Anderton would never back down . . .
Jim Anderton, politician: b Auckland, January 21, 1938; m (1) Joan Cutfield, (2) Carole; 2d, 3s; d Christchurch, January 7, 2018, aged 79.
Jim Anderton was a former deputy prime minister, founder of two political parties, government minister in a host of portfolios, thwarted Christchurch mayoral candidate, Labour party miscreant and saviour of the Christ Church Cathedral in Christchurch.
Both an idealist and a pragmatist, Anderton joined the Labour Party in the 1960s and rose through its ranks in the 1970s only to abandon it in the 1980s to form his own political movement.
For most of his parliamentary career he strode an independent path on the Left of New Zealand politics, fighting for causes and policies he believed in.
His zenith came in the Helen Clark-led Labour government of 1999-2008, during which he served a term as deputy prime minister, variously held the economic development, agriculture, biosecurity, fisheries and forestry portfolios and famously wore down his Cabinet colleagues to establish Kiwibank.
‘‘For God’s sake,’’ then Health Minister Annette King implored Finance Minister Michael Cullen after months of lobbying from Anderton, ‘‘Give him the bloody bank!’’
Anderton left Parliament in 2011, a year later than he planned. He had challenged Bob Parker for the Christchurch mayoralty in 2010 and was odds on to win until the September earthquake brought Parker’s public leadership to the fore and secured re-election.
After the greater devastation of the 2011 earthquakes Anderton, a Catholic, was drawn to the cause of saving the stricken Christ Church Cathedral. ‘‘If you can repair it, you haven’t got the right to demolish it,’’ he said.
He became the public face of the restoration effort, alongside Philip Burdon, the bluest of blue-blood National MPS. The pair co-chaired the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust.
‘‘I regard Jim Anderton as one of the most highly principled and idealistic people I have dealt with in public life,’’ Burdon said.
‘‘He’s been absolutely fearless in standing for what he believed. They were never self-serving arguments that had any financial benefit or opportunity for him as he consigned himself to the outsider on principle.’’
James Patrick Anderton was born in Auckland in 1938. His father, James Patrick Byrne, was killed in a train accident when Anderton was five or six years old and his mother Joyce married Victor Anderton, a storeman.
The young Anderton attended Auckland Teachers Training College and taught for two years before working as a child welfare officer for the Department of Education in Whanganui.
He married Joan Caulfield in 1960 and they had five children, two girls and three boys.
Anderton first attended a Labour Party branch meeting in Mangere in 1964 and was elected to the Manukau City Council a year later on the same ticket as his future parliamentary party colleague Roger Douglas.
In the early 1970s he bought a superette in Parnell and started a small engineering business with his brother Brian while staying active with Labour.
He ran for the Auckland mayoralty twice, losing to Sir Dove-myer Robinson both times. He was elected president of Labour in 1979 and finally entered Parliament for the party in 1984, after shifting to Christchurch and winning the Sydenham seat.
He could have been a Cabinet minister but held out because he did not like the neoliberal direction the party was heading in under the leadership of Douglas and others. ‘‘I didn’t leave the Labour Party,’’ he said after he’d finally had enough of Rogernomics and resigned to form New Labour in 1989, ‘‘The Labour Party left me.’’ All but one of his Sydenham electorate staff went with him. Long-time office manager and campaign director Jeanette Lawrence said Anderton retaining his seat at the 1990 election was the happiest she ever saw him.
‘‘He was ecstatic. I think it was the first time that an MP had left a major political party and had been able to form their own party.’’
New Labour soon joined forces with several other parties, including the Democratic Party and the Greens, and became known as the Alliance. Anderton was its leader.
‘‘[It] was a remarkable achievement,’’ Burdon said. ‘‘Talk about herding cats . . . The fact that they were prepared to subordinate their independent identity to go with Jim. The Alliance is a reflection of his powers of persuasion.’’
The amalgam fell apart in 2002. Anderton then formed Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition, which became Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party three years later. Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods was one of its members. She recalled accompanying Anderton to a meeting with Federated Farmers in 2005 when the microchipping of dogs was a controversial issue. The rural audience was less than enthused about hearing from a old Leftie on the topic.
‘‘The meeting took two hours,’’ Woods said, ‘‘Jim turned those people by being absolutely pragmatic but never wavering from his beliefs. By the end of the meeting they were pretty big fans.
‘‘His willingness to listen to real concerns about how things weren’t going to work for them and his willingness to not be unyielding but on other things [he] just absolutely stated his position and I think a respect grew from that. I’ve never seen anything like it since.’’
Woods, who remembered seeing Anderton speaking at street-corner meetings near her childhood home in Spreydon during the 1984 campaign, would eventually succeed him in the Wigram seat in 2011.
‘‘[He was] a man that wouldn’t back down. In terms of his core values and the reason why he was doing what he was doing, they were hardwired for Jim.
‘‘Politics was never overly complicated for [him]. It’s about what’s right and what’s wrong.’’
Lawrence recalled working in Anderton’s office one Saturday morning when her boss was Deputy Prime Minister. A woman came in looking for help with her power bill. It was the middle of winter and she was wearing sandals.
‘‘Jim asked her what size shoes she had,’’ Lawrence said.
‘‘I thought he was going to send me to the shoe shop. But he sent her down to Carole, because she was the same size, to give this women some of her shoes, which she did. Jim was just like that. He would give anybody anything if he thought it was going to help them.’’
Anderton was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2017. He is survived by his second wife, Carole, four of his children [his daughter Phillipa died by suicide in 1993], five step-children, 10 grandchildren and a nearunrivalled political legacy, postscripted by the saving of Christ Church Cathedral. The Anglican church voted to restore the building at a synod in September 2017. A frail Anderton was said at the time to be ‘‘delighted’’ with the result.
‘‘I always had this mantra that if you moan and groan about something you should be prepared to do something about it or you should shut up,’’ he told the Press in 2010.
‘‘If I’m going to do something I’m not going to be sitting around mucking about. I get stuck in.’’
He’s been absolutely fearless in standing for what he believed.
Philip Burdon