At the moment when that change occurred, it was, 'There's been a change of Prime Minister 'and a change of agenda. Can this defy the nine-year rule?' Leadership had many interpretations. You reach out, you step forward, you step up, you solve problems. Every leader, I'm sure, gets caught in moments in history, although I tended to have my fair share of it. Did I want the job? Um... I was not a child who grew up saying, 'I'm going to be Prime Minister.' But every day I was a leader, long before I went into politics. I often say to people, 'The Prime Ministership doesn't define Jenny Shipley, 'it is a cloak I wore. I was a leader, I led. 'I believe in leadership, not political occupancy.' (INTRIGUING MUSIC) I called Bill Burch when I had the numbers and said, 'Bill, I need you to know that on Tuesday, 'I'll be putting a challenge for the leadership on the table. And, by the way, I have the numbers.' The farm girl in me was extremely clear that day, because I had said I would not disrupt the media. We could do this one of three ways ` we could go to Tuesday or if there was any dispute and any malicious behaviour, I would go downstairs and call a press conference and demonstrate I had the numbers, because I had them, and literally trigger it, or we could do it appropriately. And a number of colourful personalities threw toys in all directions that evening. But Jim Bolger never asked me to show him the names, because I think he knew that the numbers were there, and in the end, he and I had a private conversation in what was a very sensitive circumstance, and it's a conversation I value to this day. But it was what I would hope and expect from the National Party, as two leaders who, in a moment in time, realised that they had to make something work both publically and personally. How does it feel being part of something like that? It's what leaders do. Take power? Fulfil your obligation to deliver what people expect. I did not wake up every morning thinking, 'I am going to take power from Jim Bolger.' I woke up every morning weighed down with the sense of obligation of 'Can I and will I do this?' Because there was such a high level of expectation on me. Why did you want the job? (CHUCKLES) It's an interesting question. Did I want the job? Um... It had become inevitable. Which sounds odd, but it had become inevitable. That places you as a bystander, which I find difficult to accept. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, I'm not a bystander. When I say it was inevitable, it was that my leadership skills and my drive and my ability to bring people with me would be used. (POIGNANT MUSIC) On the night of December 7 1997, Jenny Shipley and her team rode the lifts to the Beehive's ninth floor to meet with Jim Bolger ` the final steps in a meticulously planned coup. The next day, Shipley became New Zealand's first woman Prime Minister. Already a divisive figure due to her role in the health and welfare reforms of the early '90s, Shipley has seldom talked about her two years in power, but her path to the top started at home. Well, I was raised in an all-girl family, and you did everything, and people expected you to succeed, and I expected myself to succeed, and I had our first child, Anna, and she was beautiful and straightforward and easy. I thought we'd have a dozen of them. Benjamin was a very difficult birth, and very life-threatening. And after that, because of that, I had several days where I wasn't able to deal with him, and it led to a post-natal depression. I learnt a lot about myself in that period, where you can be present, but not engaged. Everybody is seeing you as the mother of this beautiful child, and you're doing what you have to do, but post-natal depressions are like any depression ` extremely debilitating, and yet, often not obvious. Was part of the journey to lifting yourself out of that or helping you move forward the entry into politics? No, no. If you'd known my father and also my sisters ` I'm one of four, I'm number two of four ` and, look, we were raised that leaders lead. Things happen, but leaders then pick up what happens and make the best of it. And, so there was a culture of opinion-forming, the contest of ideas, and then action following. So the leadership intent that I had innately and developed, just simply reoccurred in different settings. That event around Ben's birth, I had some learnings, but they were just part of a very large tapestry. That's really interesting. So you're saying that you had this innate desire or feeling that you` Expectation. ...had a leadership role? An expectation, even. Expectation. My father expected us to lead. I was raised in a manse, and Sunday lunch would have anyone who my mother decided to bring home. And so leadership had many interpretations of ` 'You reach out, you step forward, you step up, 'You solve problems.' So did a young girl, at that time, believe that she could be Prime Minister? It didn't occur to me. I was not a child who grew up saying, 'I'm going to be Prime Minister.' But every day I was a leader, long before I went into politics. Did you smash the glass ceiling in the sense that you made it easier for Helen Clark to become Prime Minister? Or made it easier for other women to become Prime Minister, do you think? Oh, look. Kate Sheppard broke the first step insofar as she demanded we have a chance to vote. Marilyn Waring, I think, in the National Party broke a ceiling. And Ruth Richardson and I and other women in the party came through. I think from a leadership point of view, yes, you could say that having broken that glass ceiling, it was seen as not exceptional that Helen would follow, and I hope others will follow again. But we stand on the shoulders of others. We don't do these things by ourselves. Jenny Shipley and her new husband, Burton, joined the National Party in the early 1970s, and she won the safe National seat of Ashburton in 1987, and entered Parliament even as National lost heavily to David Lange's Labour government. But three years and three Prime Ministers later, National won in a 76-seat landslide. Shipley, then 38 years old and a mother of two, became minister of the country's highest-spending ministry, Social Welfare. For me, it was being a mother and investing in that future had other dimensions as to why I came into politics. I was really anxious in the '80s that we were living in a debt-ridden and accumulating debt-ridden environment, and I couldn't see how the next generation of New Zealanders were going to have their fair chance if a group of political leaders didn't get a hold of this. So it struck me, that as a generation in our 30s and early 40s, we had to get New Zealand back on track ` back into surplus, debt down, not one generation squandering the next generation's view. And that was very personal, so I would look at these two little people and think, 'Actually, this matters. And I can make a difference by my being involved 'and bringing what skills and leadership capability I have to those ideas.' Her first years as minister were defined by a different kind of mother ` Ruth Richardson's 1991 'mother of all budgets' and National's mini austerity budget immediately after the party took power. As welfare minister, Shipley delivered benefit cuts of up to 25%. Universal family benefits went all together. The age of entitlement to superannuation rose from 60 to 65. Newspapers said the welfare state as in tatters. I understand the headline. You may remember that I probably repeated at least 10,000 times in those first 100 days that you cannot have people earning more on welfare than they're receiving at work. Because that imbalance had started to occur. And so we had to go back and carve all that, do the analysis of where the wages were, where the incremental nature of welfare had got to, and the age of superannuation. There were a group of things that we put on the table, and then we decided to act. And, so the idea behind it was, bluntly, that if we pay people too much in benefits, then they won't bother going out to look for work. No, look. The idea behind it was we had been in deficit for 17 years, and Caygill had told us in the then Labour government that we were heading towards surplus which was patently a lie. And we have come in saying, 'We are going to get New Zealand back, reducing the debt we've accumulated 'so generations of the future won't have their opportunities squandered, and we're going to pay our way.' One appreciates the needs to balance the books, but what do you say to someone who would question why those with the least money had to bear such a burden? There was no question. It was a very difficult time, and every member of the Cabinet understood that. I walked with agencies that we worked with to help us make this work, because we did a whole series of things of far more support for budget advisory services. There was a plethora of interventions, and we knew that we were making a fundamental change to people's expectations. But leadership requires you to do that. I mean, where would New Zealand be today had we not made a whole series of decisions around` Remember the Labour market reform happened as well, the tax reform, the welfare reform. These were not in isolation. They were a package of changes that said to New Zealand, 'We are not on the bassinet of Britain any more. 'We have to grow up and stand alone. We can't squander a future generation's chance just because we're lazy or it's too hard. We can solve some of these problems, but it will be difficult. But do you accept that it did increase inequality? And, actually, that's the point, is it not, that you've been getting at? That there had to be an inequality between those who worked and those who didn't. Remember. the group of people on welfare and the numbers fell. So when you use the word 'inequality' there are many dimensions to this. We had very high unemployment, so it was a very difficult time, and unemployment went up even further, as we made the economic adjustments, to 12%. But they then very rapidly came down again. So when you use the word 'inequality', you've gotta look at who is where and whether or not the circumstances, then, make them think about taking action. I've had many family say, 'It was very difficult.' I've also had many families say, 'I decided to go back to study because I realised it was now such a gap 'that I needed to earn more for my children, and so I took personal action that delivered change.' And that is what was needed? They need a bit of a stick, is that what you're saying? No, no. Let's not put words of history back into the frame. So I guess what I'm saying to you is no one found that easy. I can tell you that there was no pleasure in being required to do the things that we did. And yet, doing what is right to see New Zealand able to adapt through major global economic change, be growing at a rate much higher than others now, being far more agile when global pressure comes on because we did some fundamental things which no government ` Labour or National ` changed fundamentally beyond that. That our labour pillars, our tax pillars, our welfare pillars ` while they evolve on the margin, this was a step change which has allowed us to be who we are today. And, look, we can argue the detail, but if you were to ask me now would we do it again if we were faced with the same circumstances, we would of course do it again. Because we had to do it again. I don't want my children or grandchildren to be living with less of an opportunity than they have now. So sometimes you have to do the hard thing, which is right, not the mindless thing which may be popular, but actually is a terribly legacy to the next generation. I'm glad, even if it's a difficult set of headlines that I have to live with, that I did the right thing. I don't want my grandchildren to be burdened with debt or think that my generation was selfish and left them to do with less. How much of those welfare reforms were driven by you, and how much by Ruth Richardson? (LAUGHS) Isn't it interesting that people want to poke the torch at the girls in the family? Oh, no, just that she was the finance minister and she held the purse strings. I'm wondering, you were the portfolio minister, and I'm wondering what` We` Look, let's start back where we` ...where the drive was. We were a Cabinet. I hadn't singled out the two of you. Well, it's interesting. If you go back and look at the commentary,... Maybe I haven't. the lazily rhetoric actually almost gravitated. Do you feel that way? No, no. It's an observation. It didn't stop either Ruth or I, but we were such a novelty. And if you look at the language, you know, men are bold, women are vindictive, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I'm not telling you that it's hurtful, I'm telling you that it's an observation. Helen Clark and I could give you the long list of counter points how people described both of us, compared with our peers. So coming back to your question... No, it's a valid` We can stick there. I mean, is it a valid question? Maybe it's not. It tells me more about other people than myself. So, again, it's an interesting observation, but it wasn't the defining issue. The defining issues were the circumstances. What we'd promised, what we were confronted with, what we then determined we would do. The Cabinet didn't say, 'Oh, dear, this is too hard.' Jim Bolger and the team said, 'This is hard, but we will work this out.' So we set a hundred-day framework. Ruth, of course, was the finance minister, but no one of us acted alone in this. Let's address that ` that question whether Jim Bolger, I guess, was fully on board with what were quite radical and quite challenging decisions. Was he on board there or did he need prodding? No, no, he was on board. My memory of that first Cabinet meeting was it was extremely decisive, both in his describing the reality of what he'd been briefed on and his determination to work out a way to deliver the intention of our programme, even if it had to be done differently. I think he wrestled with every decision on the degree to which it broke promises. And that broken promise sort of call did cripple him personally. He found it wounding, because he is a person of integrity and didn't like having to have made that call. So, I think, I watched him struggle through that journey, but he always went in the favour, in the end, of, 'But we have to move on. We have to move forward, and we can't do things that we clearly can't do.' Did you anticipate how deeply unpopular those moves were going to be? Again, they were unpopular ` I am not disputing that. But we did not poll every five minutes. We sat as a group of leaders and considered what was right for New Zealand. And so, I despair in the fact that everybody's trying to work out what's popular. If you've got a tailwind, good on 'em. I would do that too. We had a roaring gale head wind, and we were working out how to navigate it. So let's not pretend this is like for like. We were trying to solve a problem that was fundamental. It gives New Zealand the choices it enjoys today. Some people may have felt that you were judging them, that there was a message that 'you're not working hard enough' or 'we're paying you too much'. It's interesting that people attribute every aspect to both the decision and the belief associated with that decision to an individual. Frankly, that's ignorant nonsense. That's not how Cabinets work. That's not how decision-making around what's good and right for a country works. While people's valued judgements are brought to bear as the ideas are being contested, some of it, in its multiplicity, shapes those conclusions. It's way too flattering to say that whether it's the Ruths or I ` people like myself ` forced it on to folk. I mean, honestly? Are you seriously saying that such a dictatorial role could happen in a democracy like this? I can tell you it can't, and it didn't. You will have critics, though, who say that those decisions did not take enough account of the impact on individuals, for example, when cutting welfare payments. I know that's what was said at the time, and I say back to those individuals, are the choices that we've got today across our society, for both the people most needing support ` do they get it? And was it changed? Judge me on the outcomes. We are a more independent nation. We are a more inclusive nation. The gap between the right and the left is much closer, and I take some pride in that, because as a leader, I coached and coaxed my own party into a position where we were fiscally responsible and socially inclusive. That's a huge outcome to be able to offer a nation, and it's made us much more resilient than we would otherwise have been. So I'm proud to have been in that role. You can pick individual things, and you're right to raise them. I look at it in the context of why I went there, what I did and what the outcomes are. No one changed the things that you quite correctly refer to were hard on individuals at the time. And they were hard on the ministers at the time. They were hard on other tax payers at the time. Were they the right thing to do? History will judge. In 1993, it was voters that got to judge, and their verdict was harsh. National clung to power with a one-seat majority. Prime Minister Jim Bolger cut his cloth to fit, and that meant cutting Richardson and reining in the reforms. It was something akin to David Lange's cup of tea, but it left Shipley frustrated. There were still things that I think we would've loved to have done. And certainly the caucus, and in particular the Cabinet, at that time, became much more stressed around whether we would get elected. And there's no question, as some of senior ministers and marginal seats became very frenetic about their own interests against the direction of travel of the government. It broke my heart that that cohesion that had been in the early part of that Cabinet was not able to be maintained. And that was because... of fear creeping in? Well, of pragmatism and populism. But, look, I'm not going to point the bone at people. These cycles are what they are, and if you look at in its totality, it was the right thing to do. It delivered massive results. The cup of tea was not` it wasn't exactly that. It was the needs of a few who were influential, and I remember their names. What do you mean by that? And when I became the leader, I made sure that I had people around me who I knew where they would be on those days of important judgement. When say you remember their names, you remember the names of the people who did what? Who found it too difficult and were very determined to both undermine and compromise and step back. But you were of the belief that Ruth Richardson should've continued, was that`? No, no. Ruth` I was deeply disappointed. She was changed. Why was`? Why? Cos she's outstanding. It interests me, because it says something about you as a politician, that while Jim Bolger got a fright and thought` and, of course, this is shorthand but` (CHUCKLES) Look, it's never as simple as that. But, yes. ...but, 'We nearly lost, we need to pull back.' Right? That's his prerogative. And she was a casualty of that. Whereas it seems to be, you would've said, 'Let's keep on going.' Well, we nearly lost against we won. It depends. I'm a half-full person not a half-empty person by nature, so I'm probably reckless in that regard insofar as I'll manage the risk, but I'm not preoccupied by risk. Do we still have too much middle class welfare in your view? Of course. Student allowances are a good example at the moment, where a generous definition of income allows people, who are well organised, to still have their children receive student allowances when they can clearly, compared with others, afford to go to university. I find that morally bankrupt that we don't honestly have that discussion. I feel sick every time I go to the doctor that I still get subsidised, and I can't opt out of the system. Now, that's wrong. I was trying to take the welfare state off the middle class. The middle class has had and continues to capture a welfare state that was never designed for them. And the courage of those conversations in the 1990s, and indeed I see, thankfully, the government raising some issues today which are proper, that we should have a discussion. I don't expect a hard working family with very modest income to pay tax to support things that I should expect to do for myself. You feel very strongly about this, though, don't you? You feel that, quite passionately, that an over-abundance of welfare state is a corrosive thing. No, I don't think that. If you've got assets, why don't you use them first before you ask your neighbour? If you've got income, why don't you use it first before you put your hand in the pocket of someone else? This is not an ideology. This is social fairness. And then we come into the period in the lead up to MMP and the first MMP government. You were always opposed to MMP. Oh, a lot of us were opposed. And, yes, I was. Still? No. Really? I think it's an essential part of who we are now, and I do not believe it will be changed. That's really interesting. You've changed your mind on very little that we've talked about today. No, no, I often change my mind. I mean, if I think that something is better than the alternative, then I'm happy to say I was either wrong, or as we've learnt through both my own experience in managing both a coalition and a minority government, and remember, in the very short time I was Prime Minister, I had both experiences. And then I've observed the evolution of both Helen Clark as Prime Minister and then John Key as Prime Minister in the way in which they have adapted and the Cabinet rules have been able to evolve, and the New Zealand public are allowed to pick a main course, so to speak, and then flair and flavour. I mean, how lucky are we? Does MMP reduce the power of a Prime Minister? No. It requires additional skills for the Prime Minister, but it doesn't reduce. The first MMP election in October 1996 certainly tested the skills of those seeking to lead. New Zealand First was the kingmaker, and Jim Bolger was able to do a surprise deal with Winston Peters to get keep National in power. But sharing power wasn't easy, and National MPs quickly became restless. As coalition tensions grew, they turned to Shipley. In early 1997, I knew where majority of the caucus was. Not because I'd solicited their interest, but because the conversation was simply so alive. In the Easter of 1997, I knew I had the numbers to make a change when required. Really? Certainly. And so it led to Burton and I to a rather extraordinary conversation. I said, 'Look, I need to talk about it. I'm not prepared to commit 'unless this family really knows what this means.' Because I can tell you, it is not a doddle being Prime Minster. My children were still at secondary school and at university, and I was very aware of both my history and what they'd already been through, and I wanted to test whether they had the appetite. So we spent the Easter (CHUCKLES) of 1997 with a conversation that was exceptional. I said, 'Look, I want you to understand that there's every chance I will be Prime Minister, could be Prime Minister by the end of the year.' Because we'd talked about the two-year window and change and all of the things that make elections work, and there'd been a lot of discussion in the caucus on timing and optimum timing and carry-on. But I made it clear that they needed to understand the unintended consequences. So it was an exceptional conversation, and to my great pride, the three of them understood then, as they had before, that a lot of the things we were going to try and do would be for their generation and their children's. And they took a lot on the chin as young people, because they understood the mission. And they do today. So this was an extraordinarily planned and thought out process, wasn't it? You knew that long in advance that` I hadn't decided that Easter. You hadn't decided? I had not decided. As the clock ticked, Shipley continued to wrestle with herself over what to do. Um... One of my brave decisions was to say yes to challenging for the leadership. There were a lot of other things that I had to weight up, and I was extremely mindful of them. The impact on family. I'm not sure if I should give an illustration, but one` I remember one particular time, our son Ben was about 12 or 13, so it must've been at the time that I was welfare minister, and we were in Ashburton. I'd been in Christchurch at some event at the Cathedral, interestingly. And we arrived home with my DPS contingent and everybody and walked in, and the children were in the dining room, and the television was on. And we had had a very difficult day of protests and so on. And we're gathering around the television, as leaders are wont to do at 6 o'clock. Or were. And some politicians who are still, interestingly, at the forefront of the protest movement ` it was very vicious. So 'Kill Shipley, kill', these sort of slogans and things. And Ben ` I remember him being physically alarmed. And I was alarmed because` or deeply anxious when I saw his reaction, and one of the leading DPS people who was with me, I said quietly to him` Ben turned round after watching this and was quite rigid in his little face, and he's a very able and relaxed boy, and he said to this guy, 'Will you look after my mummy?' It's enough to break your heart. And it wasn't because I was at risk, but his anxiety. It was lovely Canterbury evening, and if you know Canterbury well, as the sun gets low, our garden ` it was a golden space, and there was a very large elm that hung itself across the lawn, and after we'd had dinner, the children went out. Ben expected all the DPS and everyone to play cricket, as one does in those evenings, and the leader said to me, 'Don't worry, Jenny, I'll take care of this.' So I remember watching him take his jacket off and peel his hardware off and hang it in this tree and let Ben see and said, 'Don't worry, Ben, we'll look after your mummy.' Now, those are hard moments for a woman leader. They are the hardest moments when you think, 'Is it worth it?' And you understand the protesters' right to protest. Some of it was what it was, some of it, in my opinion, was very excessive, but protesters need to understand the unintended consequences of what they say. But as Shipley was weighing her options, Jim Bolger called her to a meeting, asking her to make a public statement that she would not challenge him. In our caucus I was being, absolutely, approached and pressed as to would I take over the leadership, and in the party ` when would this happen, how would it happen? So when Jim said to me would I make a public statement, I said, 'Look, Jim, in the end, you and I have to act in the best interest of the party, 'and I can't say that to you now and then go and change, if change were to occur. 'What I can promise you is that I will not be out there undermining you.' He must've been disappointed, though, that you weren't able to give him that commitment? I said to him, 'Jim, you know I can't do that.' And I'm sure he was disappointed. But we both understood what it meant to try and work in the best interests of the party. And so your team of supporters ` Tony Ryall and Peter Gresham and Bob Simcock and` Wyatt Creech. ...and Wyatt Creech ` they set about making this happen, and it's almost like something out of a spy novel, isn't it, to have a folder and 'Te Puke bypass' on it was their code word. These things are done in quite a Byzantine way, I guess. It wasn't so much secretive, as kept under control. None of us were going to do this in a way that would disrupt the party. I was very clear with people. I mean, this was not necessarily about me. This was about how do we continue with our ability to guide New Zealand forward without a big hiccup? And so you make these decisions in context. It was very successfully executed, wasn't it? The way in which we did it, I invited, in the end, when it was a decision to go, and it was over several days, some of which Jim was out of the country. And we had a very simple form where members who wanted to say that they were committed to voting for a change of leadership ` It was four lines. I promised that I would never disclose who was on that list and that they would be destroyed. And I've kept my word on that, but I clearly had a majority. And so in November 1997, Shipley made her choice and her move. Two years out from the election, Jim Bolger returned from Europe to be told that a coup was underway. And on December 8, New Zealand had its first woman Prime Minister. At the moment when that change occurred, it was, 'There's been a change of Prime Minister 'and a change of agenda, and can this defy the nine-year rule from the National Party point of view?' So there were a series of far more focused matters. What is it like to become Prime Minister when you're elected by the caucus, which is effectively what you were, rather than the country? Look, it's a change for New Zealand, but all leaders are elected by their caucuses or the party, whatever the instrument of a leadership election is. That does happen in that system. The transition of no election with a leadership change was a first. And, by the way, in global MMP settings, it's common. And so I think we may become used to it in the future, possibly, within transitions, although it was a first for us here. Did Winston Peters threaten to pull the plug on the coalition at that point? He raised the question. Did you allow yourself even a moment of celebration and pride when you got the job? Of course. Of course. Do you remember that feeling? I've got some lovely photos ` buried in clouds of flowers and surrounded by people I love. And, you know, particularly when I was sworn in, my darling late mother and my three sisters ` there's a powerful picture, which I hope will be valued more in the future for its historic nature ` that a girl in a family of four girls with parents who adored us and said girls could lead, found her way to be the first woman Prime Minister of New Zealand. And that picture, to me, was an immense moment of importance and a precious moment of our values as a family, in the way in which leaders step up and do what they can. Did it excite you? It did excite me, but again, they were difficult times immediately. So remember the times. In a perfect world, this would've been a massive celebration and the tailwinds I'd hoped for. But most of my exacting political career, in the roles I've had, have been when either the country or the area of responsibility has been tested. And perhaps that is the gift and skill I brought to my political time ` that I was able to pick things up and find a way through. It just strikes me now, you're an anti-populist in a way, aren't you? I'm not an anti-populist, I'm a person who went into politics to make change, not be popular. If you can do both, it's highly desirable. (CHUCKLES) And if I have any regrets, it's in that period, particularly when I was Prime Minister, where I was so focused on, 'We cannot slip back into deficit and to a no-growth environment.' So I was prepared again to cut expenditure and do the tough things and delivered heaven` Helen Clark 4%-plus growth rate and surplus again, and was not in government. So you could say I failed on the populist test, but for me, I succeeded in doing what was right for New Zealand. Did you ever do anything that was populist? Oh, I'm sure I did. I'm not that puritanical. But the minute you are Prime Minister and in government, you are governing for all New Zealanders regardless of how they voted. And in particular when you come to these crunch points of, 'Who is this holding back? Who is this impacting on?' Almost always they are not going to win a popular vote. They are minorities. And yet just because we're white and middle class, female or male, doesn't mean out view has to be imposed on those ` whether they're people who are Maori, Pacific, migrant, gay, 'other', I want a society that is safe for difference, where we are fresh, invigorated, and value each other and have a place to stand; an inclusive but open society where the rule of law is defined, but please get on with your life, and we'll tax you fairly, but you should spend your money as you see fit, because you know better than us what to do. You mentioned the gay community. You were a pretty strong advocate, for a Prime Minister in those days, of the gay community. I was. You went to the Hero Parade. I think the first Prime Minister to do so. Well, look, symbolism does matter, and there's an interesting personal story behind it. A close family to my mother and father had their eldest son who jumped off the Auckland Harbour Bridge. And it was only many years afterward that I had it explained to me what we think was in his mind that led to that event. And I formed the conclusion that no family should be left not being able to be open about the sexual orientation of a child. And no child should be left so isolated that they can't speak about that, that they would contemplate taking their own life. And I tried to stand in that circumstance, not my own, 'Do I believe or not believe in this?' As I formed a judgement. And, look, social inclusion is so important. Respecting our differences and being a country that's safe for difference mattered enormously to me. So deciding as a National Party leader that I was not going to pass judgement, and that not withstanding our members' own views, that this was one of very few things that should be personal. What did you Cabinet colleagues say when you told them? (BOTH CHUCKLE) It was the caucus, actually. Was it? They both were lively conversations, but those are moments where as leader you say, 'Look, I appreciate your points of view, but this is what I'm going to do.' At first, the new Shipley government got a bump in the polls. Even as the Asian Financial Crisis sank its claws into the New Zealand economy, National MPs were telling each other they'd done the right thing in switching leaders. Oh, look, and they had. (LAUGHS) But history conspired against us. The weighty things were the Timor-Lestes, and they were the crisis again ` the financial crisis again. I thought, 'Really? Am I going to have to relive this all over again?' You did. You did. And let's discuss those ` the Asian crisis and the response to that. The response was the privatisation of Contact Energy to try to balance the books, I guess. To a degree, there was trimming of government spending again. Do you think you got those directions and decisions right? Or was that not the right response to an economic crisis? Well, look, you could view it two ways ` either fortuitously or stupidly. I and the government at the time did what we did, and Helen Clark inherited one of the highest levels of growth New Zealand had seen ` over 4% growth when she came into office as Prime Minister. And it was a result of getting spending back under control quickly. The private sector immediately responded, seeing there's more opportunity for us, it's quite clear the direction of travel we're going to be back in to the economy in a meaningful way. When you get that balance right, they invest. If they're not sure of the public policy, they sit off. and so we got that very strong thrust. On the other hand, you could argue having done the right thing, I won the battle and lost the war. And by doing a lot, and I remember treasury saying to me, 'Jenny, you do not have to pull the levers as hard as you did in the early '90s. 'While this is an event, it is not as significant as the early '90s.' So they are important, but not equal in comparison. And on reflection, would I do it differently? I don't spend time trying to rewrite history. But you could have argued that I could've taken a longer runway view that might have got us through with a softer curve, and maybe we would have won the election. So, on reflection, you might've done it differently? You might've not pulled the brake on so hard, if you like? Well, it's one of the options. On reflection, I could've taken a different view, but I don't spend time lamenting that. I think that we underestimated how resilient the New Zealand economy had become. So many of the changes between '90 and '96 had actually, on reflection, created far more resilience, so that when these events happened, we fell less far and recovered more quickly. And, actually, we did come out of it, quicker than my advisors were predicting, once we had taken those decisions. While the Asian crisis created problems, the 1999 Asia-Pacific Economic Summit provided, perhaps, Shipley's greatest triumph as Prime Minister. She was the first woman to chair an APEC leaders' meeting when heavyweights such as Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin came to Auckland that September. But as leaders from 21 economies gathered, it wasn't trade capturing attention, but war in East Timor. This is a courageous decision. It's an essential decision, by the way, that a UN force goes in and assists the people of East Timor. It is, I think, a victory for both political and international diplomacy that we have got to this point so that the decision is being taken in Jakarta. I think between Don McKinnon and I, if I might say so, it was one of the most masterful exercises in politics or political management. Remember APEC cannot have political issues on its agenda. I think it was the Sunday night, I listened to the news, and that church had been burnt down. I remember ringing my officials and saying, 'Please be in my office in the morning.' And I just knew we could not get through APEC without thinking about how we would deal with this. And it's a long story which we don't have time for now, but it was an important story of Don saying, 'Well, let's do it with foreign ministers prior to APEC and see if we can get agreement.' I remember my call to Habibie. I held the phone out and everyone else in the room could hear him very angrily telling me why we should not be doing this, and my explaining that a number of leaders worldwide now felt we had to. Anyway, by the eve of APEC, he had been on CNN saying he would allow a UN force into Timor. But it was only the beginning of what was a very complex deployment. New Zealand sent a battalion of our capability there to assist. It was a very significant and most significant deployment that any Prime Minister had had to make for a very long time. What's that like as a leader? You're sending people into a warzone. It's the hardest thing you do. I remember both seeing them off and looking into the eyes of the family who, to be fair, they know that what's they're signing up for. It was one of the weights one carries. And I felt it personally. And even though we lost a young man through a road accident there, I felt` I went to his funeral, even though I was no longer Prime Minister, I felt it permanently for them, and the contribution they make to the freedom you and I take for granted. So that was one of the hardest things you had to do as Prime Minister? It's a very meaningful thing you do, in deciding who to send and what scale. The US was saying the burden-sharing has to be a reality, please step up. Australia didn't believe we would do anything. I can still remember my call to John Howard, after Cabinet decided it would be a battalion, not a company, and I said, 'We will contribute a battalion.' I remember him saying, 'A battalion?!' And I said, 'Yes, a battalion.' And he said, 'A battalion?!' And I had to repeat it. Amidst the diplomatic tensions, trade was still on the agenda, as the US and China jockeyed for position. New Zealand officials and the Prime Minister were stretched. I can tell you, our wheels were spinning. It was a great success for New Zealand, though. I think in positioning trade and our commitment to why markets work, both for economies like ours and others, and it began the long journey of TPP, as a first step with Singapore and New Zealand and Chile agreeing to try and say to others, 'If we can't do WTO, let's join and move ahead.' So you feel that that was the start of TPP? You feel that you actually kick-started TPP? Oh, it's not a question of 'Do I think?' It's absolutely what happened. If you ask Sir Maarten Wevers and others who were in the room at the time with each of the leaders when we said, 'Well, why can't WTO work?' Was there an appetite and were we willing? And both the FTA with China was also initiated during that set of visits that then led to what Helen Clark and the government moved forward. So is that right? So at that 1999 APEC, both the TPP and the New Zealand China FTA were initiated? They had their genesis there, and also the resolution of China joining the WTO, along with Timor-Leste and the intervention there. So these were four huge events that were right around, plus three state visits. (CHUCKLES) It sounds absurd. If I were writing it down now, I personally wouldn't believe it. But it was an amazing period. (ALL CHANT HAKA) Yet as Shipley's star shone on the world stage, at home it had been dimming. Winston Peters had signed the coalition agreement with Jim Bolger, and their relationship was close. But Shipley had said she wouldn't run the country over a whisky bottle and vowed a different approach to New Zealand First. Winston could've been Prime Minister for` but for want of himself. His complexity often got ahead of his capability. And watching him` Look, on a good day, he was brilliant. If I was honest with you, I would say, perhaps more than most, he was a... sort of an 85% outstanding leader. And the 15% absolutely crippled him, because he would get so myopically preoccupied with a diversion that it took away his capability and intent on the main goal ` being the leader of the National Party, which he could've been. Being a Prime Minister, if he had navigated differently, achieving things that he really wanted to do` Frustrating to deal with? He was extremely capable, although sometimes would get diverted. And I would make a personal judgement, as he came into my office, as to whether the envelope with the papers in it was either opened or closed. And it often would tell me the extent to which he had either read what we were then going to discuss. And I learnt to both respect and manage it. And on those days, the meetings were short, because, clearly, it was a train wreck waiting to happen. And the train wreck wasn't long in coming, having already sold its stake in Auckland International Airport, the National-led government also wanted to sell its share in Wellington Airport. Winston Peters decided that was a bridge too far. At a Cabinet meeting on the 12th of August 1998, the deputy prime minister and treasurer of New Zealand led a Cabinet walk-out. We were well through a sales process. Winston, as treasurer, had led that on behalf of the government ` the coalition government at the time. We were in an international environment, an advanced stage, and a serious statements were made, which were clearly not in New Zealand's interests. And it led to a set of events, both in Cabinet ` walk-out from Cabinet. Winston, I think, assumed that I would come running after him, and I didn't, because I think the integrity of the Cabinet process has got to stand itself. As he left, others didn't go with him. So it was a complex environment. Was it a volatile Cabinet meeting or was it simply a walk-out? It was a highly contested set of views, but it had been building up, so it wasn't unanticipated, and I think it was well understood by both groups as to what was at stake there. There was polling going on that I think had unsettled New Zealand First at that time against the long-term benefits of keeping New Zealand's reputation as a good place to do business. Was he looking for an excuse, do you believe, in hindsight to walk away from the coalition? You could argue that there had been a series of things amounting, that no coalition partner or partners would hope to have confronted them. I didn't want that to happen. He didn't want that to happen. But I think there was a point at which his desire to govern and take New Zealand forward through a very difficult time, against his desire to survive a 1999 election, became a tipping point question for him. So keeping the reality of our circumstances stable, I had to ring Winton in the end and say that I was asking the Governor General to remove his warrant, which focuses my mind. He chose not to take my call for quite some time, and, in the end, I instructed or conveyed my request to the Governor General. He was told by a third party. I had attempted over and over again. Pretty high stakes. You know, I had a majority of one with Winston, and I thought I was going to the country as I triggered the arrangements, because I couldn't see how I would necessarily get through. And blow me down, within 18 hours, I had a majority of two, not one. So Act came and said, 'We will support the government.' Had not, up until then, done so, and wanted to come into a minority government arrangement. A part of New Zealand First came through, and so we had a group. Now, I still had the choice, although it was a harder thing to explain to a Governor General when you have a majority why you're calling an election, but I had people literally writing down, 'We will support your government.' I called in the then-Governor of the Reserve Bank, Don Brash, and sought his advice ` not on politics, on the context and resilience of the economy, which was just starting to turn in late 1998. And so the very early signs of growth. And their predictions, if you look at the monetary policy statements start showing that projected track, which, in fact, exceeded their predictions. So we'd got the term. But he said, and I remember it well, that I needed to think about the extent to which an election could create a set-back for that growth trajectory against politically managing. And on balance, over two nights, I chewed away at how I would manage this and tested whether I thought the arrangements that had been offered to me were robust and able to still have a programme. So I said, 'Look, if we're staying in, we're staying in to move ahead.' And so Tau and his group and others very clearly said, 'We want to govern well for the right reasons.' And the rest is history. In hindsight, should you have gone to the country? Look, I` If I had gone to the country, I think we would've won. If you look at the polls at the time and the appetite at the time, did I do the right thing? I did the right thing. In those acute moments when you hear leaders describe the loneliness of the aspect of that role, it's not so much lonely because you've got brilliant people around you, but in the end, that's when you know where you have to live and die with the decisions you take. And I don't regret taking that position for New Zealand. Could Jenny Shipley have survived and had a fresh term? I would've loved that chance. Goodness knows, I would've loved the chance from 2000 through 2002 to lead New Zealand. Not as many head winds. Well, it would've been` I mean, I'd created a tailwind that someone else inherited. And so Clark had a very, very positive money to spend, growth ` even higher than we've got now. So very important to remember that that was our gift, but a political loss. To me, by the way, that's success. The political loss came at the 1999 election. Voters punished New Zealand First and, to a lesser extent, National, as Helen Clark's Labour Party came to power. Shipley carried on leading National until October 2001 when Bill English grabbed power in a coup, just as she had grabbed power from Jim Bolger in 1997. I did my best, I did my share, and I didn't define it as defeat or failure. Yes, the electors said the next group would take the lead, and I respect that, but I do not view it as a failure. I just view it as the end of a period. Just to go back, I remember saying to the children at that Easter that, by the way, the minute we start this journey, it is the beginning of the end of my political career. The minute you become leader, you do your best for as long as you're given the opportunity, and then you, because it's your obligation, make the set of adjustments needed. And so I, when I was defeated, maintained that period in opposition. And, you know, would I have liked to have continued and fought the next election, and could we have won? I was exhausted by the time I stepped down or Bill English stepped up. On reflection, it was the right time for me, and I made my own decisions ` 15 years in Parliament, 11 of them minister, Prime Minister, leader of the opposition. Had I made a difference? I hope so. Had I done my best? Certainly. In the end, history will judge what that means. How has it changed you ` being Prime Minister? I don't know if it has, really. I often say to people, 'The Prime Ministership doesn't define Jenny Shipley.' It's something I did, as I did as ministers, and it is a cloak I wore and a responsibility I held, but my leadership intent and purpose and style remains. I simply apply it to different circumstances. An absence of self-doubt? Oh, I've got self-doubt. Every leader has self-doubt. Are you worthy? Should you be in this role? And your greatest regret? Um... Ooh. (CHUCKLES) I don't spend time dealing with regrets. Had I gone to the country, what would have happened? But honestly, it does not keep me awake at night. And it's not a regret, it's a reflection on, 'Was it an opportunity missed against 'doing the right thing?' And on balance, I will rock in my chair, and probably still, rightly or wrongly, be comfortable that... 'Mm. But.' Jenny Shipley retired from politics in 2002, and is now Dame Jenny Shipley ` a company director and member of international think tanks. In her words, she remains a leader every day. There are always steps that must be taken in time, and we build on the shoulder of others, good and bad, to try and improve our societies in which we live. I am proud that we did our best in the circumstances in which we found ourselves, to do things that will allow others to stand on the shoulder of that generation, and they can judge us as they like. I went into politics not to be a status quo politician, but to be a change agent. I did what I could, I think I made a difference in a number of places, and as I watch now, I like the inclusive New Zealand I see. The world is much better if we're generous with each other, and that's the view I have and continue to take. Captions by Starsha Samarasinghe. Edited by June Yeow. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017