreds of these
00:36:24
play things but I did it because when rolling wrote back to me I always thought um it just felt special and I
00:36:30
thought you know um it a different it was a different world but I you know I just respected the fact I didn't
00:36:37
obviously it's not my style of politics but I just respected the fact he' done
00:36:41
it so I did it no one no one sees that eh no no one sees you sitting in the office at 1: a.m. no well that that's
00:36:47
the thing that's the thing that they don't realize I mean you know when you
00:36:50
see these sort of arguments around you know MP's perks or whatever I mean look
00:36:56
um you can never in those arguments and and and actually I got the thing from the um you know they they they they
00:37:03
write you a letter as a former prime minister and and um and uh uh you know if you're the spouse of a former prime
00:37:10
minister you have all these entitlements and you can imagine what would be like if I took those things over the life is
00:37:15
I never talk them when I was primeone now so I got the thing yesterday from the from the interal of fears R me tell
00:37:21
me that one of the they name everyone so someone cuz they're going to release it
00:37:25
publicly and one person's out at like 30 $6,000 I was $56 to this day I have no
00:37:30
idea what the $56 was but anyway the point being you know you you know you can't win those arguments but yeah
00:37:37
people don't realize actually these people are working ridiculous out cuz you see the little bit you see you don't
00:37:44
see them going off to every school fear or calf day or a million different things that they're required to do it
00:37:50
doesn't matter where you're the most Junior back bencher they actually work
00:37:53
insane hours really um and it's a little bit like you know it's become a thing in
00:37:58
the media now to bag the Civil Service when they go off to some conference somewhere and they're going business
00:38:04
class apparently well okay fair enough I suppose if people want to argue that but
00:38:09
seriously we're a $350 billion economy the government I mean my opinion been
00:38:14
too much or the current government is doing a good job of trying to reduce it but we probably spend hundred billion
00:38:19
dollars a year I mean if we can't send the head of a government agency to a conference business class we've really
00:38:26
lost the plot I mean the point being that you know you can make an argument about whether they should go to a
00:38:32
conference but then I'd make an argument with you that again you know I'm not
00:38:36
trying to defend the civil service but but they they have big responsibilities these are like in the essence very very
00:38:41
big organizations you want them to be engaged in what's happening around the
00:38:45
world so sometimes we got to get over ourselves a little bit yeah also um having our I don't know what the plan's
00:38:50
called but our version of Air Force One that bre it's embarrassing yeah yeah
00:38:54
well you know the truth is that you no PR get had the the the you know gumption or whatever to change and they're going
00:39:01
to have to change cuz the seven part is a pretty old plane so I suspect that'll
00:39:04
get changed at some point but yeah so um so you finished school and you becomeing
00:39:09
you you do an accountant degree was that sort of like a like a planned Pathway to
00:39:13
being prime minister play by my mother not to be prime minister yeah yeah no I I had numerous occasions where I'd said
00:39:20
to you I'm going to do this I'm going to do that I mean like literally my you go
00:39:24
back to school in those days you know you learned French or German right that's what well if you didn't do that
00:39:30
you did Commerce basically counting or whatever right I remember coming home saying right well I'm going to learn
00:39:35
German and a m and who are very austron go that's a bloody waste of time I go
00:39:41
yeah okay well maybe if you Tau to me then I could do both she goes no there's
00:39:44
a waste of time too so you will do your you you will do your accounting and she my friends would come
00:39:51
over and get tutoring from my mother in German she wouldn't she wouldn't teach
00:39:56
me German because she said that is a complete waste of time you're never going to use that by the way would have
00:40:00
been quite useful I Anga MK although she speaks perfect English um but you know the point being um she said no no no you
00:40:07
you you're going to be a business person well she always used to say son there
00:40:10
are two types of people in the world doers and payers you are most definitely a payer so get a decent education by the
00:40:16
way that means you're going to be an accountant so every time I came home with an alternative thing I might do was
00:40:21
say no no no no no you're going to me an accountant and um and so I didn't even
00:40:26
want to do account and I'm hopeless at it although I can't read a balance sheet
00:40:29
now but you well know but you did all right so then um yes so you become an accountant um then you become a currency
00:40:35
Traer and um yeah there's um if you go to New Zealand on screen there's a
00:40:38
documentary there called Big dealers yeah the day in the life of change dealers this is you me with the glasses
00:40:45
you you were saying before how you've aged but I re you've aged 12 you had a
00:40:48
glow up what when did the glasses go yeah where the glasses went well funny enough actually I had a thing called um
00:40:55
I didn't care about the glasses as in like then BR Mar it was all too late anyway but um I didn't care about the
00:41:01
glasses per say but you know if I went to sport you know like I quite like sports so if I if I went for a run or I
00:41:07
you know did anything you know played golf or you it used to annoy me you know that so so I in the very early days they
00:41:14
did a thing called PRK which I think is um radial chema tottering but it was the
00:41:19
way they did it before they lasered your eyes nowadays they're lazy your eyes you
00:41:22
know if you're if you're long-sighted you know can't see shortsighted can't
00:41:26
see distance you so um and I went in it was really early on and the guy who was my um surgeon you know or or the well we
00:41:35
were great friends with them we' gone through an NA class together he we were
00:41:39
I was in London he was so particular about he checked out the the serial number of the machine that they were
00:41:45
doing anyway it was it was a really amazing they burn off the front of your eye with the thing goes click click
00:41:49
click click click and you can smell you can smell a burning smell and that's
00:41:54
actually your your corn or whatever being burned off oh anyway um the crazy thing about it was I remember going it
00:42:01
was quite new technology and we went in and I was booked in at 4 in the afternoon on a Friday and by then you we
00:42:07
were in London we had two kids the kids were young like it was you know like any
00:42:11
household with two young children and BR was sort of at home and it was chaos and
00:42:15
all sort stuff so anyway I go along to this PRK thing and there's three or four
00:42:20
other you know people who are doing it and they're all with their families literally having prayer sessions the
00:42:27
waiting room and I'm there on my own catching a camp home with some big thing
00:42:31
over my eyes and oh my God but anyway I had all that done and then the glasses went so you know yeah um and then so
00:42:39
before you yeah so obviously we're doing quite well as a currency Trader like in
00:42:42
that documentary which I think is the mid 80s yeah that was At Elders Merchant finess so what happened was in ' 84 they
00:42:48
labor came in and longy um appointed Douglas's Finance Minister and Douglas did the right thing actually deregulated
00:42:54
New Zealand it was the only way through and that saw a floating of the exchange rate and that's when I came in basically
00:43:00
then and then I started with Elders merch and finance but pretty rapidly went to Banker trust and I was in Banker
00:43:07
trust for 1995 and it was then that I realized I kind of ran out of Runway really and I was going to go to
00:43:13
Singapore and the ultimate they wanted me to go to New York with bank stru I ended up going with Merl Lynch and that
00:43:19
was miror I stayed with until I came back to run so it was you know 20 odd years of investment banking yeah what
00:43:25
what sort of money were you earning in the mid 80s you were driving like a nice uh it looked like a nice BMW for its
00:43:29
time well that was that was the crazy thing I think in I mean those days in the early days when it first started
00:43:36
they they there was no one in that industry so it was like it was the hot thing to do and and to be fair we had a
00:43:43
pretty good track record and I I kind of worked for me it just suited my personality so I think in the I was
00:43:50
getting you know not a long way short of a million dollars I think I went to Banker trust for a million dollars a
00:43:56
year and that was like 1989 yeah I know it was crazy I mean we bought the beach house at
00:44:03
Omaha um we bought we bought it for cash and it was it was a um we bought the section and built the house and it was
00:44:11
350,000 the first round we bought it for cash and we already bought a house in remuer and all that sort of stuff and
00:44:19
yeah I mean by the time I left I mean it was the biggest salary drop in history going from that to being a big Venter in
00:44:25
Parliament yeah what what were you on a miral check when you when you finished up oh millions and millions really oh
00:44:31
millions millions and millions yeah so why why do why do that yeah know I mean it worked out all right but you you're
00:44:38
rolling the dice in a big way like you know everyone yeah and I nearly didn't
00:44:42
make it I mean I came in an o02 which was the worst result Nationals had I'd
00:44:46
only just won the challenge to win henville which by the way was a lot more tricky than anyone ever thought because
00:44:53
I well I was so green I thought challenges happened all the time they never did the whole thing was you know
00:44:59
um so yeah if you sat there today and said okay I'm going to map all this out
00:45:04
and you're going to take that risk you would you would say you've got rocks in
00:45:09
your head like when I went into resign I went in I think in 2000 something to tell Dave kamansky that I was going to
00:45:17
at Merill in New York um because I was quite senior so I wanted to give them lots of time and it wasn't like I was
00:45:22
going off to Golden sax or something so I just went and say hey look I'm going
00:45:25
to go back I'm going to retire I'm going to run for politics you know and I'm
00:45:28
going to retire at the end of 2001 right and he just looked at me he went John my
00:45:33
boy you are having a midli crisis I'm going to send you to run Australia I went well okay um I said well I don't
00:45:40
think I am having a midli crisis but then they came back about two weeks later and they said we want you to stay
00:45:49
and we want for the for the whole of the Investment Bank we want to make you Global head of sales and that was across
00:45:54
everything there was you know all of the different businesses and that was a huge
00:45:59
job and and that was a lot of zeros and um I remember going home to br going this is absolutely lunacy cuz I would
00:46:08
actually do that job really well and um but you know I made the decision I was going to go and I just got to my
00:46:15
head I was going to do it and I did it but but if you really sat back and looked at it you would say it was a m it
00:46:22
was a brain expion it was mad it was totally mad but then you look at at it today and see maril Lynch eventually
00:46:29
went bus so who knows how much stock I would have lost and who knows what would have happened and you never know and
00:46:35
then and then by the way you know I've got these Irreplaceable um things and and and and
00:46:41
and I think you know I don't morbid about these things but I think you know when they're finally lowering me into
00:46:46
the ground or actually I'm getting burned but you know the principal the same um you know when it's all over do
00:46:51
you think I'll really you know look up and go you know I should have earned another $20 million with $ million or do
00:46:57
you think I you think I should have done what I did and um and I'll always believe I should have done what I did so
00:47:04
it it's like money money's look I was my mother used to say money doesn't bring
00:47:10
happiness and I used to say sure as hell helps and and I was a really economically driven prime minister um
00:47:18
not because despite what a lot of people might say I wanted to advance the causes
00:47:22
of rich people cuz actually rich people can look after themselves they don't
00:47:26
need the government they don't need me but it was because I wanted to make more
00:47:30
people financially independent because there's nothing worse than actually not
00:47:33
being able to pay the bills and feeling frightened and you know having a whole life you know living from paycheck to
00:47:39
paycheck um and you can argue the case about how you make that happen I've got
00:47:43
a particular economic prescription some will agree with me some won't um but but
00:47:48
I kind of learned that you know that but but on the other side of the coin money
00:47:52
is only value in exchange right like that's it's what you can do with it I
00:47:56
mean the richest guy in the graveyard is not necessarily the smartest guy right I
00:48:01
think it's about what you did with your life and and so so me at our at our stage in life and everything might
00:48:09
change but in our stage in life with the amount of Financial Resources we've got
00:48:13
more money probably wouldn't make any difference because I'm not sure I'd do
00:48:17
anything different we like our houses we have the Hobbies we want we drink the wine we want you can only eat a couple
00:48:22
of meals a day you know this is just a limit to what you can do you know when Mi on the podcast he he said you you
00:48:28
were sort of like um you and brona were s like tight asses growing up like you made him job McDonald's yeah well that's
00:48:34
what he says he reckons he was the poorest little rich kid yeah okay well good one um yeah but the point was okay
00:48:42
I reckon throwing heaps of money sometimes at these really young kids I don't know if that's a great idea you
00:48:48
know like I think that can you you just asking you know asking for potential trouble and then secondly um you by the
00:48:55
way life wasn't that bad as first car was a brand new polo and you know I mean
00:49:00
so he had a pretty nice life um but yeah we did make him we did make him do that
00:49:04
but to be fair see you can criticize Max and Stephie for anything you want I mean
00:49:10
all no kids are perfect boy we're not perfect parents so okay but what you don't think you can criticize him for is
00:49:18
work ethic like both of them like she's extremely artistic and doing you know
00:49:22
doing really well and he's really talented as well but there are many things but they're not lazy you know
00:49:28
they they they try hard they work hard they're quite entrepreneurial and so all
00:49:33
you're trying to do is in still in them that belief that they can do what I said
00:49:37
earlier change their own lives and in the end they'll decide what they want to
00:49:41
do you're not going to make Stephie some incredibly financially focused person
00:49:47
she's always going to have that incredible artistic flare and that's just her um she's actually more
00:49:52
entrepreneurial than she might want you to believe and she's she doing really
00:49:56
well um and she's designing jewelry now and doing you know she's really talented
00:50:03
but um MX has always been much more business interested but yeah you all you're trying to do is do that so I mean
00:50:10
to me anyway you know like you make your choices and don't know what I was saying
00:50:14
but that was that was a choice I made you know what it worked out yeah and um um you mi told me like
00:50:21
you are you are you a fan of like manif manifestation and he he said you used like talk to the mirror and oh you
00:50:29
would yeah yeah so it's more about Vis the way I describe would be visualization so I Reon if if you I I
00:50:36
for when I was leader of the opposition I was leader of the opposition for I I was I came in 2006 and won the election
00:50:43
08 so I think M mean certainly that last year in the 08 year I think I literally
00:50:48
got up every morning went in 191 days I'll be prime minister and 190 days I'll
00:50:52
be prime minister and and I think if you can't visualize yourself being there
00:50:58
you'll never get there it's like on a golf course the greatest PS are not the
00:51:02
technique is no better nothing's better they just feel the ball going in the hole they just
00:51:09
think they're going to apparently Trump I I don't want to bringar Trump's like
00:51:13
that app's annoyingly so but apparently when he puts go I'm the greatest butter
00:51:18
of all time this is going in the hole apparently half time does so um I don't
00:51:22
know but to me see if you can't if you can't if you can't perceive yourself to be
00:51:29
there you're never going to get there because you're always going to there's
00:51:33
always going to be someone else you believe that could be better or take your place or whatever and I don't know
00:51:37
I mean I don't know enough about professional sport but the difference between you know between a Dan Carter
00:51:45
and a whole lot of first fives that didn't make it or I don't know or you
00:51:48
know Richie mccor and a whole lot of all black captains that maybe didn't do as
00:51:52
well I mean is it ability I mean maybe I mean you know but they're all you're
00:51:55
talking about degrees of you know at the absolute yeah they're right up there
00:52:01
anyway it's more about just they believe and if you talk to Richie they I think
00:52:05
they got everything from the SAS to all these sorts of people and after they lost an' 07 before the 11 campaign they
00:52:11
got all these people need to to role model and to roleplay all of the different scenarios including the one
00:52:17
they found themselves in which was you know they were leading by a point with you know 10 minutes to go and and and so
00:52:24
and and he reckons that they thrive red off I don't know just you know I had an
00:52:28
election to win four weeks after that so I wasn't thriving off that 15 points he
00:52:32
would have been better but anyway I get it um but yeah to me to me that's a lot
00:52:38
of what what I've been about that I just and and and yeah I I know I think I just don't
00:52:45
know I think if you don't have that I just don't know how you kind of get
00:52:49
there because you know I used to say to young people all the time I tell you why
00:52:53
most young people don't don't really go all the way and do everything they
00:52:57
they're capable of doing it's not because of their own fear of failure you
00:53:01
might think that's the case but it's actually not that most people can live
00:53:05
with giving a go whatever it might be running a marathon like you do or whatever and maybe not making it to the
00:53:10
Finish Line they're worried about what other people will think about them failing and so I always used to say them
00:53:16
look don't worry about that okay the fact actually the very people that you're worried about maybe your parents
00:53:22
or your friends will be incredibly proud of you that you actually gave it a go mostly by the way you learn from Little
00:53:28
failures along the way then you do actual you know it's like the All Blacks they Le more when they lose than they
00:53:33
when they win yeah failur a stepping stone to to success success um and also as you get older you realize um
00:53:39
everyone's thinking about themselves no one's actually thinking about you as
00:53:42
much as what you think you are you exactly you think about a lot more you you you are convinced that everyone's
00:53:48
going to see it and remember it and and they just they just don't they just don't they they take very little of it
00:53:54
in actually um so yeah just you know I think look you get one shot at this thing give it everything you got yeah so
00:54:02
and and it worked you became prime minister that's that's the photo of the're all in blue there we go look at
00:54:07
that eh yeah you look look at Max like he's a little boy there and you reflect
00:54:11
on the heart to from the media it was rough but yeah what what are your Recollections of that time so I think he
00:54:16
went to short he I think he wore shorts that night elction 908 so what happens when
00:54:23
you become so Helen Clark had been prime minister for three 3 um and then that was the day you became
00:54:28
prime minister do do you know what you're doing do you have like a a handbook or no no there's no handbook
00:54:34
although um I remember you know for the first month of when I was prime minister
00:54:39
people because the bureaucracy will only call you prime minister even ministers only call you prime minister I mean like
00:54:46
Wayne as my chief of staff might call me John for it was just me and him I think
00:54:51
most time he just avoided call me calling me anything um but in front of everyone else he'd only call me prime
00:54:57
minister and we we're great mates you know like um but for the first month or
00:55:02
two months people would go prime minister I'd look over my shoulder for alen Clark realize they were talking to
00:55:07
me you know but it's it's an incredible systemate you're walking in day one I
00:55:12
could you not you have a you have a you have you have your own bureaucracy when your Prime school department of prime
00:55:18
ministering cabinet dpmc and my head of dpmc was these days s Martin wavers and Martin was fantastic i' been in
00:55:26
Ambassador for us in Japan and various other places very senior in foreign affairs had been the Foreign Affairs
00:55:31
advisor to David longy has the most amazing DAV longy stories fantastic guy and you literally walk in day one and
00:55:38
they go right well prime minister today you need to deal with these things it's
00:55:41
like it's like she left the building on Sunday afternoon and you walked in on
00:55:45
Monday morning it's completely seamless and that's why we have a neutral Public
00:55:49
Service you know in theory they don't you wouldn't know who they vote for you
00:55:53
know and and Franklin Martin may have voted both ways I don't know um that's
00:55:58
not what they're about what they're about is providing you the best advice
00:56:01
they possibly can as prime minister do the job as best you can and it's it's
00:56:06
it's brutal in some ways cuz you know you're literally when you're leaving
00:56:09
you're packing the boxes and you're gone the next day and and and so much of what
00:56:15
comes with that is the office of that you know like and and and I think and it's just is the way it is you know and
00:56:22
and I think go ask crans who probably tell you you know one day he was prime minister because just s to resign
00:56:28
obviously and all of a sudden he's in this big office and there's all these
00:56:31
things around him and now he's leader of the opposition and he's fighting for
00:56:35
scraps on the last column inch of a of a story a lot of fun did did you did you have any um sort of imposter syndrome at
00:56:42
that time or you just didn't have the time or too much ego ask me oh no look
00:56:49
I look you don't what you I tell you what's weird when you PR that everyone
00:56:54
assumes you have perfect knowledge they just assume you have a briefing paper and you think look sometimes you'd watch
00:56:59
CNN and you'd go oh that's more interesting than the paper I just got on
00:57:03
that particular topic but um you do you have to be over everything like it's you
00:57:08
you can't speak to Jack tame or Mike hosing or John Campell say that's that's
00:57:11
a good question let me get back to you on there you need to know everything don't you and that's right so you got to
00:57:16
be an inch deep and a mile wide um which by the way you pick up when you're there
00:57:20
cuz bio osmosis you're just sitting around listening to a whole lot of conversations and that that and you
00:57:25
learn a lot of stuff you you know a little bit about a lot of stuff um you don't know a lot about you know lot of
00:57:31
stuff but you know a little bit um I don't know I don't think I really did I
00:57:35
mean you know the iy got a pretty healthy yearo so I think I was fine um but yeah it was one of those things
00:57:42
where um it's it's definitely very different and when I when I retired and I became
00:57:50
chairman of A&Z I appointed um Antonio Watson as as CEO and I said Antonio the
00:57:56
same thing I'd say kind of to anyone going into a leadership role which is I
00:58:01
just said to her just remember um you you'll never regret the things you did
00:58:06
you'll regret the things you didn't do and by the way it'll go a lot faster
00:58:10
than you think now yeah the one or two things I did that I might have regreted as well but as a general rule I don't
00:58:16
really regret things what are they what are the biggest biggest regrets are they
00:58:20
things that you did or things that you wanted to do and didn't they're probably
00:58:23
they're probably policy things that I might have wanted to do really I mean I
00:58:27
don't think you're going to change the personality and stuff um and a lot of me
00:58:31
kiding around stuff you know was good and bad and and but but it was it was part of part of uh probably the way I am
00:58:40
I think more than you think it's I I think you are who you are you can you can't actually create the like like and
00:58:46
that's what I always say to chrst all the time I say you know you're not me
00:58:51
and I'm not you you know you do I I might do one or two things B than you but you do half a dozen things
00:58:59
and it's know going get rid ofps cuz they're just going to test your retina you or your
00:59:06
walking gate you know face on the Fly is going to be the technology they're going
00:59:10
to use and you're just going to walk through an airport and you never going to have a passport why because we have
00:59:14
unique identifiers they're our voice or they're the way we walk or might be our
00:59:19
eyes or whatever and that's like any personality they unique identifi so you
00:59:25
can I used to look at previously it's like I spent lots of time looking at Helen Clark or Tony BL or lots of
00:59:30
different people and um I tried to Lun from them but in the end I am who I am and I just do things my way and and
00:59:40
they're not always perfect or right but they are what they are and you know they
00:59:44
just vary a bit yeah it's funny just um picking up on something you said before
00:59:48
about some of the regrets of the the falling around things what do you mean like the the modeling for the 2011 World
00:59:53
volunte there was no big deal though was it no no none of them none of them were
00:59:57
really a major but I mean in hindsight it was like oh God and we were just McKing you sort of what but tell what
01:00:04
happens is you're you live in this world where it's 24/7 scrutiny so You' think
01:00:09
you'd be bright enough to have a brain engaged that every single thing you do
01:00:12
would be scrutinized right um because you know that CU that's the world you live in but you get so comfortable in
01:00:17
that that sometimes you're just kidding around and you you know you don't mean
01:00:20
anything by it what El there was yeah there's a photo that we involved of you
01:00:24
eating a hot dog which oh yeah I did care about that either there was another one way I got fined by the Press unit
01:00:29
but I mean you know oh my God I gave away so much money it wasn't fun of you
01:00:33
I me there were just endless things that happened but but they were all part of that you they used I tell you what they
01:00:39
used to run a poll and I'm not sure they do it anymore but it was who who do you
01:00:42
want to babysit your kids and I used to win that poll hands down and okay you actually wouldn't want me baby Senor
01:00:50
because I'm pretty useless but but um but actually I was took that as a good
01:00:56
thing I took that as a thing that people said he's relatable cuz cuz you want people saying
01:01:03
that they' trust you with their kids kid yeah yeah that's right yeah so I
01:01:05
actually took it as a good thing and um and actually see I find Chris Lux and I mean I find him um he's a thoroughly
01:01:15
nice really relatable person when you meet him and I think what'll happen is
01:01:19
the more overtime people get to meet him more people will realize actually he's
01:01:23
really cool guy and he's not what you know some Persona that's been created by
01:01:27
various versions of the media or political opponents I mean you know is what does and that's the game by the way
01:01:33
I mean it's nothing unique to him it's it's true of everyone everyone in
01:01:37
politics but the more people get to meet you the more yeah you got Fighting Chance and might I like you and V for
01:01:42
you yeah there's a another photo of you that went viral with um Harrison oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
01:01:50
that kid yeah that was a classic yeah yeah you got a good good good chunk of my cheek
01:01:56
well I always said to Chris LX you're one screaming baby away from a nightmare that's a great photo it would
01:02:02
happen all the time on the Campa TR honestly you go because you're always constantly in shopping malls and
01:02:07
different things and so young moms all the time would come up and go oh you want to have a photo with Billy or
01:02:13
whatever and you pick up Billy and 98% of you you would just be please don't
01:02:18
cry because if you cry that's going to be the bit on TV tonight and so many of
01:02:23
them would like they'd goo and they'd gar and they'd be totally fine everyone
01:02:27
get bit frightened and they would and then that that would make the use how is your um how is your mental health over
01:02:32
over this time like I've heard you say in other interviews where you know the
01:02:36
advice you give to your kids is in regards to social media is not to read the comments and stuff but when you when
01:02:40
you're prime minister and everyone's having to go at you or it seems that way
01:02:44
yeah um yeah like how do you look after your mental health yeah and it's I wish
01:02:49
I had a better answer than this cuz I think I think mental health issues are a massive issue I think you know I
01:02:54
actually went to a lunch with John K and he's been doing some amazing work in
01:02:57
that space um last week and um you know I look I think I think everything from Co to social media has made it worse you
01:03:05
know I think there's an enormous amount of young people that that believe you
01:03:09
know they they in their mind they'll be telling themselves are the only person
01:03:13
that's got there but actually what they've got to take is some comfort from
01:03:15
the fact that you know they're in the majority probably not the minority um and there nothing to be ashamed of or
01:03:21
frightened of um but it's really hard to get help actually man it's really hard
01:03:25
to get and we did lots on Mental Health in my time too I know people might not believe it but we spent ages on you know
01:03:32
very focused on youth suicide and anorexia and all sorts of different different versions of of mental health
01:03:38
disorders um but I was just really lucky is something about my personality that um it just wasn't a
01:03:48
thing that I like I never felt depressed I never felt um so under the pump that you know that I was you know I was in
01:03:56
some form or another you know you know in trouble or or or was causing me any issues but but but what I did do is what
01:04:05
what I said to ma is I never bothered reading the the comments because if you read the comments they largely keyboard
01:04:11
worriers that you know blah and then secondly um I used to have a once only policy so I try and read as much as I
01:04:18
possibly could and it become so much you can't but I try and watch or read everything once and it was once only
01:04:24
because if it's good and you watch watch it five times and you go oh that's great
01:04:27
that person really liked me and they wrote all these really nice things then you start believing your own PR but if
01:04:34
you read all the really negative things all the time then you know what's the
01:04:38
point in doing that because it's only going to kind of depress you and then I'd also try and take a lens so I could
01:04:44
name for you some journalists who write in The Herald and some of them are really rightwing and what they write is
01:04:49
largely very supportive of me and some or was and some of them it wouldn't matter what I did you know they wouldn't
01:04:55
have liked what I I did so there's no point in taking the bad ones and going
01:04:59
oh I'm having a bad day because by the way they don't like me anyway it's a
01:05:02
signing point they don't agree with my policies I agree with I'm coming from so
01:05:05
actually it's waste of time right and so I just ignore them and sometimes these
01:05:09
people would write this stuff and you you and and and I just go like the loser is them not me because actually I'm if
01:05:17
they think they're affecting me they're not CU I'm not even reading it and
01:05:21
sometimes when I was PR people they go I feel so sorry for you the me and I'd go oh yeah yeah yeah it's all
01:05:28
good and just carry on now you know yeah I mean you it's like anyone here I suppose like you know if if you get cut
01:05:35
you bleed I mean you I understand that but I just and a lot of it I just took on the chin see a lot these people have
01:05:41
to fill up colines they have to fill bulletins they have to do stuff um and it depended who they were like someone
01:05:48
like John Armstrong who's you know was the chief um political reporter at the
01:05:53
hero for a long time has died unfort um had Parkinson's but had a brilliant brilliant mind he led the he led the
01:06:01
Parliamentary pre scal if you going ask pet G or Duncan Garner or you know guy in Espen they'll say when John Armstrong
01:06:07
was at his prime when he wrote things he was everyone followed him I just found with someone like John he was very very
01:06:15
balanced so if he liked what I was doing on that particular issue he'd give me
01:06:19
credit for it if he thought I was on the wrong place but I was coming from the right execution whatever he'd give me
01:06:26
some credit for it and if he thought I was wrong he'd say I was wrong um but at
01:06:29
least it was balanced you know and I and and so i' follow John because I'd say
01:06:34
okay he's got a point but I I used to call John every single Friday that I was
01:06:40
prime minister every week and sometimes twice or three times a week and go hey I
01:06:45
just want to give you a bit of background of this is why I'm doing what I'm doing this is the logic of what's
01:06:49
happening so yeah I mean most of the other stuff I just didn't worry about it's just I don't know you it's just
01:06:55
nature of the personality it's just not something that's affected me and it's
01:06:59
not that it's not that yeah exactly it's not that I'm better than anyone else I'm
01:07:02
definitely not it's just it's never been a thing with me that and I think it like
01:07:08
even when I was a traitor I was under you know huge amounts of pressure running massive amounts of risk it just
01:07:13
I don't know just my personality seems to feed on it I don't know why that's
01:07:18
lucky so yeah CU I had Simon bridges on the podcast and he um he was actually very um vulnerable of him like he said
01:07:25
when he was leader of the opposition some weeks i''d be flying back to toong
01:07:28
on a Friday night and he' shut his eyes on the plane and just feel himself almost crying you know because it would
01:07:33
have been such a rough week um but you you never sort of felt never had it no oh that's awesome never had it um what
01:07:39
is that is that a healthy ego or yeah it must be I don't know over inflated you
01:07:43
go um you but I mean I think I think look I do things to try and um dstress stuff as much as I can so within reason
01:07:52
I mean you know like I always did exess like would when you when you live with police officers like I did and they're
01:07:58
all young and Incredibly fit it's like living with personal trainers so you would go down like we'd run to the gym
01:08:04
in the morning when we're in Wellington we get up at 5:40 I have a very quick
01:08:08
look at the phone I would have already read the Dominion Post from the night before because it gets delivered at
01:08:13
midnight so I'd already read the morning paper in the evening before I went to
01:08:17
bed I already knew what bad stuff was coming then I'd run down from Premier house to the gym and Parliament then
01:08:23
we'd do 40 minutes of boxing and you know all sorts every day were like personal trainers and then we'd take the
01:08:30
car back I'd go back have a shower um I'd make myself a cup of tea um and I'd
01:08:36
walk down get in the car and we'd go go after work and um so I think things like
01:08:41
exercise for me that's why I love golf and I've always sort of I mean I didn't
01:08:46
play obviously when I was prime minister very much and I and all those things but
01:08:50
I think what I love about it is I love the feeling of I mean firstly golf courses are generally in beautiful
01:08:55
places anyway and that feeling of having a great shot I think I'm not a great
01:08:59
fisherman but I think it's like when you catch the one fish you always want to
01:09:01
come back um for me I think those things do help my mental health and um yeah and and you know I drink I I
01:09:13
don't drink to get over stuff I mean I probably drink more than I'm sure more
01:09:18
than what I tell the doctor but but but I think reality is I just I just I actually like it I like having in
01:09:24
class one find relaxing having a glass of wine but not in a way where I go oh God I need a drink I just think oh it's
01:09:30
nice you know I'm having you know having glass of wine and we're having some
01:09:33
cheese or watching dinner or having dinner or watching news or whatever I like it but yeah so um February 22nd
01:09:40
2011 what what are your Recollections of that day yeah so um this was the that was the second one yeah so the first one
01:09:47
happened overnight um so there's some property damage but no the first one happened and I flew down it happened at
01:09:53
about 3:00 or 4: in the morning it was like near four than three for memory but anyway very middle of the night and so
01:09:58
it was incredibly lucky because actually most no one was on the streets so it did
01:10:01
do quite a lot of damage um but no one was around to to you know get crushed so on on the the one in February we finally
01:10:11
enough actually we um we were in my office I I was meeting um Phil o Riley who head of business New Zealand and um
01:10:20
and we used to meet people from say 12: to 1 or you know up until 1:00 and then we' prep for question time and we were
01:10:27
in my office and there was this shaking and I thought I was yet another earthquake in Wellington cuz you get
01:10:32
quite a lot of shakes when you're there and then the Beehive is built on rubber
01:10:35
so it moves so that's why it's category you can withstand a category 9 earthquake in theory and um and so the
01:10:42
building started moving so sometimes it moves a bit because it's on that rubber
01:10:45
you know and I thought it was a reasonable shake and and Wayne came and open the door and he and I went oh a
01:10:51
little bit of an earthquake goes yeah but the problem is that was Christ Church and I oh and so um Phil left and
01:10:58
we knew pretty much early on that was a massive problem obviously um then we started getting reports really quickly
01:11:04
you know about what was happening so yeah I remember flying down we flew down and initially they flew me around in one
01:11:11
of the Air Force planes and and then I got on the ground and we got to the um they had a they set up the emergency
01:11:18
civil defense center at the um at the art gallery I think it was and the art Galler is made of see the Ze Ziller and
01:11:26
it's it's it's got massive big glass windows and and steel sort of you know
01:11:31
thing and the aftershocks were incredible that's the thing I didn't really understand about major earthqu
01:11:37
just get aftershocks in fact they go on for years half time and these things would Shak and the noise of them shaking
01:11:43
was like the building was going to fall down the first one that happened I like really thought I thought and um but
01:11:49
man it shook and um and then and then I'm the police Police Commissioner was there and he
01:11:57
said to me was I think it was the district commander and I said uh the media were reporting about eight people
01:12:03
were dead or something and he said to me well it's at least 50 and I said well
01:12:11
are you sure about that and he said he s to me he said well we've counted 50 body
01:12:16
bags so I said well I'm going to say that then and he said yep and I went we
01:12:23
went down to latim square that's where we did all of the big you know we you
01:12:27
went into the newses and did all stuff and that's that's where they the um they
01:12:32
were setting up all of the the rescue facilities here and um yeah I remember I remember the CTV
01:12:39
building actually it was almost an ey shot if you like it was just just down there it was on fire and I it was just
01:12:47
really awful really really awful um and um and it carried on for obviously a very very long time with all the
01:12:54
aftershocks and different things that went on but you know I mean I think I think Jerry brownley actually deserves
01:13:00
huge amount of credit and again I know that you know politics is just a polarizes and some people love and some
01:13:07
people hate and some people say you know he had strong personality and he was bombastic and all that sort of stuff but
01:13:13
actually he needed that strength of personality and that Real Love Of Christ Church to make it you know be sorted and
01:13:21
you can look around the world there are so many places like New Orleans have never recovered from major disasters I
01:13:26
mean look at this hurricane Helen that's just gone through who knows what they
01:13:29
even rebuild half this stuff whereas you know really Jerry and you know I think there was a real nucleus of us Bill and
01:13:37
me and a couple of others you know were very committed to getting cross back on it feet and I
01:13:41
think it probably is and will be the most liable city in New Zealand because you kind of got a chance to rebuild some
01:13:47
great things but yeah it was it was very very tough yeah is that a hard time as a
01:13:52
prime minister to lead something like that yeah well you feel enormously for the families and people feel very
01:13:57
vulnerable and we did we did the thing that Jinder did for Co which was those payments where we paid people and
01:14:05
honestly to this day I can walk down the street in Christ Church and people come
01:14:09
up to me they go mate you saved my business you know CU people couldn't you know it's very was we can all imagine it
01:14:14
now because of Co but back then you couldn't imagine it which was a w Subs wage sub you couldn't get into work you
01:14:20
couldn't pay people you had you know you had no income coming in so we just decided right for 16 weeks with paying
01:14:25
people and we went around treasury advice we did it overnight it cost a quar of a billion dollars we did all of
01:14:30
these things which became the blueprint for the co sort of wage subsidy scheme um and that that like we we did we did a
01:14:38
lot of really good things there and I remember at times when the media were running stories about oh the portable
01:14:44
toilets were in the right place somewhere or something and it was like there's so many things going on we've
01:14:48
got the military here I mean places on sneeze okay yeah I get it but um that's
01:14:53
probably not the big thing but but again there's no point in losing your rag
01:14:57
about it you basically just got to go okay is what it is um but yeah there there were a huge number of people did
01:15:03
remarkable things but oh my goodness some of the stories and and it was just some people were just so desperately
01:15:08
unlucky I remember there was a story of a guy who was walking over the Port Hills had survived the earthquake and
01:15:13
everything and an Aftershock there was a boulder came down and killed him well there were people literally sitting in
01:15:17
the bus and they just got completely flattened because the the facades of the building fell on them but then there
01:15:22
were other people who you would for all money you know would have got killed in the quake and the thing just missed them
01:15:29
by an inch and they they were fine yeah so it's terrifying and actually Bob Park
01:15:35
did a very good job he was did very good communicator yeah he did really well um
01:15:40
yeah you mentioned Co just before um do you think do you think the um Jinder and the labor government did a
01:15:47
did a mostly good job or I mean you've got the UN for advantage of hindsight
01:15:51
but yeah yeah so look on the way in yes um and I think you know I think I think she was a unified view that you know we
01:15:57
didn't have a vaccine we didn't have a response we weren't sure the reports
01:16:01
came from around the world was that this could be a catastrophic thing that could
01:16:04
wipe people out you have you know there's great deal of vulnerability in any Community it was the right thing to
01:16:09
do close New Zealand down um and and yeah it is so easy in hindsight too and you know to criticize look a lot of the
01:16:18
communication she did um you know all of those sorts of things again you know she
01:16:23
did a really good job of that um and I think the way they did the wage subses and all all that that that was really
01:16:29
good I I I always see to bro I said look their challenge won't be how you close
01:16:35
the place down it'll be how you open the place up it's the pathway out not the
01:16:39
pathway in and I think in the end they they really struggled and I think they just frankly if you want me to be honest
01:16:46
I think they listen to Too Much official advice and they got terrified of the fact that unfortunately would claim some
01:16:52
lives and it did but it was was going to be inevitable that ultimately you could
01:16:56
never stop it being in the community and you know so many and the way that Orland
01:17:01
got treated you know was just some of it was crazy but anyway you know as I say you know every prime minister deals with
01:17:08
difficult circumstances and and um that wouldn't have been easy for them so I'm
01:17:12
not I'm not knocking them and I think they did a really good job early on I just think later on it was too much
01:17:17
money spent later on too much stuff that was wrong yeah I feel like we were sort
01:17:20
of painted into a corner really when we way um what you why did you why did you start to stand down so you were almost
01:17:26
at the the end of your third term yeah well ironically it wasn't cuz I thought
01:17:30
I was going to lose the election it's cuz I thought I was going to win another
01:17:33
one four turn were you just done were you exhausted or um I said at the time you know like there's nothing left and
01:17:40
you know and I think Justa sort of said the same kind of things but actually truthfully that probably wasn't quite
01:17:46
right I mean yeah yeah look I was obviously I'd had 10 years of being leader eight years of being prime
01:17:51
minister you know you're pretty you know you've done a lot you know so you pretty
01:17:55
tight but but I if you'd said to me you've got to carry on for another couple of years or another 3 years or
01:18:01
whatever it would have been fine my concern was that eventually eventually even if they do love you in
01:18:09
some form they fall out of love with you and it's not that you're bad or wrong or
01:18:14
whatever but the job forces you to make decisions and making those decisions there is always a risk that you become
01:18:22
more and you've actually become better at it but you might become a bit more
01:18:26
belligerent in the way that you think right secondly you chart a pathway and changing that pathway is really
01:18:32
difficult because then you got to go back and say all these other things I did was wrong and no one really does
01:18:36
that and so that's why there's changes in government because basically um
01:18:42
people start saying right well they're just you know they're not listening
01:18:45
anymore or they're on the wrong track or they need to refresh I'm sick of them
01:18:48
I'm sick of the manism mannerisms or whatever it is you and so what I did was
01:18:54
I I just thought we need to refresh if we're going to if we're going to beat
01:18:58
labor we've got to out labor labor by by basically looking like we're fresh and
01:19:03
we're new and you can't do that if you don't start at the top and I thought
01:19:07
bill would make an excellent promise and I think he did and I think you know I don't sound like Donald Trump but the
01:19:13
simple reality is under an MMP environment Bill won the election you pulled a fantastic result he P 45% and
01:19:20
he P an amazing result but what we always knew was possible that the Coalition of small parties would get
01:19:26
together and and outgun US happened and you know Winston might regret that decision now actually because you know
01:19:33
he didn't seem to end that relationship with J's government too well but the
01:19:38
reality is that um that that so I think the strategy worked but but you know oh well what what was that period like um
01:19:49
yeah I've had heaps of um like all blacks and um high-profile Sports people on the podcast and they talk about the
01:19:55
um almost like a drop off a cliff when down yeah when you go from being in that sort of um environment to being I
01:20:01
suppose for lack of a bit of term just a civilian again yeah well nobody yeah yeah yeah I mean well it is it is very
01:20:08
extreme I mean it is literally Yes Prime Minister to you know hello John you know
01:20:13
and I mean I could have carried on with security I violate those sort of things but I could have but I didn't have to
01:20:20
and I didn't think I needed to so I didn't worry but early on of course people thought I honestly you know
01:20:26
people aren't necessar completely in touch with you so people thought people
01:20:30
still thought I was prime minister and so um there were a couple times when I went out there and and all of a sudden I
01:20:36
didn't have security around me and there were people really having a crack at me
01:20:39
and that was a little bit interesting not not much I mean but you know there was a little bit um really like what
01:20:44
sort of things oh I just remember being in court new place one night fny enough sephie was in New Zealand working on a
01:20:49
movie and um and I'd taken her out for dinner and and i' put her in the cab and
01:20:54
then this guy just started going he was obviously drunk and he was going nuts to
01:20:58
me I was thinking well maybe I got R security a little bit too early anyway it was fine um that wouldn't happen very
01:21:06
often they'll ignore you no exactly yeah um look the weird thing was and I again
01:21:12
you're right because you read all these things and and the amount of you know
01:21:16
you know depression and and all of these mental health issues for export stars is
01:21:21
incredible because I mean as you say you know they go from being you know you know this period of agulation and you
01:21:27
know being the person to all of a sudden know what's next to my life I mean for
01:21:31
me because I sort of chose that timing if you like I didn't feel like that and
01:21:38
I didn't want to get in Bill's way you know he was being prime minister and I
01:21:42
had to respect that and so you I stayed as a backbencher and and you know for as
01:21:46
long as it talk to avoid a b elction but you I kept a really low profile and kept
01:21:51
out of the way um they were nice enough to give me a great offic and that was good for a we while um but as soon as I
01:21:57
could I sort of moved on so yeah funny enough it was just like I'm pretty good
01:22:00
at looking forward and not looking back like even when I left Merill and you know not standing yeah I'm I noticed
01:22:06
that I wasn't getting some mess of bonus or whatever you know little things like
01:22:09
that but then I was mostly I was like okay and so I've just built a different
01:22:14
life and it's different now and I remember people used to say to me oh mate mate you shouldn't have retired the
01:22:18
phone will stop ringing and I used to go well actually I want the phone to stop ringing but actually what's ended up
01:22:23
happening is people have rung that I never thought would ring like if I really look at I
01:22:29
always thought I was going to be group chairman of A&Z and chairman of New Zealand and of course when the change of
01:22:34
government happened obviously Winston didn't want me to be there on the board
01:22:37
so I was always going to be exited stage left there and and then probably by the
01:22:42
time I could have been chairman of group chairman of an yet I realized the work commitment was so great didn't want to
01:22:46
do that but actually I've ended up in different places doing different things
01:22:50
and there's just so many organizations I've ended up being involved with would
01:22:54
just never have dreamed it possible so yeah I mean it's just been such a ride
01:22:59
it's been such a great ride you know and I'm not actually a workaholic you know
01:23:03
like I I like working and I like doing things and I like doing things to get my brain going but I'm I'm not this crazy
01:23:09
person that wants to die in the office I'm actually really happy doing you know
01:23:12
other fun things whatever they might be you know like I like cooking I like traveling with Briner I like doing lots
01:23:17
of things you know I um uh yeah so so working is good yeah it's a good thing
01:23:22
to do and I'm interested in and I always do some work hopefully helping Max or
01:23:26
whatever it might be but but I'm not you know not I'm not this person that needs
01:23:30
I don't need to I suppose what I say is I don't need to be validated by the
01:23:35
office I whole because probably in the commercial sense nothing I'm going to do
01:23:39
is ever going to rank with being prime minister you either like me or you won't
01:23:43
like me or remember me or won't remember me as prime minister it won't be that I
01:23:47
was a andz or BHP or wherever company I might be helping yeah but I mean to to get through three terms and then you
01:23:54
know probably get elected for a fourth term it's amazing right cuz you you sort
01:23:58
of how many terms did Helen get was it three she got three Yeah Yeah by the end of term three people are turning on you
01:24:03
a bit aren't they yeah yeah well and it does happen a bit like that and then I
01:24:08
mean I think I think I you know I mean it's all hindsight you don't know my
01:24:13
guess is I would have pulled about the number the bill pulled that's what I think 45% I don't think it would have
01:24:17
been much different and Winston would never have come with me because if that wasn't happening so so maybe the result
01:24:23
might have been the same outcome but who knows maybe I would have got a percent more and maybe that might change but
01:24:28
there's like so many things maybe I would have got percent less who knows I personally thought Bill did really well
01:24:33
and ran a great campaign so that's what it does but but you left and you're at
01:24:36
peace with your decision totally yeah never looked back and and funny thing was Bron is not that political right
01:24:42
like she's a good little cender voter but she's not she doesn't want to be in
01:24:46
front of the camera doesn't want the linelight isn't a political activist and
01:24:50
so when I told her in the January of of 2016 I'm going retire at the end of the
01:24:55
year she eventually she saw really and I went yeah and she said Okay and then then eventually then she came back and
01:25:03
she said look we've been doing this for 15 years if you think about it um and
01:25:07
said you know me I don't love all this stuff and if I never saw another camera
01:25:11
again it would be fine by me I don't need to read about myself on the paper or you but she said look if you're doing
01:25:17
it because you're worried about me another three years ain't going to make
01:25:20
any difference so if you want to do it and you know kind of wi it wasn't quite
01:25:24
true it was a historic fourth ter because you know Hol did it but she said if you want to do it go and do it but
01:25:29
she said my only request is if you're going to leave don't go back so I knew
01:25:34
once I was leaving I was wasn't going back yeah what sort of impact did it have on your relationship uh well I
01:25:40
think it's good really because you have a lot more time I mean like I always say
01:25:43
to people if you've got a bad marriage and you go into Parliament it's definitely going to blow up um if you
01:25:48
got a good one it'll probably survive but it's not easy I mean par is not in
01:25:52
an easy environment I mean she would say I think Bron was here that she really you know was basically solo mother for
01:25:59
for for8 years you mean I was away and busy I actually think I was there a bit more than no one was going to agree with
01:26:07
me on the same but I think I was there a bit more than what Max might tell you I
01:26:11
was he' tell you oh you're never there and you even know what day my birthday
01:26:15
is oh my goodness gra no no that's on on on the podcast we did he said he sort of
01:26:19
suggested that but he did um yeah it seems like you did it as as well as what you could possibly do in managing like
01:26:26
family life and work life but it's a it's a big job it's look it's and and
01:26:30
and you can't you can't sit there and go oh I know you're having this crisis
01:26:35
whatever it might be could be economic crisis political crisis natural disaster and say oh by the way I'm l a little bit
01:26:40
busy this afternoon because the kids are doing something you are locked in louder
01:26:45
and actually everybody knows that and and and it might not even be a crisis it's just like you know it's it's
01:26:52
Saturday night and you spend been all day and you've been out doing a variety
01:26:56
of different things around the country and now you're going to the breast cancer ball and you're going as the as
01:27:01
the person of you know the the important person at the there because you're prime
01:27:05
minister and and it's an incredibly important charity that does great work um and yeah you might be exhausted and
01:27:13
want to stay home Saturday night and watch a movie but it doesn't work like that and everybody understands it and um
01:27:22
I always tried to just to go and say look I'm just going to there is no point
01:27:26
to me feeling sorry for myself because no one is going to feel sorry for me nor should they Because by the way I signed
01:27:32
up to this and um I knew what it was like and I and and and you might not know every element but you you pretty
01:27:39
much know what you're doing so um so I never did I just got on with it and did
01:27:44
it and and tried to enjoy it and make the most of it and Men you see and experien some incredible things and and
01:27:51
and some of them are really surprising you know some of them you expect to be incredible and some of them you don't
01:27:56
think they will be and they're amazing and you you know I think it was Helen
01:28:00
Clark who said but I used to say all the time you see the very best and the worst
01:28:04
of New Zealand but mostly it's the very best yeah can we draw down on some of
01:28:08
them you've been so generous with your time have you got a t a bit more yeah
01:28:11
yeah for yeah like um yeah holidaying with the queen yeah well that was incredible yeah she and she was a truly
01:28:19
remarkable person and and and it was kind of special cuz we I think I was the first austral Asian prime minister that
01:28:25
been asked to go there and and with the family and the whole thing I mean being at borrow and and and just she she you
01:28:34
know just the time to spend with her one-on-one where she would just like I remember we were at lunch one time and I
01:28:39
always looked at something I said oh that's really cool it's like a little I
01:28:42
think it like a little salt and paper shake or something she said oh it was Queen Victoria and but she just talked
01:28:47
to a million of things she' had every some of the stories she told me and experiences she had and I think they
01:28:53
they know that they know there's a bond of trust um and they're quite open like
01:28:58
she said she would say to me people she liked and people she didn't like cuz she
01:29:02
she knew I would never repeat it and I never would until this podcast until this podcast yeah I know even now I
01:29:09
better not um but yeah she was truly remarkable um but the whole experience I mean that was just totally surreal I
01:29:16
mean you know doing doing all of that and being there um but when you when you were hanging out together like in a in a
01:29:22
holiday home do what you call her her majesty or yeah well the the protocol as they call her her majesty in like even
01:29:29
will and Kate came that weekend and they would stand up when she came into the room the first time in the morning and
01:29:34
go your majesty after that Mom wow what memories yeah I know God they were amazing yeah they were crazy
01:29:41
yeah no and I mean the room that Max slept in that every room has um portraits in Downing Street when you
01:29:48
know when you if you watch Love Actually I think it's got the you go up in this
01:29:52
big yellow wall and it's got got portraits of prime Min they always do them in black and white and then they
01:29:56
sign them they do two copies and one copy was um is in on that wall and Downing Street and the other one was at
01:30:04
B moral and he slept in the room under wison Churchill one that wion Churchill yeah and U Obama yeah so you play golf
01:30:13
with Obama were you did you have sort of like a friendship with him no very much
01:30:17
so yeah was there a transactional sort of thing no no it was it was I think more than that I think I was trying to
01:30:22
say to people look it sounds a bit weird and s of you know like I'm turning my
01:30:26
own horn but the reality is if you go to something like ape there are 20 leaders
01:30:29
10 of them probably don't speak English five of them you might not want to mix
01:30:32
with them three of them and new so you know in the end you know like I like sport he likes sport he likes golf you
01:30:38
know I was around a long time we came in exactly the same time we're exactly the
01:30:42
same age like there were just a lot of things that we got got on got had in common so yeah he was he was great I
01:30:50
mean actually economically wise I didn't necessarily with you know his policy I'm
01:30:55
much more you know free market and you know more rightwing and all that sort of stuff he's but but there were but he but
01:31:03
he was incredible like he was some of their experiences but in the end when you when you're on the golf course and
01:31:08
you're talking about what's going on without being silly that that New Zealand's just a small version of what
01:31:15
they've got yeah they got different issues I mean I think actually the United States at the moment has probably
01:31:19
never been more divided and some of their issues are much more extreme and we don't really have those here which is
01:31:24
great like like the gun issues as a general rule or they focus on abortion thank goodness it's a sort of settled
01:31:29
issue in New Zealand but but the point is that outside of that though it's still you're still dealing with all of
01:31:36
the same kinds of issues really you know CU at the core of it leadership from a government point of view whether your
01:31:42
prime minister or president is all about allocation of resources it's how much
01:31:46
resources do you take off the masses to pay for the things that you want to allocate them to and and and whether
01:31:53
it's the vision of policing services or health care or education whatever they're all the same issues it doesn't
01:31:58
matter with your country has 350 million people or 5 million it's the same thing
01:32:03
yeah I understand that the leader of the Free World and that's you know some
01:32:06
things are you know much more important from his perspective it was used to make
01:32:10
me laugh when you know the media would say JY is with other world leaders today I used to go well okay my her used to go
01:32:17
not quite sure I'm a world leader but you know but I'm there with some people
01:32:21
you might describe as a world leader but but yeah but anyway it's um but yeah he
01:32:26
was that was really remarkable and he he incredible I asked him once actually I said could you always speak you know
01:32:33
like you speak like that and he said to me said look um you got to remember Martin Luther King was wasn't the first
01:32:39
person who could speak like this he said he was the first person that the American Media probably really really
01:32:45
you know discovered and and and exposed if you like and um he said I grew up in a lot of you know different churches and
01:32:53
things where he I could show you 50 people that speak like that and funny enough actually I watched the the
01:32:58
Republican convention and quite a bit of the democratic convention I think it was
01:33:03
at the Democratic Convention I'm going to get wrong but the guy who spoke he
01:33:08
was the governor for I don't know I'm going to say North Carolina or one of
01:33:12
those States anyway and if you closed your eyes you would have sworn to God it was Obama he was just a fantastic
01:33:19
speaker but you look at Obama he no one can a prepared speech like him and it's
01:33:25
partly about next time if you're interested go and watch a YouTube video of him and when he when he gives a a
01:33:31
statement or says a sentence he doesn't do what normal people do which is read
01:33:37
in a slow way he doesn't go today the weather in ockland is wet he goes it's
01:33:41
wet in Oakland today and then he stops from an interminable period of time it's
01:33:45
about five or six seconds partly because of the sound bites but partly because of
01:33:50
the way works he said when he gave that famous speech the Democratic Convention the very one that really launched him on
01:33:56
the on the stage and he later on became you know a senator and then you know then president he said they he said when
01:34:03
I was walking out they told me they're going to clap like crazy when they do
01:34:07
just keep talking cuz it'll sound even more impressive when you see it that he's I mean yeah lots of little he's a
01:34:15
brilliant orator actually William hag was as well William hag was a was a was and is a brilliant speaker um different
01:34:23
version different style but but um brilliant and it's sort of living proof question time do en count for he used to
01:34:29
monster Tony BL Question Time still lost action but he was a brilliant speaker are you still in touch now like do you
01:34:36
exchange te yeah yeah yeah he's in he's mostly in when he's over he in different
01:34:40
Island from us but yeah yeah I mean not every day and lots of stuff I probably see David Cameron more than anyone else
01:34:46
actually done a few weeks ago but yeah he's great for him David wow yeah um there's another photo I wanted to run
01:34:52
past you cuz um well I've met you several times you're just a normalized
01:34:57
man and there's this photo of you and Sam white loock oh yeah I know yeah I know it's crazy that picture a yeah is
01:35:02
it what is that an angle thing he's he's not that big is he he is pretty damn big
01:35:07
um and uh and uh but but yeah it looked like I was a hobbit a and he looks colossal and I look like this tiny
01:35:15
little but it must have been I don't think they did something weird with the
01:35:19
lens I think he literally was the angle that could I was in the all black changing room um hell of a nice guy
01:35:25
actually great great all black man he's just uh more caps than anyone else isn't
01:35:29
it but and that same day that was the oh threeway handshake by the way that was not my fault as I said I was actually
01:35:36
going up there to give Richie the cup and and and I was looking at Richie in the eyes and so I wasn't looking at
01:35:44
Bernard lap who was the head of you know the Rugby Football Union and for whatever reason weirdly he decided he
01:35:51
was going to shake hands at the same time and so I was looking and I just put my hand out and as I was doing it
01:35:56
Richie's hand was going to mine but then I felt this hand on the top and and then
01:36:00
it was like you know you have this sort of surreal experience where you're not
01:36:04
quite sure what to do whether you should pull your hand back or keep on going and
01:36:08
I sort of stayed there for a bit and then I thought this is a bit weird and you know when I came off the stage I
01:36:13
thought GE I wonder whether anyone would notice and then I sat W there's probably
01:36:19
about a billion people watch I someone will probably pick up on it is embarrassing or funny or oh it was quite
01:36:25
funny but what happened was it didn't get a lot of coverage cuz everyone was
01:36:28
euphoric about winning the World Cup until the next day I think the heral or someone someone ran a story in the paper
01:36:36
where they had a picture like that that picture there and then a little just a little story back then it just blw out
01:36:42
and then for the rest of the time I was prime minister everywhere I went you'd
01:36:46
see two guys and soon as you saw two guys standing next to each other you knew what was happening next and they
01:36:52
thought they were so funny cuz they thought they were the first person to have ever done it I go mate I know not
01:36:57
my first radio not my first radially on campus when I used to go on campus You'
01:37:01
always oblig though oh yeah I couldn't couldn't stop it really um what about
01:37:05
Dom M you know have you ever met M and you said you famously said rather have sex with a crayfish which I thought was
01:37:11
a really odd analogy they really sort of heard that one actually and not something I've ever envisaged having sex
01:37:16
with a crayfish but um yeah he said but you used to get a lot of those sort of people to be honest in the in the world
01:37:23
of s and and in in entertainment they're more biased towards the left than the
01:37:27
right you I mean you'll you'll get some people a little different in fact I
01:37:30
watched Dwayne The Rock Johnson or something on Fox news this morning talking about how he was he was
01:37:36
rightwing but as a general rule it's not going to come as shock people that you
01:37:40
know Taylor Swift is is Moly um so you know so you take it all with a bit of a grain of salt but um yeah it was weird
01:37:47
because I don't think I'd ever met him um but yeah it was sort of weird I
01:37:52
remember you know remember there lots of people I think Elanor K had a real go at
01:37:56
me once and I thought that's weird cuz I just hosted them for the book prize and
01:38:01
it was sort of odd does it does it sort of hurt like on a a deeper level does does it sort of hurt a little bit Yeah
01:38:08
well it's sort of more it's kind of frustrating because you'd sort of sit there and go um it
01:38:17
doesn't yeah you you're coming at it from a you know preconditioned View and
01:38:22
predetermined View and I'm um am I really the thing that you're sort of saying like you know we did put
01:38:30
lots of money to the Arts and we did you know all that sort of stuff and and and
01:38:34
I remember when elen was doing that we had said all these great things because she won the book of priz and so we'd put
01:38:40
our statement on stuff and then and then she had one go and I think she might have had a second go and when they she
01:38:46
had the second go I a lot of me wanted to say something and I just B my tongue and said yeah that's what is so I kind
01:38:54
of get it you know I understand that I mean you know it sort of is what it is but you get it you get it both ways I
01:39:00
also I also get a lot of people like you know people like Richie mcco and Dan Carter who carried a lot of weight would
01:39:05
come out and say really nice things about me or you know Kieran Reed a lot of the All Blacks a lot of the sports
01:39:10
and you know I remember when Michael Jones and to Gala went out and campaigned for me in ' 08 in South
01:39:15
Oakland we didn't even know they were coming they literally came because they
01:39:18
wanted to come and they believed that we could make a difference for Pacific people Young people in Southland so you
01:39:25
know you get it both ways yeah but it's it's just frustrating if you if you know
01:39:29
who you are as a person and um you know people have sort of misconstrued you or taking you the wrong way like it's
01:39:34
that's never nice well it also if you think about the movie industry it's
01:39:38
really interesting but Richard Taylor who you know r with workshops with with Peter Jackson but well Peter obviously
01:39:44
you know but um Richard I went to a lunch he was there um and actually it was just before just to resign
01:39:53
and Justa came over and said something to me and when I think back on it I cuz I was quite surprised when she resigned
01:40:00
I should have picked up on it on something she said to me if I was thinking straight I should have picked
01:40:04
up on it what did she say oh she was just coming over to thank me because I'd
01:40:06
be supported to her on something there was an internal affairs issue they were looking at and they'd run all the former
01:40:12
prime ministers for thing but I I'd obviously said look I you know what she's saying is right and she needs you
01:40:18
know support for that I and I said I'd publicly support her if it was required
01:40:23
and she's come over to thank me for it but in hindsight you know any it's no
01:40:26
big deal but but um but Richard got up and he he gave the speech where the S of the speech he just said I'm never going
01:40:36
to forget what you did for you saved saved the movie industry in New Zealand you know you funded the hobbits you you
01:40:42
know you've sold the issues you changed the law you took all the Flack about you
01:40:46
know the definition of a contractor and blah blah blah blah and none of this would have happened if you hadn't done
01:40:51
that and that was a long time afterwards and you think about the audience that he
01:40:56
would have been talking to lots and lots of times cuz I've heard him say that
01:40:59
before he never forgot and he always said it even when there were lots of people who would have fundamentally been
01:41:05
leftwing wouldn't have agreed with it and so that was what I always thought was a bit of was that I our government
01:41:11
did do a lot actually to because because I because I always believed not everyone's going to want to be an
01:41:16
accountant or a currency Trader or whatever you know there are lots of people interested in the Arts and we
01:41:21
want to support that and it wasn't was just I thought people come from all different walks of life different Stokes
01:41:28
different interests you know so hey you know why not why not do that so but I kind of get it you know like it is what
01:41:35
it is I mean people have views and as said early I I never used to take things too personally and I just move on you
01:41:42
know yeah one of the yeah one of the big things the the ponytail thing oh yeah what what was was it just I've got
01:41:49
uncles that sort of you used to Pat me on the is it was it like that it's not even worth reliving all of it
01:41:56
except to say we were literally doing what we're doing which was kidding around um but but if you look at it um
01:42:05
you'd have to say you know yeah I was doing that and and it was a bit of a laugh and you know there are some
01:42:12
extenuating circumstances but but if you think about it I shouldn't have done it
01:42:18
and and and you know it was never meant to be anything more than that and and you know the media s of randomly stories
01:42:25
there some stories of me with a couple of kids but you do that montages yeah but you do but you know like kids with
01:42:31
ponytails you know like I mean that's everyone does that Stephie used to WAND
01:42:35
around with the ponytail you know that's just you just mucking around you you
01:42:38
know so I don't know I mean y it was what it was but but again it was all sort of part of part of a personality of
01:42:49
of of just having a bit of a laugh and not taking myself to too seriously and and and so as much as I might want to
01:42:57
change that I don't probably want to change a million different things I did
01:43:01
that were all part of that personality trait of being up for a bit of a laugh and being
01:43:09
you know and so that was bad but then the other things were good and if you put it all together you just take the
01:43:16
good with the bad and if you start to overthink everything then you lose the essence of who you are as a person right
01:43:20
yeah yeah and but but I you know there's certain times where you think okay well
01:43:25
you know you know you you know you real you realize you realize if you sat there
01:43:29
in cold light of day you would you wouldn't have done it but are you proud of yourself I am yeah there was when
01:43:36
there always say you know the judge of a good Prime Ministers whether they leave
01:43:39
the country in better shape than they found it and it's a totally subjective
01:43:43
thing I mean it's like what I think or you think or somebody else thinks might
01:43:47
be very different to you you know a huge number of people who listen to your podcast and some people who listen to go
01:43:53
he sure as hell didn't and some people say he sure as hell did right yeah there
01:43:57
are some people that will say you wrecked the country right now yeah it's what you see what you see it's like
01:44:02
political debates I mean that debate with Biden and Trump will go down in history for one of the very few debates
01:44:09
that actually had massive consequences and that Biden stood down after that because he was you know struggling and
01:44:17
you became parent for everyone to see it but actually as a general rule they don't move anything and the reason is if
01:44:23
I watched that debate yesterday with JD Vance and talz I think JD Vance gave a master class and was fantastic why
01:44:30
because I'm rightwing and I want to like JD Vance and I like the way he said what
01:44:34
he said right but if you are a Democrat voter you'd say toolz is nice guy and he
01:44:39
did a really good job so you see what you want to see but I personally think that we went from having a GFC that we
01:44:46
inherited in 08 to living as the Rockstar economy and we keept debt under control and and I look at say the way
01:44:54
debt blew out under the previous labor government I think generations of new zealanders are going to be paying for
01:44:59
that and for a very long time I think we've got a lot to be proud of with our
01:45:03
government and it wasn't just economic I think we did a lot of things in lots of
01:45:07
different places like I said in the Arts sector or you know a lot of stuff that we dealt with build huge amount of
01:45:12
infrastructure we did a lot I just did a lot of different things and I think we tried to build National confidence and
01:45:18
National and in a sense that New Zealand was really doing well and people wanted
01:45:22
to be here which is why migration numbers turned around and more new zealanders started coming to or
01:45:27
Australian started coming to New Zealand and New Zealand is going to Australia so
01:45:30
it's all about ambition so yeah I mean like I say if it's for every promise
01:45:36
will be the same if you had it all again would there be some things you do differently of course you there would be
01:45:41
but you don't live in that perfect world you live in the real world which is
01:45:45
stuff's getting try at you every five minutes and Legacy um yeah everyone thought I wanted the flag as a legacy
01:45:52
which didn't I wanted the flag because I wanted to build that national identity
01:45:57
that we something we could coal around that's obviously the silver F hind I should have just done it I didn't need
01:46:03
actually need 61 Bus I think that the whole thing was confusing was almost like an X Factor sort of elimination
01:46:09
exactly he should have just done it um that's what they did in Canada and they
01:46:12
end up with the bloody great flag which is the maple um so yeah Legacy I think I
01:46:19
think I think that there's no question if you put a a gun to someone's head and said one word
01:46:28
you know J ke's government I think people would say economic right like we were an economically focused government
01:46:34
I'm kind of an economically focused guy and people elected us because they thought we'd be good with money the more
01:46:39
labor went on about me being some rich fat cat the more the punter just heard I quite good with money from s so
01:46:45
hopefully be good with us right so you got to accept all that so for me I think the Legacy was that we were just a much
01:46:51
stronger vibrant economy is at the end of all that and um so yeah I'm I'm
01:46:59
personally really proud of that and I think I think we had a great team um and and we did a lot of good things and um
01:47:08
and so yeah I as say you know like I might change the old thing but it wouldn't change much well I asked um
01:47:14
chat GP say well we've he what you think see what John ke is often regarded as a
01:47:24
successful and popular prime minister of New Zealand though opinions about his leadership are mixed opin on one's
01:47:29
political perspective yeah um his tenure also had significant social and economic
01:47:34
challenges that continue to shape debates about his legacy yeah pretty good dollar each way he pretty good hey
01:47:42
um this has been fun good glad you enjoy it i' I've really really enjoyed it I'm
01:47:45
um so grateful for you being so generous with your time Y no problems I hope I hope some of your listeners get through
01:47:51
the whole time I don't know be a long card trop if they do but anyway oh well
01:47:56
that's what I like about long form um podcasts you know you can listen till you get bored but I've got no doubt that
01:48:01
you know and people probably come in and out of themp what they do I mean podcasts I mean podcasts I think are
01:48:07
amazing like I mean Mex listens to lots of podcasts more than I do I mean I listen to some um but yeah I find them I
01:48:16
you hopefully at the end of it you have a sense of what makes the person tick yeah and that's all you're really trying
01:48:22
to do and I think if you can do that then then you come away a rich person CU you
01:48:27
understand at least their perspective and actually the fact that you might not agree with that perspective is no bad
01:48:32
thing it's just your view of the world and we're all different and that's
01:48:36
that's what makes makes us a great you know country and Society yeah well I've
01:48:40
really enjoyed that I think there's a lot of insights into you as a you know a
01:48:43
person politics aside yeah yeah all right Sir John K thank you so much thanks for