Who is Todd Muller?
FOR many New Zealanders, the name Todd Muller is one they may not have heard until this week.
Although the Bay of Plenty National MP has wide name recognition in the agribusiness community, he is far from a household name.
But that all began to change on Wednesday afternoon, after news broke he would be challenging Simon Bridges for the leadership of the party.
The leadership spill was on and Mr Muller was in the spotlight.
And yesterday afternoon, the man from Te Aroha emerged the victor.
He is the 13th leader of the National Party and is the man who — bar another untimely leadership spill — will face Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the 2020 election, in 120 days’ time.
But for anyone following closely, Mr Muller’s rise to the political top would not have been all that unexpected.
He has been fascinated by politics since a young age.
When he was 10, he wrote a ‘‘book’’ in which, as a young man in his 20s, he was elected vicepresident of the United States, before becoming president after the CommanderinChief met an untimely death.
In the book, President Muller served 13 consecutive terms before dying of old age.
He still has a copy of the book, hidden away somewhere in his mother’s attic.
As Mr Muller got older, his eyes moved from the White House to the Beehive.
He worked in the office of thenprime minister Jim Bolger in the early to mid1990s. Mr Muller was his executive assistant during his second term, when Mr Bolger was rolled by Jenny Shipley.
In his maiden speech in 2014, Mr Muller thanked Mr Bolger for his support.
‘‘Jim, I have always been extremely grateful for your support, now spanning across two decades.’’
It looks as if Mr Muller’s loyalty has paid off. Earlier this week, Mr Bolger publicly backed his former executive assistant for the role as National leader.
‘‘Todd has the ability to work well with all across the line, he’s not that partisan position. He will work with others to achieve the right goal,’’ he told RNZ.
After he left Parliament as Mr Bolger’s staffer, Mr Muller moved into the private sector.
He worked for Zespri in the early 2000s, before moving to kiwifruit and avocado company Apata in 2006, where he was chief executive.
In 2011, Mr Muller moved to
Auckland to work at Fonterra, where he worked his way up to group director of cooperative affairs.
After he left to become an MP in 2014, the cooperative affairs role was taken over by Miles Hurrell, now the coop’s chief executive.
Mr Muller was elected as the Bay of Plenty MP by a country mile; his 21,735 votes put him light years ahead of his Labour Party rival, who won just over 6600.
He took the seat over from former health minister and National MP Tony Ryall.
As a backbencher, he served on committees including Maori Affairs, Social Services, and
Education and Science.
He was promoted to deputy chairman of some of those committees and held the coveted position of chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee.
Mr Muller is a practising Catholic and voted in the House against both euthanasia and liberalising abortion.
He first began making political waves in Opposition while working on the Zero Carbon Bill.
It was a Government Bill, which aimed to develop the framework to reduce New Zealand’s net carbon emissions to zero.
National supported the first reading of the Bill, after strong behindthescenes lobbying from Mr Muller.
It is understood he was well respected on the Government side while ministers negotiated to get the support of National.
As agriculture spokesman, Mr Muller is one of National’s main weapons when it comes to wooing rural New Zealand.
He is often around the country, attending field days and A&P shows.
Federated Farmers president Katie Milne told The Country yesterday Mr Muller was ‘‘very wellrounded and very wellversed on the issues that we [rural New Zealand] face’’.