This is mostly a blog about things to see and do in New Zealand beyond the most famous ones. I have, however, included a few posts on other New Zealand-related subjects from time to time. This is one of those.
In December of 2016, I wrote a post, you can see it below, entitled “New Zealand: The Lucky Country.” While the post talked about several New Zealand politicians, it was mostly about Bill English, who at that point had just become Prime Minister upon the resignation of Sir John Key. I went into a fair amount of detail on what I liked in Mr. English’s approach to politics. There is no need to repeat what I wrote then, though you may find it interesting if you have not read it before.
Yesterday, Bill English resigned as Leader of the National Party and announced he will leave Parliament on March 1. Personally, I find it sad – for the reasons I mentioned above and in my post of December 2016. His “social investment” approach to government’s role in helping people is one that deserves more recognition that it has received outside New Zealand. (For more on “social investment,” see here.)
Finally, I wanted to make one additional comment about Mr. English, one that is more about the kind of person he is than any of his political positions. Mr. English was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament in 1990. He became leader of the National Party in 2001. In the 2002 election, National received barely 20% of the vote, the worst result in its history. The next year, Don Brash, who had only entered Parliament in 2002, challenged Mr. English for the National Party leadership and won. At that point, Mr. English had been in Parliament for 13 years. He had led his party to its worst finish ever and had been kicked out as leader. What would he do next?
Most people probably would have quit. But Mr. English didn’t. He stayed in Parliament and worked under Don Brash. When John Key, who was only elected in Parliament in 2002 (twelve years after Mr. English), took over as National Party leader in 2006, Mr. English became his deputy. Mr. English was appointed Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister when National won the 2008 election. He finally became Prime Minister in December 2016 when Sir John Key resigned.
But still, why did he do it? Why didn’t he quit in 2003? According to Mr. English, one of the reasons he stayed was what he had always told his kids. (Mr. English and his wife, a doctor, have six children.) He told them1 that, when you get knocked down, you get back up again and keep trying. He said, if he had quit politics to do something else, even if he had good reasons to do so, that is not what his children would have read in the newspaper. They would read that he quit. That was not what he had been telling his children, so he stayed and “got back up again.”
Which says more about him that any of the jobs or positions he ever held.
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1 See starting at 1:09 in this video.
UPDATE (2/13/18 3:30 pm Chicago time): Let me add this picture from the Backbencher pub in Wellington, which I took in February of 2014:
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