Jim Anderton, who died in Christchurch in January 2018, aged 79, was a classic old school social democrat. He founded a party called New Labour which was ironic because he personified Old Labour. There were plenty of contradictions to Jim. He was a man who stuck to his principles when doing so appeared politically suicidal (and he was vindicated). His unshakeable self-belief and formidable ego enabled him to play the highest profile role in creating, firstly, New Labour and then the Alliance; those same characteristics played a big role in the self-destruction of the Alliance.

He split with Labour (as he famously said: “I didn’t leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me”) but ended up back in its bosom. Throughout the Alliance’s heyday his enemies falsely accused it of being a one-man band; towards the end of his long Parliamentary career his last “party” really was a one-man band. He was a nationalist whose greatest legacy is Kiwibank but who, once a Minister, became a conduit for corporate welfare to transnational corporations and an apologist for them. He was a Catholic whose last campaign was to, successfully, stop the demolition of Christchurch’s Anglican Cathedral and he lived long enough to see the decision made to restore it. He was a passionate adopted Cantabrian who is buried on Waiheke Island.

Auckland Councillor, Labour President

Jim started off in Auckland local body politics in the 1960s but, like most non-Aucklanders, the first I ever heard of him was when he appeared in a 1974 Time article about future world leaders. “He was named as a future leader by Time magazine when few New Zealanders outside the ranks of the Labour Party in Auckland had heard of him. That was 1974, the year Norman Kirk died. Anderton, 36, was on Labour's ticket for the Auckland City Council elections that year and pluckily standing for Mayor against Sir Dove-Myer Robinson”.

“He and sitting member Cath Tizard were the only Labour candidates elected to the Council and Anderton quickly made his name as a thorn in the side of the comfortable conservative majority. He was a challenging, powerful, persuasive speaker but uncompromising. Unlike the later Mayor, Dame Cath, who worked effectively within the Council Establishment, Anderton had his eye on national politics. He was working effectively inside the Labour organisation and became its young, energetic President when the Party's Parliamentary leadership was struggling to stand up against the politics of Robert Muldoon”.

“Anderton looked like the natural successor to Opposition Leader Bill Rowling but he was not in Parliament and seemed content to bide his time, successfully building up the Party's fund-raising and recruiting a new generation of candidates” (New Zealand Herald, 8/1/18, editorial, “Jim Anderton Might Have Been PM But For Timing”, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11971072. My obituary of Piggy Muldoon is in Watchdog 71, November 1992, https://www.scribd.com/doc/24209988/mpaign; and my one of Bill Rowling is in Watchdog 81, April 1996, https://www.scribd.com/doc/24211365/number-81).

As President, Anderton was the Party’s enforcer and one of those he enforced upon was CAFCA Committee member Paul Piesse (although Paul didn’t join either CAFCA or the Committee until decades later). In 1983 Paul came very close to being selected as Labour candidate for the safe Labour seat of Avon (now Christchurch East). The sitting MP was initially not re-nominated.

In came the Party heavies, headed by President Jim and the status quo was restored (this is all documented via a collection of newspaper clippings in Paul’s Security Intelligence Service Personal File. The SIS was very interested in Leftwing union officials climbing up the ranks of the Labour Party). Who knows how Paul’s life would have turned out if he had become an MP in a safe Labour seat.

Or how long he would have lasted in the Rogernomics Labour government that came to power the following year. When I put that question to Paul, whilst writing this obituary, he told me: “I rather pithily told Jim Anderton years later that if he hadn’t shafted me back then he would have had one ally inside that Labour government, rather than having to leave it on his own. I would have left it with him”.

The next step in Jim’s career with Labour was to enter Parliament as MP for the safe seat of what was then called Sydenham (it is now Wigram). We need some context. I moved to my present home in that electorate in 1982. Sydenham was a national laughing stock. The (mostly absent) Labour MP was John Kirk, the singularly useless son of the late Norm Kirk, who had been Prime Minister and MP for Sydenham (Labour favoured the dynastic school of politics in those days).

Piggy Muldoon must have been “tired and emotional” when he predicted John Kirk to be a future Prime Minister. My Dear Old Dad was a National voter for decades (he went back to Labour in the end) and I grew up hearing the expression that “if Labour ran a red arsed baboon in Sydenham it would be elected”. In the case of John Kirk, he was dead right.

“In July 1983 John Kirk announced that he would not seek the Labour Party's nomination for Sydenham in the 1984 election. In his place Labour selected Jim Anderton, the Party President, whereupon Kirk (a strong David Lange supporter) declared that he would stand against the official Labour candidate as an independent. His continuing opposition to Anderton's selection resulted in the Labour Party's New Zealand Council suspending him from membership of the Labour Party. Kirk served out the remainder of his Parliamentary career as an Independent MP after declaring that he would never again vote with the Labour Party. He stood in the Wellington urban electorate of Miramar in the 1984 general election where he was unsuccessful” (Wikipedia).

While Jim was the de facto Labour MP for Sydenham from 1983, the “independent” MP for Sydenham (with no mandate) was inflicting as much damage as he could. It tends to be forgotten that, before Labour became Government, it tried to bring in a nuclear free law via a Private Member’s Bill from none other than Richard Prebble.

Two National MPs crossed the floor to vote in favour of it but the status quo was maintained by John Kirk and one other “independent” Labour MP crossing the floor the other way to vote with National against it. Concern about the loyalty of his MPs led a visibly drunk Muldoon to call the 1984 snap election (which he lost). And it was this sort of travesty of democracy that hastened the demise of First Past the Post in the following decade.

Excellent Local MP

Before going any further, I need to sing the praises of Jim as an exceptionally good electorate MP. He was the MP for Sydenham (renamed Wigram) for 27 years, from 1984–2011. He represented the electorate for several different parties and never lost an election, retiring undefeated. Most impressively, he became the first ever MP – under the previous electoral system - to resign from his Party (Labour) and then be re-elected representing the new Party, which he headed (New Labour).

For nearly half of that period he was our MP (the first few years of his term fell during the 21-year period – from the early 70s until the early 90s – when I refused to either enrol or vote, as a matter of political principle. But I started voting again in the early 90s and have continued to do so). I haven’t moved address since 1982 but the electoral boundaries have certainly moved – in the 36 years I’ve lived here I’ve been in Sydenham/Wigram, Christchurch Central, Port Hills and now we’re back in Christchurch Central again. We parted company with Jim as our MP in the 90s.

He was extremely accessible as the local MP (before the quakes destroyed our local shopping block – which largely remains destroyed – his office was there. When he was Alliance Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, his humble Selwyn Street office became one of the hubs of power in the country). His unpretentious home was a stone’s throw from his office and he lived there until ill health forced him into residential care in his final months. I used to see him at the local shops and cafés.

I have a vivid memory of him striding past our place in a pink tracksuit – he was personally letterboxing campaign flyers. He and Carole hosted an annual garden party at their home (which I never attended); he played cricket with local teams. The last time I heard him speak as Wigram MP was when he opened the local medical centre’s new premises in 2006. The crowd laughed when he said: “I’ve come a long way today” and pointed at his home fence - he lived next door.

He was prepared to meet with, listen to and help people from all walks of life. In my first relationship we had a local little old lady who looked after the house, cats and chooks when we were away. She had a housing problem of her own – my then partner took her to see Jim and got it sorted. Wearing my Philippines Solidarity hat, I got two of our 1990s’ visiting Philippine speakers to meet with Jim while they were in Christchurch. Both were impressed by his knowledge about the Philippines and about the accessibility of such a senior politician (the fact that he drove himself, with no entourage or heavily armed bodyguards, was novel for Filipinos).

He was extremely loyal – he was both a friend and a supporter of Wolfgang Rosenberg (my obituary of Wolf is in Watchdog 114, May 2007, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/14/04.htm). To quote from that obituary: “Wolf became a supporter of Jim Anderton, when Jim fought a lonely battle within that treacherous Labour government and then walked out of it to found firstly New Labour and then head the Alliance. Wolf’s ‘New Zealand Can Be Different And Better’ came with a back cover tribute from Bill Rowling and the Introduction by Jim Anderton”.

“I well remember the launch of that book – Jim spoke for so long (before Wolf got a chance to have his say) that people could have been forgiven for thinking that he’d written it. It was Jim who was ‘very proud’ to stand in for the Governor-General when Wolf (who was by then too sick to travel to Wellington) was presented at his Cashmere home, in 2000, with the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit award”.

“Wolf told the Press that, despite his failing eyesight, he continued to regularly correspond with Jim about policy and encouraged him to stick to his principles (21/8/00, ‘Award, Advice Exchanged’, Bryn Somerville). Wolf remained loyal to Jim throughout the traumatic Alliance split, which saw it disappear from Parliament at the 2002 election, and Jim resurface as the head (and current sole MP) of the Progressives. Wolf was a Jim supporter up until his death. Jim and Carole Anderton attended the funeral – no Labour MPs or Ministers were to be seen”.

“‘To people like the present Minister of Agriculture and Progressive Party Leader, Jim Anderton, Rosenberg remained one of the country’s unsung heroes. He was ‘not afraid to go against the orthodox or the powerful’ and crossed swords with Rob Muldoon. ‘During the 1980s and 1990s in particular, when many of his colleagues were enthusiastic for, or muted their criticism of, the prevailing belief in the market as the cure-all of New Zealand’s problems, he was not afraid to speak and publish against the prevailing current’, Mr Anderton said…” (Christchurch Star, Obituary, 28/2/07, “Free-Market Forces Alarmed Economist”, Arnold Pickmere)”.

And Jim was capable of inspiring support from people who normally wouldn’t want to be seen dead with him. Like my late father. He voted against MMP in the 1993 referendum, but having been given two votes, he used them inventively. In 1996, he voted National and Jim Anderton (that made sense to him but not to me) and in the 1999 and 02 elections, he voted Labour and Anderton – he died months before the 2005 election. He told me that although he would “never vote for Jim’s stupid back-to-the-future party” (the Alliance), he wanted to be represented by a high-profile MP, one whom he considered to be "the only honest man in politics".

Politics is very hard on family life and Jim’s was no exception. Private tragedies become public property. The suicide of his daughter Philippa in the 90s rocked him to the extent that he had to be talked out of chucking it all in. Typically, he turned that around and spoke openly about her suicide (against the wishes of his family, as was made clear in the media). I had a couple of extremely poignant conversations with Jim in the 90s on the subject of mental illness, suicide and their devastating impact on families. We had some of that stuff in common. On those occasions I was speaking with the man and father, rather than the politician. As the politician, he campaigned on mental health and suicide prevention issues.

Rogernomics

Becoming a new Government MP in 1984 plunged Jim straight into the treacherous maelstrom that was Rogernomics. I have written about this in detail in the past, in particular in my obituary of David Lange (Watchdog 110, December 2005, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/10/09.htm), so I refer you to that. But one point I will make is that Rogernomics was not a subject of academic study for me – I lived it. One extract from my Lange obituary will suffice:

“I personally experienced those economic and social policies. During that period (from 1976-91 inclusive, to be precise) I was a Railways labourer, and a union activist and officeholder for some of it. So, I personally witnessed the upheaval and deliberate imposition of mass unemployment that afflicted that industry, as it did so many others. Mass unemployment that led to many adverse consequences, including death, in that industry. Being a union official in those years was like following an elephant around with a shovel, just constantly cleaning up the shit”.

“I’d never personally had any illusions about, or affiliations to, Labour but the sense of betrayal among workers, who had seen Labour as their party, was palpable. In 1984, my union, the then National Union of Railwaymen, gave $40,000 to Labour to help it get elected. Within a very few years, it had disaffiliated from the Party (the union itself did not survive what Labour did to the Railways). All of this was fronted by the Minister of Railways, Richard Prebble (whose obituary I eagerly look forward to writing). In 1984 he led a march of several thousand Railways workers and their families through Christchurch as part of the union’s and Labour’s nationwide ‘Save Rail’ campaign”.

“Well, Prebble did save rail – he saved it for the Yanks to whom the next National government sold it for a song and they proceeded to asset strip it to such an extent that it became a national disgrace and a danger to the few remaining railway workers, its own passengers and the general public. Prebble did his job so well that there is no longer any such Cabinet portfolio as Minister of Railways. Thank you, Richard, thank you David. What added insult to injury is that Labour came into office in 1984 saying one thing and then turned around and did the exact opposite. That led to such a profound sense of betrayal right across the spectrum of New Zealand society that MMP is one of its direct results”.

Jim Anderton was the one Christchurch Labour MP who came to talk to, and commiserate with, shell-shocked Christchurch Railways workers. Indeed, news reports after his 2018 death included a photo of him speaking to workers at the long-gone Addington Railway workshops (now the Tower Junction shopping centre). Jim did not attempt to defend or justify Rogernomics. This was several years before he walked out of Labour but it was plain what he thought about what was going on.

New Labour Party

Sue Bradford is no fan of Jim’s, as is made clear in her 2017 biography (“Constant Radical”, by Jenny Chamberlain; reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Watchdog 146, December 2017, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/46/07.html). But she was pleasantly surprised, when she was among those arrested at a protest outside Labour’s 1987 National Conference in Auckland. “To the cells, to visit and offer his support, came MP for Sydenham, Jim Anderton, Labour’s Leftwing rebel, who was gaining popularity for his outspoken opposition to Rogernomics”.

“Recalls Sue: ‘He came, with a few other Party delegates, on a formal Police visit. I was sitting on one side of the grille and he was on the other. He said: ‘Good on you for protesting and I’ll look after it’ – meaning he would take responsibility for ensuring that Labour got back on the right track. ‘It was the first contact I had with him and I was amazed that anyone in an official position in the Labour Party would support an unemployed protest. We had never had that kind of credibility or indication of support from an MP before’”.

“In December 1988 Anderton was temporarily suspended from the Labour caucus for opposing the Bank of New Zealand Bill (which cleared the way for selling the BNZ) and subsequently abstaining from voting on it. Sue’s Police cell visitor was all for quitting politics but Matt McCarten persuaded him to form a new party. Anderton resigned from Labour on 19 April 1989, famously stating: ‘It is no longer possible for me to work within a political institution which has corrupted its own ideals, policies and constitution’”.

“On 1 May – International Workers’ Day – New Labour was launched at a gathering of 700 supporters in Christchurch”. Sue Bradford was elected Vice President. “Unfortunately for Sue, Jim Anderton, an autocratic, legendarily challenging politician to work with, was put out. He was old school Labour and expected to be surrounded by his ex-Labour core…The Leader and the new VP did not see eye to eye”.

She resigned in April 1990. “In a radio interview on 10 April, helpfully transcribed and filed by the SIS, Sue explained it wasn’t New Labour policies she had a problem with but ‘the way the structures have changed since the time I joined… it’s become very much a Jim Anderton party with a small group of mainly men around him; if Jim doesn’t get his way, then watch out’”.

Elsewhere in her biography Sue says: “My image of 1950s, early 1960s New Zealand is a nightmare of relentless conformity – a very shut down society in which men ruled the roost and women played their subservient role. One of the reasons I never got on with Jim Anderton and the New Labour Party was that Jim Anderton’s vision of how New Zealand should be, appeared to be 1950s’ New Zealand all over again”. Actually, Jim was a big 70s’ fan, particularly the 1972-75 Kirk/Rowling Labour government. Visitors to his electorate office saw that his collection of photos of Labour leaders, on the walls, ended with Norm Kirk and Bill Rowling. Definitely no David Lange, Geoffrey Palmer or Mike Moore (although I bet he later added one of Helen Clark).

Having waged a devastating war on its own working class base, that 1984-90 Labour government self-destructed and National came to power in a landslide, to finish off Labour’s work in disembowelling the working class and beneficiaries. Jim retained Sydenham as New Labour’s sole MP but had no intention of remaining a one-man party under First Past the Post.

The Alliance

He played a leading role in the creation of the Alliance (which brought together several small parties such as New Labour and the Greens. It was a working example of a coalition arrangement before MMP made coalitions the norm). In 1993, the last ever FPP election, the Alliance won 18% of the vote and Jim was joined by Sandra Lee. More importantly, MMP was passed by referendum and 1996 was to be the first MMP election. The Alliance went from strength to strength, finishing second, behind National, in the 1994 by-election in true blue Selwyn (Labour came a distant third).

CAFCA had plenty to do with the Alliance in the 90s. For example, we worked with them (and New Zealand First) in the major campaign against National’s Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (which became an Act). That included us hosting a 1995 Christchurch Town Hall public meeting where both Anderton and Winston Peters were among the speakers. It came just after a much talked-about merger proposal between the two parties had come to nothing and there was bad feeling between both leaders and their supporters (who attended the meeting in equal numbers).

I had the interesting experience, as a fellow speaker on the night, of sitting between the two of these short, immaculately coiffed and suited men, both of whom had king size egos. They didn’t like each other and I could feel the animosity radiating off both of them. As it was, Peters was easily the better speaker of the two that night, having a much better grip of the subject. Jim didn’t know his stuff. CAFCA also worked with both of those parties in the very big and successful grassroots mass campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which was a 1990s’ precursor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. When the MAI was defeated, Jim Anderton, God bless him, claimed the credit.

“Late June (1996) brought Sue (Bradford) back into contact with the Alliance and its strong-willed Leader. New Zealand’s first MMP election was coming up and, although not directly involved with national politics, the Auckland Unemployed Workers’ Rights Centre organisers had actively campaigned for MMP – seeing it as the only way a truly Leftwing party was going to get any power”. The Alliance asked to use the Centre for its social policy launch.

“Sue hadn’t spoken to Alliance Leader Jim Anderton since her departure from New Labour but she didn’t hold that against him. Instead, she was pleased Alliance organisers felt comfortable making such a request and interpreted it as recognition of the Centre’s work. ‘I said ‘Ok, but only if you let us show you around and explain what we’re doing here’. We wanted to influence Alliance social policy, of course’.  Anderton and Alliance candidate Pam Corkery launched the policy and reporters were present. People’s Centre minutes from the time record Anderton spoke ‘far too long’ laughs Sue ‘but, hey, we were courteous and they were courteous and so it happened’” (“Constant Radical”, ibid.).

The Alliance increased its MPs to 13 (including the Greens’ first two MPs) at 1996’s first MMP election but New Zealand First shot up to 17 and Winston Peters, having badmouthed his former National Party for years, proceeded to form a coalition Government with it. Labour and the Alliance spent another three years in Opposition, while both coalition Parties imploded. In the run up to the 1999 election, Labour and the Alliance patched up their differences and formed a coalition to campaign together, with Helen Clark as Prime Minister and Jim as Deputy. That proved the winning formula – National, under the unelected Jenny Shipley, was voted out and the Clark/Anderton government came into office just in time for the Millennium celebrations.

But the Alliance itself had started to unravel. The Greens lasted one term (1996-99) within it. Shortly before the 1999 election, when they’d taken the gamble to fly solo, I asked Co-Leader Rod Donald why they had left. He replied: “Two words. Jim Anderton” (my obituary of Rod is in Watchdog 110, December 2005, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/10/09.htm). The gamble paid off – while the Alliance lasted only one more term in Parliament, the Greens are still there today (although it’s been a close-run thing at times and never more so than at the 2017 election).

Deputy PM, Kiwibank Founder

Nonetheless, from 1999-2002, the Alliance was the junior partner in Helen Clark’s coalition Government. Their number of MPs dropped to ten but they had four Ministers, with Jim as Deputy Prime Minister. That election marked the zenith of CAFCA’s ability to lobby Government Parties – I went to Wellington to speak to the Greens’ caucus; Bill Rosenberg went there to speak to the Alliance caucus (only one Labour MP accepted our offer of a briefing).

Undoubtedly, Jim’s greatest legacy from his single term as Deputy PM and junior coalition partner leader is Kiwibank. The country owes him a great debt of thanks; he fought hard to get Kiwibank established. Labour now claims it as its own but at the outset both Helen Clark and Michael Cullen sneered at the idea and damned it with faint praise.

“Jim Anderton revealed in his (2011) valedictory speech that after the issue had previously been discussed by Cabinet for months, he had spent three hours trying to convince then Finance Minister Michael Cullen. Annette King told Cullen: ‘Michael, Jim's beaten back every argument against the bank we've ever put up. For God's sake, give him the bloody bank’. Cullen replied: ‘Oh, all right then’” (Wikipedia). After he died, both Clark and Cullen had the decency to admit that they’d been wrong.

“Clark said that Kiwibank will be one of his legacies, and admitted she was sceptical about it. ‘I was one of the sceptics. How do we know anyone will use this bank? But it was a very important part of Jim's policy platform, and the truth was that the major banks had more or less exited so many smaller communities and suburbs. But there was still a Post Office, so putting Kiwibank into those facilities was a winner. It did incredibly well. I was wrong and he was right on that one” (NZ Herald, 7/1/18, “Helen Clark’s Tribute To ‘Kind, Diligent’ Jim Anderton”, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11970926).

Cullen said: "To be honest I wasn't the greatest enthusiast about setting it up in the first place, but Jim was proved right in the (2008) global financial crisis when it became very clear that the Australian-owned banks would give prominence to Australian interests" (NZ Herald, 7/1/18, “Jim Bolger: Anderton’s Social Justice Principles Will Prevail”, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11970940).

It was a stroke of genius from Anderton to persuade former National PM Jim Bolger to become the first Chair of Kiwibank’s Board. National had opposed the bank and threatened to sell it off once back in Government – Bolger’s involvement helped to undercut that. It was untouched during the subsequent nine years (2008-17) of the Key/English government, despite the drive of that Government to privatise public assets.

After Anderton’s death, Jim Bolger very proudly told the media that the bank’s name had been his “masterstroke” (Anderton had wanted to call it People’s Bank). Bolger was at Jim’s funeral – I have an indelible memory of him exiting the local Addington Catholic church lustily singing “How Great Thou Art”. CAFCA was a foundation customer of Kiwibank and remains so today (Becky and I were also foundation members and remain so for our personal banking).

Electoral Oblivion

The Alliance went into electoral oblivion at the 2002 election. Here’s what I wrote in my Watchdog analysis of that (under the subheading “Alliance: Eliminated By An Own Goal”): “The decision to commit the Special Air Service (SAS) to Afghanistan was the straw that broke the back of this many humped and ungainly camel, and led, ultimately, to the split which saw its leader, Jim Anderton and his faithful followers leave the Party and form their own, while the remnants of the Alliance went on into electoral oblivion. But the rot had started long before then, with the Party polling at a disastrously low level long before the split”.

“The blame sits squarely with the leadership – Jim Anderton put overriding importance on coalition stability before all else and told anyone within earshot: ‘We only got 7% of the vote (in 1999) and therefore can’t expect to set the policy agenda’. The public rapidly came to the conclusion that if the Alliance was simply going to be a Mini Me version of Labour than they might as well vote for the real thing. Which they did. The Alliance did get some of its policies enacted – Kiwibank, paid parental leave, the job-creating regional development programme to name a few – and acted as a restraint on Labour on several issues, out of public sight”.

“It ceased to be any sort of campaigning organisation, putting all its energy into the Parliamentary arena and ‘coalition stability’. There was no repeat of its late 1990s’ major campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment; it voted against Labour’s various free trade deals but did nothing else about them. CAFCA had quite extensive dealings with the Alliance in the 1999-2000 period, at all levels – individual branches (including of constituent parties), the Party leadership, the National Conference and the Parliamentary caucus”.

“The problems and internal tensions were painfully obvious to us then – for the past couple of years, contact has been minimal. In 1999 election year when I made a speaking tour of the North Island, I was hosted and organised in several centres by Alliance branches. There was no repeat on my equivalent tour this year (2002). It’s no mean feat to have gone from a Party with more than a dozen MPs in 1996 to having none in 2002. The split was a tragedy and should have been avoided with some common sense all round – after all, the Rightwing parties, National and ACT, have recently had just as bloody battles about ideology and personalities without breaking in two. Voters will always, quite rightly, punish parties that split and messily fight amongst themselves”.

“This happened to New Zealand First in 1999, and it was the Alliance’s turn for a good old-fashioned boot up the arse this year (2002). And let’s not get carried away about the Alliance – it wasn’t any sort of revolutionary party and was only as ‘Leftwing’ as the old Labour Party, showing how far to the Right New Zealand had been hijacked since the 1980s” (Watchdog 100, August 2002, “Righto! An Even More ‘Business Friendly’ Government”, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/00/01.htm).

The death of the Alliance was a bruising and bitter affair, as these things invariably are. One of my colleagues told me in 2018, after Jim’s death, that the last words he ever spoke to her were: “Why don’t you fuck off?” The context was that she was one of the young Alliance activists dressed as chickens who haunted him as the 2002 decision was made to support NZ troops going into Afghanistan (where the NZ military remains until this day and is now being accused of war crimes). I was recently told that the bitterness of that split has still not healed and was in evidence at Jim’s funeral (although I didn’t see anyone dressed as chickens there).

One-Man Band

The death of the Alliance didn’t mean the end of Jim’s Parliamentary career – it still had another nine years to go, both in Government and Opposition. To further quote from my 2002 election analysis (under the subheading: “Jim Moves Into the Granny Flat Out The Back At Helen’s”): “As for Jim Anderton and his new Progressive Coalition, well our reaction is one more of sorrow than of anger. We respected the courage of Jim when he walked solo from Labour in the 1980s (with no help from the gutless ‘Labour Left’), without him there would have been no Alliance”.

“And he made achievements of which he can be justly proud in his three years as Deputy Prime Minister. But he carries a large burden of responsibility for the demise of the Alliance and was electorally punished for being a splitter and a party-hopper – his formerly stratospheric Wigram electorate majority was cut by at least two thirds and there are severe doubts about whether any other Progressive Coalition candidate could win it once he retires, let alone get any other MPs into Parliament. Jim talks about wanting to stay in Parliament until he is 70 (another two terms) to rebuild a party to the Left of Labour but what is he going to say to his supporters now: ‘We only got 1% of the vote and therefore can’t expect to set the policy agenda’".

“Jim basically decided that he has reached as high as he’s going to go, having been picked as a ‘future leader’ way back in the 1970s by Time, when very few New Zealanders outside of Auckland had heard of him. Being in coalition, in office, in Government, became Jim’s be all and end all and now he’s back in his natural home again, Labour”.

“Logically he should be a Labour MP again, but they don’t want him back as that, because he would only be one MP. As leader of another party, however small, he can bring one more vital MP in with him. Labour regards him rather as you do the aged parent to whom you owe an obligation, someone to be made comfy in their final years in the granny flat out the back. But with no need to take them seriously, let alone take much notice of them” (Watchdog 100, ibid.).

Corporate Welfare, TNCs’ Mouthpiece

The Progressive Coalition became Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party and, after the 2005 election, it really was a one-man band. Jim held several portfolios, including Agriculture and Forestry, in the final two terms of the Clark government. CAFCA was critical of some of his policies during his nine years as a Minister (for example, see my article ”Giving Away Our Money To TNCs: Jim Anderton’s Dubious Policy”, in Watchdog 96, April 2001, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/96/3givin.htm. This was the corporate welfare that I was referring to at the start of this obituary.

For another, classic, example, see my article “2004 Roger Award Pisses Off TNC And Jim Anderton: We Must Be Doing Something Right”, (Watchdog 109, August 2005, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/09/02.htm), specifically the sub-section “Jim Anderton Needs A New Songwriter”: “But this time there was a new and unique component. We got our first ever approach from a politician, writing in support of one of the winners (Malaysian forestry TNC, Ernslaw One, which came third). Not just any old obscure backbencher, either. Our correspondent was none other than Jim Anderton, who wrote in his triple capacity as Minister, MP and Leader of the Progressives”.

“This would just mark another chapter in the sad decline of Jim Anderton, not worthy of comment, if it wasn't for a startling coincidence that I happened to notice when I read Jim's letter alongside the Gisborne Herald story (3/5/05, ‘Attack On Ernslaw One 'Grossly Unfair’) quoting the company's Managing Director, Thomas Song. It was then that I realised that, in places, Song and Anderton were word for word. Our advice to Jim is, get a new letter writer. Or should that be, Songwriter? What a pity that Jim couldn't leave Ernslaw One to do its own dirty work”.

Jim’s problem was that he, quite commendably, was a passionate advocate for regional development. There was “Jim’s Jobs Machine” and (a still awaited) “wall of wood” coming down from the forests (which previous Labour and National governments had flogged off to the TNCs) and which would require extensive infrastructure. That was all well and good but the problem was that Jim became subject to corporate capture, like so many other politicians. It will be interesting to see if Shane Jones, the current Minister in charge of regional development, goes down the same path (it’s only an issue with Labour-led governments; National ones couldn’t give a stuff about regional development).

National came back into Government in 2008 (and stayed there until 2017, when they maintain they were “robbed” by their old frenemy, Winston Peters, who went with that slip of a girl instead of Good Old Bill). Jim retired at the 2011 election, having done one term back in Opposition. Here’s what I wrote in my analysis of that election:

“The outgoing Labour MP for whom I have most respect, and will miss, is Jim Anderton. Now, of course, he was officially Leader of the Progressive Party (which has disappeared with his retirement) but Jim was always a Labour MP. He wasn’t joking when he said: ‘I didn’t leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me’. In his prime, which was some years ago, he truly did embody the social democrat ethos which was the best feature of the old Labour Party (but always within the timid boundaries required by a party eager to prove that it would be a trustworthy administrator of capitalism)”.

“Jim was a bloody good electorate MP for all of his 27 years in Parliament (I speak from the personal experience of the years we were in his electorate, until the boundaries changed). Kiwibank is his greatest economic and social legacy; politically, his best and worst legacies are the creation and destruction of the Alliance (Jim never was a team player). If it wasn’t for the September 2010 earthquake Jim would now be well into his term as Christchurch’s Mayor after the landslide victory he was on track for at the October 2010 local body elections”.

“To add insult to injury the ongoing quakes forced him out of his electorate office amidst the wholesale destruction of our local suburban shopping centre. Characteristically he plunged into what he does best – representing the people of his electorate as they struggled with the aftermath of this huge natural disaster. Enjoy your retirement, Jim” (Watchdog 128, December 2011. “Welcome To Johnkeyistan! Don’t Worry, She’ll Be Right [In Every Sense Of the Word]”, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/28/01.htm).

Mayoral Candidate, Cathedral Campaign

Would Jim have been a good Mayor of Christchurch (if the quakes catastrophe hadn’t gifted it to Bob Parker instead)? We’ll never know. I admired Jim because, in the few weeks left between the first big quake (and there were aftershocks happening all the time, eventually totalling 18,000 last time I saw a figure) and the local body election, he made the honourable decision not to campaign, deeming the situation too dire for politics as usual. He disappeared from public view, leaving the field open to the incumbent and his ever-present fluoro vest, who hogged the media limelight. Parker won going away.

Jim had made the tactical error of saying that, if he won; he would also remain an MP until retiring at the 2011 election. Being Mayor of the country’s second biggest city is not a part time job. He was over 70 when he ran; with the benefit of hindsight, the serious health problems that later incapacitated and finally killed him may well have led to him having to retire on health grounds.

He had one more campaign left in him and that was the seemingly quixotic one to save the Cathedral. Once again, he teamed up with a true blue Tory, namely former Christchurch Cabinet Minister, Philip Burdon, and together they set off on the task of stopping the Anglican Establishment which was hell bent on bulldozing it. Jim lived just long enough to see his victory (although the Cathedral is still an unprotected ruin in the Square and it will be years before the job is started, let alone fixed).

I made a last minute decision to go to his funeral (it was held walking distance from home. The last politician’s funeral that I’d attended – Rod Donald’s, in 2005 – was held in the very Cathedral that Jim helped to save). It was an interesting gathering – those present included two Prime Ministers (Jacinda Ardern and Jim Bolger), several current Labour Cabinet Ministers, several former National Cabinet Ministers, the current Mayors of both Auckland and Christchurch, a past Christchurch Mayor, and – both in full regalia – a gang leader and the Wizard.

Plus, plenty of ordinary people.  I saw a couple of figures from that 1984-90 Labour government that Jim had walked away from but there was no sign of major ideological foes such as Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble, David Caygill or Ruth Richardson. The crowd illustrated the breadth of people that Jim touched, right across the political and social spectrum.

“A Fair And Just Society”

“Former Prime Minister Jim Bolger says no one in politics would now disagree with the goal of a fair society that his former adversary Jim Anderton stood for. Bolger, who was National Party Leader when Anderton formed the New Labour Party and later the Alliance Party, said no one in politics now believed in the extreme free-market approach that led Anderton to quit the Labour Party in 1989. Bolger later agreed to chair Kiwibank, which Anderton drove through the Labour-led Cabinet in 2001 and said the bank would outlive its creator”.

“‘I think Kiwibank is one of his big legacies," he said. ‘I think it has been very influential in banking in New Zealand and it will, I hope, continue to be so’. Bolger, like Anderton, is from a Catholic background and said Anderton ‘started from a deep Christian conscience’. Jim was very active in the Catholic youth movement in his youth in Auckland. I didn't know him then but I knew the name,’ he said”.

“‘The memory that people will have of Jim is his commitment to his values, the values he developed early in life. They were essentially about a fair and equitable society for everybody. The strength of Jim's character is that he never deviated from those beliefs’. Bolger said those beliefs were now again part of mainstream thinking. ‘If you look at the underlying goal he had, which was a fair and just society, I don't think that is a lost cause," he said”.

“‘It may have gone through some bad years in the time in which people became, I guess, obsessed that the market would deliver everything. But I see no such conviction in the world of politics at the present time’. He said he always respected Anderton and could not recall ever having an argument with him about anything. ‘I think he played his role as he saw it, and he played it well’ (NZ Herald, 7/1/18, “Jim Bolger: Anderton’s Social Justice Principles Will Prevail”, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11970940).

Principled Pragmatist

Jim Anderton was Old Labour and an old school politician, with all the good and bad features that those two things entail. He personified both the best and worst traits of the social democrat Parliamentary politician. He was most assuredly a man of principle who was also completely pragmatic – eulogies at his funeral emphasised his signature phrase: “Build the path where people are walking”. He was not an ideologue or a theorist – he was quoted as saying “I get stuck in and get things done”. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

He was a lifelong campaigner within the context of Welfare State social democracy (a son, who was a main speaker at his funeral, spoke directly to Jacinda, urging her to continue Jim’s work and bring in free dental care. To which I say, hear, hear). Good on you Jim, you had plenty of faults, made enemies as well as friends, launched and sank a few parties, but, fundamentally, you were on the right side of the argument and the right side of history. Most importantly, when it mattered, you didn’t let the bastards grind you down, pay you off or shut you up. That was no mean feat in itself.