It is hard, from the outside, to realise the impact of being told, the day you become prime minister, that the country's broke. The world has sat silent as they have pursued what's called neoliberal economic policies, and in fact they have failed. But you embarked on that model, did you not? The whole essence of leadership is to have a view, to have the capacity to see a different world. In the early days, the slogans were ` 'The Treaty is a fraud.' And on reflection, of course, they were completely right. The fact that some found that disquieting, unsettling, was of, in all honesty, little consequence. The government could have gone the three years, but then other events intervened. There's always those eyeing the job. And as we know, while I was away, others were plotting. Is there a sense of betrayal, though? Betrayal's a very strong word. Your personal ratings had a massive... They were the lowest in polling history. Nobody will beat me either. I've got that, I'm sure, forever. Do I believe that the gap between those who have and those who don't at the moment is too big? Yes. This is why we are now getting mini revolutions around the world. The world has sat silent as they have pursued what's called neoliberal economic policies. And, in fact, they have failed. They have failed to produce economic growth, and what growth there has been has gone to the few at the top. I mean, there's never been such a concentration of wealth in the top 1% ` in fact half of 1% than there is in the world today. So demonstrably, that model needs to change. But you embarked on that model, did you not? No, no to... I mean, you can start down a road, but you don't have to follow that road. You actually have absolute rights to change and to vary and to modify polices. I mean, it would be ridiculous beyond belief to say policies we introduced in December 1990 are the factors that are delivering inequality to New Zealanders today. But if you deregulate a labour market, if you privatise assets, if you cut taxes, which all happened in the 1990s, then aren't you`? And since. Yes. Isn't that neoliberalism? Well, I... You can call it that if you want to. I don't have any problem with that. Do you call it that? I don't have any problem with calling it that. Well, let's call it what you'd like to call it. What would you call it? I just called it pragmatic policies to address an issue. But you believe now, sitting here today, that neoliberalism has failed. Absolutely. Jim Bolger swept to power in 1990 as voters punished Labour for a turbulent term when the country went through three prime ministers. The stock market had crashed in 1987. The Roger Douglas-led economic revolution had lost its appeal, and National won its most comprehensive victory since 1951. Voters never exactly embraced Jim Bolger, but over nearly three terms as prime minister, he was to drive massive economic and social reforms, reshape race relations and lead the country into the new era of MMP. But for a day in October 1990, and it was only for a day, the King Country farmer looked to have pulled down the curtain on the Rogernomics era with an old-fashioned touch ` the promise of a return to what he called 'the decent society'. I took over the leadership of the National Party in '86. I was already very apprehensive where the country was going under the Lange-Douglas leadership. I thought they were building castles in the air and not substance. Did you agree with what they were doing, with the thrust of what they were doing? No. A lot of it was wrong. I mean, of course, the thrust you can always argue to reduce this or that regulation and to liberalise something. Did you find that getting your vision across ` A Decent Society, I think that you termed it ` was that a hard message to sell? Well, absolutely, because while people could nod with that ` and I've always quite wondered how I got it past the National Party ` because I'm sure` well, I know they didn't all think that was a good slogan. But that captured, in a way, what I thought New Zealand should aim for. That's interesting, cos you say that as an aside that they didn't think that was a good slogan. Is that right? Oh, you can go on forever as to what it was or wasn't to some people. For me, what was more important, it captured something that we should aim to achieve. It was your idea? Yes, and a decent society is one where everybody gets a fair go. See, one of the great ethos of being a New Zealander, a Kiwi, is fairness. And it's very interesting. I've got a book in the bookshelf which is titled Fairness Or Freedom. Americans talk always about freedom. Every sentence has freedom in it. We talk much more about fairness, and I was in that concept of fairness as what I wanted. Not perhaps what you'd expect from a National Party leader ` especially one who led during Ruth Richardson's radical reforms. But the values that drove Jim Bolger stemmed from a childhood in the Taranaki ` the son of Irish-Catholic immigrants. In his marriage in 1963 to Joan, they moved north, and Jim Bolger soon moved into politics. Joan was an essential part of my leadership, but you have to go back quite a few years to my movement, our movement two years after we married to a new farm in Te Kuiti. A whole bunch of people approached me to stand for the National Party nomination. And I remember the discussion very well with Joan on that, because that was the crucial decision. We at that stage had five young children. The youngest, at that stage, was about 18 months. This was a huge call as to whether we would or we wouldn't. And Joan said, in effect,... 'Well, if that's where you think you can make some good or do some good, then I guess you better stand.' So I came in in opposition, then moved into government immediately after the '75 election that Rob Muldoon led the party to victory and was in government, uh, or in a leadership role in the party from that day forward. Those leadership lessons learned as Labour Minister back in the 1970s were pivotal years later in 1990, when Bolger found himself prime minister. On the Saturday night, he celebrated victory. But the next morning, the phone rang. 17 hours after I won the election, I had officials in panic in Wellington demanding to see me as the incoming prime minister that day, Sunday, and I said I'd be there on Monday. They rang back and said they had to see me Sunday afternoon. Contemplate that. Just won the biggest election victory in New Zealand's history, allegedly the books were balanced, the country's economy was in great shape ` that was the story the Mike Moore led Labour government had put out and his Finance Minister, David Caygill, up and down the country. All a fiction. All a lie. So the officials demanded ` there's no other word ` that I appear before them on Sunday afternoon, and I did. And quietly and with a pale face they said, 'You need to take over, Mr Bolger, 'because the Bank of New Zealand has to report by Friday. 'And if it's not given support by then, it will collapse.' And what did you say? I said, 'Not my problem. Go and see the prime minister ` he's Mr Moore, in case you don't know his name.' That's what I said to them ` 'Don't bother me. You knew this last week.' So they got a little paler, but they said, 'Prime Minister...' I said, 'No, I'm not prime minister.' Well, of course what I had to do ` I invited, I think, McKinnon, my deputy, Bill Birch and Ruth Richardson to come to Wellington that afternoon ` I'm not sure they all got there that afternoon ` and we started to work on a rescue package for the Bank of New Zealand. And Bank of New Zealand, at that stage, I think had 40% of the commercial paper in New Zealand. So if it collapsed, half of New Zealand's companies would have collapsed. It was that big a deal? It was that big a deal. It is hard, from the outside, in the distance of 20-some years, to realise the impact of being told, the day you become prime minister, that the country's broke, that what you thought was a strong economy was a weak economy, that the largest bank that you owned 80-some per cent of was bankrupt. You have to start changing your thinking very quickly at that stage. Do you remember how you actually felt at that time? Angry. Angry at the lies that had been told in the campaign, that I remember with great clarity, that the New Zealand public had been deluded... that we were running a surplus in the government's accounts and the balance sheet was fine. And you recall that the Minister of Finance and myself announced sometime in the next following month the introduction of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. And that was to require the Treasury before every election ` not the government, the Treasury themselves ` to release an update on the economy so no future elections could be run on that fraud. Why does it still make you so angry? Because the lie was so big. Because it derailed your prime ministership early on? Well, it derailed New Zealand. I mean, it was so dishonest. They'd part privatised the bank. I presume they took their eye off it, though they owned, overwhelmingly, 80% or something. And they let it get into lending practices that were non-sustainable. Simple as that. Just to push back on that a little bit, the bank had reported big losses quite recently. You must have known that there was some trouble in the bank ` at least at the BNZ, because it had` Never a suggestion, though, that it wasn't solvent. The only time that suggestion came was Sunday afternoon after the election. And it was, yeah, rather shattering advice to receive just after you had the euphoria of a very big election result, so, as I've said, my electoral honeymoon lasted 17 hours. And then we had to get down to the hard grind. So then you come forward, and we had to bring through some very tough measures. Tougher than anyone anticipated. For new Finance Minister Ruth Richardson, already keen to extend Roger Douglas' neoliberal reforms into social welfare, the threat of the BNZ collapsing was a political opportunity. For Bolger, it was a crisis and required drastic action ` starting with a broken promise and the most controversial decisions of his prime ministership. It is very clear that we must stop deluding ourselves about our wealth and stop spending money that we do not have. Well, you had to look at spending. And we did, and we reviewed a variety of the benefits that people were entitled to. We reduced some of them ` tried to do it as fairly as we could. And, of course, the huge controversial issue which people still don't forgive me for ` we backtracked on our election pledge that we'd get rid of the surtax on superannuation. Cos morally I could not justify it to myself that we would give a tax concession to the wealthy retirees ` which removing the surtax would do ` while we were taking some off those who were in much poorer circumstances. That was morally unacceptable to me, and I wouldn't do that. Now, as I say, some have never forgiven me yet for not taking off the surtax, but I sleep comfortably on that because I know it was absolutely the right thing to do. That was a big hit on your credibility that you took personally because you had said, 'No ifs, no buts, no maybes.' Correct. Mm. Mm. Absolutely. There was no equivocation on that. But that was the right thing to do, rather than giving money to those who could survive quite well without it, while you're taking it from those who are struggling ` couldn't justify that if you're talking about a fair and equitable society. And those retirees who, sort of, never forgave me, well, I'm sorry. But we have to deal with the cards we're dealt with, and clearly the cards we were dealt with on election day, or the day after the election, in 1990 were vastly different than the cards that were allegedly on the table the day before. The way National played its hand saw benefits cut five days before Christmas 1990, on average, by about $25 a week. Howls of outrage said the government went too far. So, did it? I haven't reflected in that detail at all. Can I ask you to? You can always go back and say, 'Well, maybe we could have done it with $20 a week or $18.50 or whatever it is.' What we tried to do, and we tried very hard to do it as fair as we could, is to say, 'How do we address these issues?' And we did it in that manner and took the hit on my personal, but really the government's, credibility by not removing the surtax and giving it to the wealthy. So, you know, those were calls we made. You have to weigh the issues on the circumstances of the time ` we're talking 1990. I think we made it as fair as we could. But you can always revisit it and come to a different conclusion. Was the welfare state too bloated? Was there not enough motivation to work? Was there some moral component of that? No. No. In fact, the Dominion had a wonderful headline, 'Welfare State in Tatters', which was a little over the top, I'd have to say, given the welfare state is still alive and well and vigorous in New Zealand today, and it was then. It was necessary adjustments. And any number of economists will come to a different mixture. That's inevitable. Necessary adjustments to face the reality. The reality was New Zealand was running out of money. Like it or dislike it, that was the reality. A lot of people will point to that year as the time when the gap between those who have money and those who don't have much money at all really started to open up ` inequality, if you like. Do you accept that? No, because if that was so, there's been another 20 years almost ` well, more ` to rectify it. I mean, if that was an over-correction, then governments ` my own and two others ` have had any other number of opportunities to correct that` Do you think they should've? ...when they weren't confronted with the drama of the BNZ and many, many other` There wasn't only the BNZ; I mean, the whole of the books were shocking. Sure. These were very controversial decisions, weren't they? And some pretty significant changes there. To what degree was Treasury,... Ruth Richardson, driving the mother of all budgets in '91? And to what extent was Jim Bolger driving it? The simple answer is, of course, every decision that went before Cabinet and then into the public as policy was passed through the Cabinet, and I lead Cabinet as Prime Minister, so there's no question mark that somehow either the Minister of Finance sneaked something around the back door. I mean, what we agreed to, we agreed to and went on with it. With Richardson, do you regret appointing her Finance Minister? No. No regrets there? No, I've got no regrets on that. I mean, no, I think we did a lot of good things in those first three years. In that same mini budget, National moved on its other contentious reform ` the Employment Contracts Act. Whereas Lange and Douglas had kept away from the labour market, the new government had no such compunctions. These were changes that Bolger had wanted to make since he was Labour Minister back in 1975. Long before the 1990 election, we had drafted the outline of the legislation, the Employment Contracts Act, to put greater responsibility back on the individual leadership in the unions and in the employers, rather than the central bodies. And of course it was controversial. And our Labour opponents said it was terrible and it was vicious and all the rest of it, but now, for years, we have very few strikes. People go to work. They know they're going to be employed. They know the job is there. They're not going to be on strike. They're not going to be on the picket line. People know the buses and the ferries and everything else will work. I mean, it's such a dramatic shift. And I think it's arguably one of the, uh, shifts that made the biggest input... into the success of the New Zealand economy ` I mean, it's had its ups and downs, but ` since 1990. So you would credit that legislation as one of the major elements of New Zealand's economic reform and, in your view, economic success over that time? Without question. And it was interesting that the Helen Clark Labour government only settled around the edges on that. People would argue that it has dramatically reduced union participation in New Zealand. Did you think it would have that impact? We're now, something below 20%, aren't we, in terms of participation in unions. Indeed, was that the desired effect? No, that wasn't a goal. I mean, I've said endlessly that unions had a role and a function to play. I absolutely believe that workers have absolute rights to organise themselves to have a common voice if that's what they want. And I could argue that, in fact, unions are probably too small now to have the influence they should have. Really? You believe they're too small? I think they probably are. I haven't studied this, but, I mean, really, what the employees ` what the workers ` have to decide is what they want as their voice. Do they want a different voice? I mean, there's no question looking at the world today that there is a growing imbalance between the few who get all the money and the rest, who don't. And that's documented everywhere, and it's leading to the, uh, disruption in political systems across the world ` or across the developed world. There's also some evidence that wage growth was possibly kept low by the Employment Contracts Act. Do you accept that? Well, probably in the early stages. But then we had to make adjustments to an economy that was heading for bankruptcy. But I mean, the simple fact is that, um, we had enormous imbalance in where wealth was going back then. We then had... It all ended with the '87 crash. And, um, what used to be considered, uh, rock-solid stock market shares... dropped by about two-thirds or three-quarters to four-fifths. And it all collapsed in a mess because it was all just held up by, frankly, bullshit and hot air... and no substance. And that's what we inherited. So you had to make change. But after almost a decade of constant revolution, New Zealanders were wary heading into the 1993 election. Having promised the decent society, Bolger had delivered benefit cuts, labour protests and broken his surtax promise. He and his government were unpopular, yet his saving grace was that he was up against a Labour Party still unforgiven and at odds with itself. After a frantic campaign between Bolger and Mike Moore, election night was too close to call. What I could have said was, 'Bugger the pollsters.' It'll be a long night for Mr Bolger and Mrs Richardson, but it won't be as long ` this colder night ` as it has been for all the young people in this country since they were elected. From a back room at the Te Kuiti Arts Centre, Jim Bolger picked up the phone and called his opponent. Mike... Mike was not in a good space. And, uh, he, uh, obviously had pinned his hope on winning. Labour had led all through the three years, just about. Didn't happen. This might sound like a redundant question, but you called Mike Moore? Cos usually it'd be the other way around, wouldn't it? Yes, but life was different because we had a split in New Zealand. The polls were` The parties were about even. No government was going to be elected that night. I think David Lange said that it was the best speech I'd given ever was the speech I gave to the nation that night to get calmness and sense to the country. We're just gonna wait a little longer before we knew who was government. Was not the '93 election result a bit of a pox on both your houses? It was certainly a... Well, it was a miracle we got back because we'd been so far behind. They were saying we're going through Europe when the worst poll came out, and I think we were at 21% or something. And your personal ratings had a massive hit. Oh, they were the lowest in polling history. You know, I mean... You had 7%, 8%, 9% preferred PM. What can I say? Lowest in polling history. Nobody'll beat me either. (CHUCKLES) I've got that, I'm sure, forever. But that comes back to then... having the conviction and the courage to say, 'Yes, this is working. It will work, and I can sell it to the New Zealand public.' But there was one thing that Bolger decided he couldn't sell to the New Zealand public ` another three years of Ruth Richardson as Finance Minister. The time has come to recognise that the big moves are behind us and a different style of management is called for. Well, I just believe that Ruth's skills, uh, were not going to be applicable,... suitable,... empathetic with a different Parliament. When you have a Parliament with a huge majority, you've got one thing. When you've got a Parliament with razor-thin majority and you know that's going to change, you know in the lead up to MMP a few months later on ` well, three years later on ` but the process was starting then, that night; you would need different personalities and different skills. And I believed I had such a person in the Cabinet in Bill Birch, who would be able to manage that. Big call for you to do that. Yes. I didn't expect Ruth to leave, but when she decided she was going to leave, well, that was life. I'd had exactly the same problem with Rob Muldoon, who wouldn't accept a position outside Cabinet, so he left. Good on him. The two Rs had somewhat similar personalities, in a way. After the drama on the night, Bolger ended up with a working majority of just one. But overshadowing all that was the fact that New Zealanders had voted to ditch the first-past-the-post electoral system in favour of proportional representation. The MMP era had begun. I think it was a mistake to run such an important referendum, constitutional referendum as MMP alongside a general election. I think the issue is so big, it should have been separate. I didn't think that at the time. I gave no thought to it actually, you know. You're looking for what is the simplest and cheapest way to do it. But on reflection, I think that was a mistake. And I think you reflected that MMP had come early, in a way. It had. I don't know how many coalition governments I'd formed in that period between '93 and '96. I mean, you had the right of centre party formed. You had one Christian Conservative, and then you had another Christian party. Then a whole lot of them went off and formed the United Party or something. Each and every time, I had to form another coalition government. (BOTH CHUCKLE) Back to MMP. You were never a supporter. No. No, I, uh... I thought MMP was... Well, let me go back one. I strongly supported moving to some form of proportional representation. I thought the first past the post had demonstrably gone to the end of the road. And that was particularly in '81, when social credit got about 20% of vote and two seats in Parliament. You can't say that is fair representation, no matter how you mix and mangle your words. So proportional representation, I was interested in. I was more interested, however, in terms of the structure of Parliament, to have an elected second chamber to get the balance in Parliament. We're the only Western-style democracy of our kind with a single house. Doug Graham, my good friend, Doug Graham and I, uh, reflected once or twice or three times whether or not we would have an elected second chamber that would be 50/50 Maori/non-Maori to reflect, you know, the partnership concept which the Court of Appeal had articulated in the judgment that, uh, Justice Cooke had brought down, uh, was the intent of the Treaty. How far did that proposal go? Between Doug and myself, but nobody else, because, you know, it clearly wasn't going to get traction within the party or frankly, within society, but` Would you like to have that today? I think we're making great progress where we are today, so why upset it? Do you think MMP has been good for New Zealand on the balance? We had to move to something, and it's much better than first past the post. I think one of the factors that has meant that New Zealand has not got into some of the turmoil, like the United States, for example, or even Britain with Brexit, is that, in fact, there is a multiple party system. And people can express their views to different parties who have different values, different policies, ambitions and agendas, and I think it has been a very valuable asset for New Zealand going through this quite tumultuous period in world affairs. Yeah, because you don't waste your vote in that sense, do you? I mean, if 20% of America votes for one candidate, they might not have any representation at all. And that pressure builds up, right? Yes, and that's exactly my point. The pressure builds up, and, of course, America was just always ultimately the two-party system, and only 50% ever vote on a good day, so they have almost abandoned democracy, which is a terrible thing to say, but, you know, when you're only getting 50% vote, they're getting close to abandoning democracy. That's a big call. You were ambassador to America. You've got a lot of knowledge of America. You're saying that America has almost abandoned democracy. Well, I'm just going on the facts. If half of them don't bother to vote,... they are saying it doesn't make any difference. And if you're saying it doesn't make any difference, then you're saying the system doesn't work. That's just the logical equation. I'm sure Americans who do vote believe that's a total false analysis, but I believe countries that have very low voting ` and our voting is falling ` have to ask some hard questions. Why do a sizeable proportion think it's not worthwhile? And I think that's a hard question that most political parties want to avoid. Australia resolved that a long time ago ` they made compulsory voting. What do you think about that? Well, I used to oppose it, I'll be perfectly honest, but now when I look at the world, I'm wondering whether in fact it's not a requirement of citizenship that you vote. You believed, as I understand it, uh, that we no longer needed the Maori seats if we had MMP, and, at the time,... you went back and said that you were wrong to agree to five Maori seats, rather than them being abolished. Is that still your position? The Royal Commission said with the MMP and the Maori Party` the Maoris, rather, Maoris being able to form their own party, then the five special seats, which have been there for an awful long time, no longer were required. I disagreed with the Royal Commissioner that time, but now, when it's very clear that Maori can establish their own party ` more than one party, in fact ` I think the need now for separate Maori seats designated such has passed. As Bolger began wrestling with this new way of doing politics, he began asking New Zealanders to wrestle with some much older issues. Honouring the Treaty of Waitangi, previously a catch-cry of the left, became perhaps the defining legacy of his time in power as he took his party in a new direction on race relations. I don't know where you put the starting point... of me looking seriously at what we hadn't done in New Zealand,... and I often use the starting point of the early Waitangi Day celebrations that we used to attend as Members of Parliament. And in the early days, the slogans were, 'The Treaty is a fraud'. And on reflection, of course, they were absolutely right, because what the Treaty promised hadn't been delivered. To that extent it was a fraud. And then it move and shifted to, 'Honour the Treaty', which is really where, I think, you could say the work that I and others have done has moved to take New Zealand with us to honour the Treaty, the commitments that were entered into. In 1994 Bolger tried to cap the cost of settling grievances in what became known as the fiscal envelope. We started then with Tainui. Let me take you back one step. Of course, we're having discussions in government, how much this should cost. Treasury, and then Minister thought very little. And that one Cabinet committee meeting where this was being discussed, Doug was clearly distressed at how little was being suggested. And he turned to me and he said words to the effect of, 'Well, what are you going to do, Jim? I said, 'Well, I'm not walking away. I have no intention of walking away. And I don't know what is the right amount, but I suggest we should start thinking of a billion dollars, and then we can start talking to reclaim it and start to work things out. And just to put that in context, the reading I've done suggests that Ruth Richardson started at zero and moved to 400 million. Is that the sort of context that you remember? The 400s sound about right. I doubt if zero's right, but, I mean, I'm not sure it was as high as 400 million, to be honest. In other words, very little compared to` Relative to the need. Despite heated hui and fierce protests, negotiations continued. And in 1995, Tainui settled with the Crown for $170 million and a formal apology for the invasion of the Waikato. That broke the logjam, and Ngai Tahu followed suit the next year. But as the 1996 election approached, unease within party ranks was growing. When we started to make progress in the settlement of Ngai Tahu, um, we were getting closer to the '96 election,... and the members of the party in the South Island, including Members of Parliament and senior people in the party were terribly nervous about settling before the election ` this would cost us all sorts of votes` They threatened you, didn't they? They wrote to you. Well, they wrote me a long letter, but I've had lots of long letters. Long letters are not serious. Essentially saying what, you'll lose thousands of votes? Well, yes, they said we'd lose seats and votes and all the rest of it. And I told them that we wouldn't. And this is where uncertainly has a debilitating effect on people's thinking. Cos they're uncertain what the outcome was. I was totally certain what the outcome was. The Maori were going to continue to live as they are till they got the settlement done properly, and then they'd move forward. Did that opposition extend to your own ministers? Oh yes. Of course, I had ministers who were totally dubious about Bolger's settling these Treaty claims. Um,... but I never had any doubts that we had to do it. The fact that some found that disquieting,... unsettling was of,... in all honesty, little consequence. There was a much bigger goal that we had to achieve, and that was to bring honour back to the Crown, to New Zealand, that we would, in fact, carry through and do what we said we'd do all those years ago when the Treaty was signed. Will these stand the test of time, or do we face the prospect of future generations saying, 'Well, look, we didn't get enough'? Entirely up to us. The question's legitimate that if Maori still make up the great percentage of the bottom 20% or 25% of New Zealand, then you can expect someone to ask the question again, because it means the society has failed. You have a strong belief too about the power of language` Yes. ...and the... value of Te Reo Maori being taught in schools. I said every child should be taught Maori in primary school. I still believe that. Half the countries of the world that we consider to be developing; underdeveloped, you know, impoverished nations, their youngsters are speaking three languages. We have convinced ourselves as a society that to, uh, teach everybody Maori would be a terrible burden on society. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. I wondered what your thoughts were when you listened to the Orewa speech and looked at the fallout from another National Party leader, Don Brash at that time. And it was met politically with huge reward for, um, expressing his views, at that point. What did you think when you saw that? I disagreed with it. I mean, but you could go right up to date and look at Donald Trump. He's just won the election in the United States by victimising the poor. Whether they are Muslim poor or Hispanic poor, that's in essence what he's done. And I just think that's a terrible, terrible way to try and run a country. And you saw the Orewa speech in that frame? Oh, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as Trump, but it was in that frame again. And that same gentleman is in the same space again talking about Hobson's promise or something, I mean, as if somehow or other, when Hobson said when he shook hands with the Maori chiefs when they signed the Treaty, 'We are now one people.' He iwi tahi tatou ` we are now one people, as if that answered everything. So we know have a right to steal all your land and your property and your goods. I mean, how absurd can you get? But some people follow absurdity. How do you feel about the track in progress of the Maori/Pakeha relationship now? I think we are in much better shape, but we shouldn't be complacent. There are still those who can't see any need for it, and I just mentioned one of them. I mean, there are still those who, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension, are fearful that if Maori do well, somehow or other the rest of us will do poorly. It's absolutely the reverse. That quest for national identity was underpinned by Bolger's firm commitment to republicanism, including our own Supreme Court and honours system. He didn't have the numbers in his time, but laid the ground for those reforms under Helen Clark. I think you have to be brave enough to let go of some things, going forward. Every child has to let go of their parent at some stage, in the sense of, totally dependant on when they're very small, less dependant as they go through life. And then, you know, they have to go and make their own way in the world. And to you that extends to republicanism. Of course. I mean, if you were sitting down with a square sheet of paper, and somebody said, 'Draw up a constitution or political framework of New Zealand,' and you'd say, 'I've got it all worked out. 'Everything will happen here in New Zealand, in the islands of Aotearoa, New Zealand, but except, 'the head of state, we'll put as far away as possible.' And you'd say, 'Well, why do you do that?' So again, we inherited it. And that's not being critical in any shape or form of Her Majesty the Queen, who I think is an extraordinary person, quite extraordinary person, and I have had the great privilege of meeting her many times, but the structure is no longer fit for purpose. While Bolger was a committed friend to New Zealand's traditional allies as prime minister, in the mid-1990s, he made the then-bold claim that New Zealand was part of Asia. It caused an uproar. When I answered a question at a big conference of a thousand economists in Hong Kong, and I was talking about New Zealand's engagement with Asia, and I said that New Zealand was, obviously, now more focused on Asia, the opportunities and possibilities of our relationship with Asia. And someone said to me, 'How can you?' This is from the back of the hall, a question, 'You are so far away.' And I said, 'No, no. From our perspective, we are close to Asia. We see ourselves as part of Asia.' Well, needless to say, that was covered. And I had all sorts of people offering to send me a map so that I could see in the world where New Zealand was. But it was controversial at the time, wasn't it? It was very controversial. But, you see, again, leaders are only of value... if they see a little further with the knowledge they have than others might see. I mean, that's the purpose of leadership. There's no use saying, 'Come follow me,' if you don't know where you're going. And a leader has an obligation to know where they're going. Do we miss that a little now, where we seem to be driven by what the polling groups are going to say and how this is going to reflect politically? Well, I think poll are a distraction. Well, they're a distraction. I... firmly believe that if you are... careful and you have worked on the issues and feel confident of your knowledge on the issues, going out in front and saying, 'Come follow me,' on this or that particular issue is not a dangerous position to be in. Yes, you could say that I lost my prime ministership because various people thought I was moving too far in front. Maybe I was. But I don't regret for a moment... that I kept moving in front. Because from my perspective, that's the role of a leader. Just whether National would lead the country again after the first MMP election was very much in doubt as the 1996 campaign approached. On election night, National had 33% of the vote and Labour 28%. It was New Zealand First that held the balance of power. Few thought that Winston Peters would do a deal with the party he'd walked out on just three years earlier, but Jim Bolger was one of them. It could have been portrayed as a disaster for Labour. They could have said they got the lowest percentage of the vote that they'd had since 1931. So I was amazed at the media's enthusiasm that Helen Clark was going to form the next government. Obviously, she had a possibility of doing that, but the, sort of, I knew that as the largest party, that gave you some leverage. I knew equally that with New Zealand First that National and New Zealand First could form a government, where a Labour-led government had to have three parties in it. I thought that was a huge benefit to us. But as we know, it took two months of negotiations. But many, looking from the outside, thought that what was regarded as a personal animosity between you and Mr Peters would prove the stumbling block. You had sacked him as a minister. He'd formed his own party. He'd railed against National right through that time. His number two had said he'd never sit around a Cabinet table with Bill Birch or Jenny Shipley or any of these people. How was it that you came from that position to doing a deal with Winston Peters? Leadership. The skills of leadership to bring people to the acceptance of what was the right and best way forward. And this took us a lot of time, and I wasn't the only one involved, but finally, it happened when Winston and I sat down and had a really long discussion right at the end of the whole process. Can you tell me about that? There was many gathered. We were in Winston's office. We went across to see him. Many gathered, but they all finally drift away. There's a sense that comes into people in such circumstances that they're no longer relevant. They're redundant to this discussion. They quietly drift away. So at the end of this, there was Winston Peters and myself there, and we talked through the difficult days, the hard days, the harsh things that had been said etc and so forth and agreed we could work. He didn't say then, 'Jim, look, I'm coming with you,' no. But I think we buried a lot of the ghosts of the past,... and that led to his party's agreement to forming a government with National. You knew you had it in the bag then, do you think, that night? No, I wouldn't say that. Winston played his cards against his chest until the last moment. In fact, he was announcing it to the public before he Tau Henare came across with a letter to me. I think they were about simultaneously. So no, no, Winston was always going to play it very close to his chest. Did you offer too much? No, I don't think so. I mean, it was inevitable that the leader of the second party would be the deputy prime minister. Nobody had any debate about that. That was gonna happen. And I was very happy for Winston to have ` we created the Treasurer's position. I was very happy for Winston to have that. He would have very strong advisors out at the Treasury providing input into his decision making. And my colleague Bill Birch would do a lot of the detailed work as the minister of finance. I knew that would work. I knew Bill had the capacity to make that work. And so in that space, I was very comfortable with that arrangement. Do you trust Winston Peters? Yes. When we had our discussion. We got rid of all that. We knew we had to trust each other. We had to be supportive of each other. And how would you describe your relationship with him? We worked perfectly well together, uh, during the year or so that I led the coalition government, no issues at all. I have absolute confidence that the government could have gone the three years of the electoral cycle, but then other events intervened. They did, but you knew early on that you could rely on him in government, as you started that coalition government? Yes. Not all my colleagues were so optimistic. They were resentful? They were absolutely ecstatic on the night that they were going to become part of a government again. They had been ministers and so forth and so on, but some of them rapidly forgot that. There was still a wide, high level of, uh, I guess,... oh, unease about the whole question of MMP. I remember 50% almost voted against it. And most of those would have come from the conservative side of politics. So yeah, there were people who went out there and played to that audience. You had accused him of racism during that campaign. Very strongly. I disagreed entirely with his approach to Asians in Auckland and blaming Asians on many of the problems of Auckland. I cannot abide racism. I cannot abide people judging others by the colour of their skin or their ethnicity or their culture. That, I find very, very objectionable. It's intuitively objectionable. And I made that very clear in one hard-hitting speech in Parliament about Winston, so yeah. Where does that come from in you? I just think one of the great evils of world society is racism, and we're seeing it expressed in so many different ways all round the world now, it's, I guess, the undermining of a stable world society is racism. The falling out of Brexit was because immigrants were coming in. The whole campaign in America was, who can we victimise? Do you think that New Zealand risks these kinds of issues around immigration? It is often debated here, but not debated at a nasty level quite yet. Thank God we don't debate it at this moment. Well, we have had nasty episodes. We had dawn raids on Pacific Islanders. We've got over that now. Most of them play for the All Blacks, so everybody's happy now. But we had that. We certainly had that period when people were looking at Asian migrants as the problems of Auckland were blamed on them. I think we're fortunate we haven't gone there, but being fortunate is not enough. We have to consciously put in front of New Zealanders the reality of what we need in this country. And we are and we will continue to be even more so multicultural society. Nobody in New Zealand comes from timid ancestors. The timid ancestors stayed home in the original country. That's the reality. It was the ones who had courage to come. That's why I have extraordinary admiration for refugees. They are prepared to forego everything to try and get a better life for themselves and normally for their families. I believe it is probable that somewhere out there, the son or daughter of a refugee will become prime minister of New Zealand. Such is the possibilities within New Zealand, uh, if we don't stop them. Do you think we should be taking more? Yes. Without question. The government knows my view on that too. Did you give them a bit of an ear-bashing? No, I don't ear-bash them; I just very infrequently offer a comment. I think the world has to address the refugee crisis with have far more compassion that has been shown in the past. I mean, we just haven't been willing to confront that reality. After forming New Zealand's first MMP government, tensions began to rise, and Bolger was confront a reality of his own ` the National-New Zealand First coalition was unpopular, and Bolger's own MPs started to fear the result in 1999 if they left him in charge. Within a year of the election, talk of a coup started to grow. There's always those eyeing the job. I mean, that goes with the top of almost any organisation, particularly when you've been there a long time. And I was approaching 12 years ` a very long time to be head of a political party. We'd negotiated the coalition, the government I thought was going forward well on with the agreed agenda. We'd lost the vote on the referendum on compulsory superannuation, and that did divide the caucus and Cabinet, because people shifted their position. The situation was I in Europe. And as we know, while I was away, others were plotting, and I was advised of that when I landed in Auckland. And you land on Flight SQ285 at 11.25 on November the 1st 1997, to be greeted by Doug Graham. Doug came and told me ` he was there to meet me ` and said there was a leadership coup going on, and he understood they were claiming they had the numbers. I, uh, went home, told Joan ` well, she was with me on the plane ` and talked to, uh, the family and talked to many others and decided having against having an open caucus vote on the matter, which many of my staunch supporters said I would win. But I said to myself, I said to Joan, 'We have been in this position now for approaching 12 years,' 11.5 probably at that stage, and, uh, I said no,... that it wasn't what I was gonna do. It would divide the party, obviously, and that I would step down. So I was probably the calmest in the room. Others were very agitated to get to clear commitments and so forth and so on. That didn't bother me at all. And there was a risk, was there not, of the coalition dissolving at that point? Well, Winston Peters was very angry, very unhappy. And he said, of course, truthfully, nobody had talked to him. He was a key part of the government, and nobody thought of talking to him. Maybe it was another example of not talking to Maori ` I don't know. And Winston was very unhappy. And as you know, the coalition lasted a very short time, and it fell apart, which didn't surprise me at all. Is there a sense of betrayal, though, when something like that happens? Betrayal's a very strong word. I think the real word I would use is huge disappointment that nobody had the courage to come and say, 'Jim, 'when are you thinking of leaving? 'There's some of us think that we need to have a new leader for A, B, C and D ` 'whatever reasons there are.' That discussion never happened? That discussion never happened. Why is it done that way, or why was it done that way? I mean, we had the famous plotting and, you know, Te Puke bypass folder and all these sorts of clandestine meetings. Is that the way that politics just has to be? No. I don't think it does, but there you go ` that's the way it seems to happen. I don't think it does. But, of course, by doing it in the messy way that we did, we then went into, what, four leaders before we could win an election, lost the next three elections in a row, got demolished in 1999,... 2002, crawl back in 2005. John Key won in 2008. So it does a lot of damage when you do that. Absolutely. Demonstrably, it's going to do damage. And, um,... the thought ` if it was the thought ` of those who engineered the coup against me that then they'd just go on and win the next election, I have no idea what they would be basing it on. But there you go ` people make their own decisions. It is quite a challenging constitution or even democratic situation, isn't it? Because in that sort of situation the prime minister of the country, the leader of the country is effectively being elected by, I don't know, in that case, 43 MPs or whatever the number was. But all recent examples of 43 MPs or 48 MPs or whatever electing the leader has failed. I mean, Geoffrey Palmer became leader under those circumstances. Mike Moore became leader under those circumstances. Jenny Shipley became leader under those circumstances, and they each went to their defeat at the next election, so the public obviously doesn't buy that argument very well. Jim Bolger retired from Parliament in 1998 after 26 years, seven of them as prime minister. Looking back over his time, two terrible tragedies stand out. One the second week, which was the Aramoana shooting. 13 or 14 shot dead by someone who'd gone berserk with a gun. And all you could do was walk amongst the community, the bloodstains still on the ground. And there's no place you feel more inadequate. What do you do? What can you say to a community like that, who have just seen their own murdered in front of their eyes? Including the local policemen. So that was the first one. And then Cave Creek, which in some ways might have been even worse. Uh, the platform was inadequately built. They had carted the bolts up and not used them, and the platform was held together by nails. And maybe there were a few too many young people on it or not, but if it had have been built properly, it would have carried them. So you knew that afterwards. Denis Marshall had been an extraordinary honourable man, offered to resign almost immediately. And I said, 'Denis, that won't solve anything. 'I want you to look back and make sure it doesn't happen again.' That was a mistake. Not because it was Dennis' fault ` honourable as any man who went into Parliament. But because there was, I'm sure, in the minds of some of these hurt families, destroyed families, a sense that nobody was taking responsibility. And it's this somewhat symbolic accepting responsibility for events that you have no say over other than you're the titular head for a time being of an organisation that I think would have been more helpful to the families if I'd accepted Denis' offer to resign. Norman Kirk once said that what people want is a job, someone to love, somewhere to live and something to hope for. What do you think voters want from political leaders? They want a sense that they are being listened to. We want to achieve. We want to be able to proudly claim our place in the world. But to do that, you have to answer the basic needs ` are we providing homes for everybody of a suitable quality? We're struggling desperately at the moment. Have we got employment for them all? Are we dealing with those who are less fortunate? I mean, those are the great challenges of the measure of a society ` it's not how you deal with the bright people. They will always succeed. How are you dealing with those who are less gifted? How do we deal with those who in the terminology of some are somewhere on the margins of society? And how do you think we're doing? I think we get a mixed report. And I've said this as I was stepping down as prime minister ` you judge a society, in my view, on whether you're building more prisons to lock people up or whether you're building more schools or centres of learning to educate them. Well, unfortunately we're building more prisons. That is not a measure of success. And that is one of your regrets, as I understand it, that you weren't able to do more in that space. Absolutely. I mean, it demonstrably is a huge... cross on New Zealand's record that we have so many people in prison, and we're planning to put a lot more. We have listened too much to those who see solutions in locking people up for longer. The nonsense of the 'three strikes and you're out' law is absurdity beyond belief. There is an unwillingness of certain people of certain dispositions to learn even the simple lessons of history, that locking people up for long periods does not solve society's ills. We sometimes find it difficult to look into a society and find why it is so many are committing crimes of whatever kind or another. And I think we have a lot of work to do in that space and we should get on with it. And the biggest challenge facing New Zealand today? The biggest challenge in societies like ours is to welcome in others from different cultures and value systems,... histories and religions and make them all feel New Zealanders. Because that is going to happen anyhow. And I think you could argue the challenge is to grow the economy an X% a year or whatever it is and almost mundane by comparison, because there's various ways you can do that. But I think the sense of people feeling they are important in this society, and their lifestyle reflects that acknowledgement of their importance. We have to listen more carefully to those who are left on the margins, and that's a lesson we should easily learn looking across the world. We must listen to those who are left on the margin at the moment and bring them back into the mainstream. Did we get to the decent society that you strove for? Always a work in progress. A decent society is always going to be a work in progress. I believe we made progress. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017.