English delivers farewell speech

A case of financial mismanagement almost cost Bill English his job in Parliament.

The man later credited with New Zealand’s ‘‘rockstar economy’’ found himself, back in 1990, with minutes to spare and minus the $200 needed to register his papers to run as the candidate for the old electorate of Wallace.

Convinced the deadline was 5pm, English was given a shock when he was told at 11am that day that he in fact only had an hour to spare.

‘‘I found myself stranded in Gore, with enough signatures but not the deposit. I had no cheque book and no car, I stood paralysed in the middle of the street and then ran into my bank – the Trustees Savings Bank. I walked up to the cashier and said ‘give me $200 cash, now’’’.

A cashier, intent on doing her job, insisted on asking English whether he had a cheque or a withdrawal form. His refusal to cooperate resulted in her getting the manager.

‘‘As it turned out, that manager was a member of the National Party, as many of them were,’’ said English, sending a packed Parliament into a fit of laughter.

‘‘If the manager had followed the rules, if any number of other things had happened, the new MP for the Wallace electorate would have been Dougal Soper, Labour.’’

English signed off on a 27-year career by delivering his valedictory speech to a House packed to the gunnels with his family, friends, old political foes and a number of dignitaries.

He entered Parliament in 1990 as part of the infamous ‘‘brat pack’’, the tight-knit group of National Party rising stars that also included Tony Ryall, Nick Smith and Roger Sowry.

During his speech, English hit a particularly sombre and poignant moment when he talked about his social investment programme. It was early in his career that he started working with the ‘‘abused and traumatised’’. In particular, meeting the man responsible for a mass shooting at Raurimu was a formative moment.

‘‘What I learned from that is Government can do harm, particularly to the most vulnerable if it’s not incredibly sensitive to their needs.’’

And over the past seven years, English helmed an internationally pioneering approach to public service – one in doubt under the current Government.

‘‘I’ve never understood the argument that the structure of delivering a service matters more than the people to whom you’re delivering it,’’ he told the House.

‘‘I’ve never met a person in 27 years who had no hope, never. Including the worst of our offenders and I’ve met them. There’s always some hope. Often that’s all they have.’’

So English introduced the word ‘‘customer’’ into the public service to let public servants know vulnerable people should have choices, like customers do in the real world.

‘‘Why do they have to put up with what we give them, or what some professional group says is the way this service should be, because it might undermine the integrity of the service. But what about the integrity of the person... that’s who we are here for.’’

English departed with a warning.

‘‘If there’s anything I want to leave as a lesson here it’s the dangerous complacency of good intentions. There’s too much of it in New Zealand.

‘‘That somehow if you say you mean well, that that’s going to make a difference.

‘‘Well actually, it can cause damage because you’re not actually talking about what actually happened,’’ he said.

And in a pointed shot to MPs on the other side of the House he said: ‘‘The services we provide are not about us, they’re about them, and the only measure of it is whether it changes their lives, whether we reduce the misery, but we have a system built still too much on servicing that misery.’’

But he was confident social investment would continue ‘‘because ideas are powerful’’.

‘‘Knowledge is powerful, more powerful than Governments.’’

On March 13, when English has his last day in Parliament, he will have served New Zealand as an MP for 10,000 days.