JONATHAN COLEMAN

Doctor who’s left the House

‘‘Every minister, I think, if they were really able to have their way without being held by the 19 other Cabinet colleagues, the policy that would come out of their office would be a bit different.’’

The vitriol on social media has never really fazed Jonathan Coleman. He understood it, he methodically sifted through that which was political and that which was genuine, and never lost sleep over the former.

But it’s one thing he won’t miss when he leaves a 13-year parliamentary career to head the trans-Tasman private healthcare organisation Acurity.

‘‘Coleman’s a this, that and the other, and a killer and all this sort of crap. I mean, you know seriously, reasonable people don’t think that,’’ says the former health minister of the more rabid sect of the Twitter commentariat.

Stacks of ‘‘thank you’’ emails to him from members of the public, following his shock resignation announcement, provides a weighty counter.

Still, does a doctor who has spent years trying to preserve the lives of others find it galling to be called a killer? It can be wearying for any politician, he admits. He may have indeed become one of the more controversial figures of the past government. Towards the end.

But Coleman is philosophical about it. That’s going to happen for the current minister at some point, as it did for Tony Ryall before Coleman and Annette King before that. It just takes time.

Up until six months before the election, Coleman says health was reasonably uncontroversial.

He might be speaking politically; there have always been fires to dampen within health. Major financial blunders by Health Ministry officials, vocal campaigns for brand-name drugs, DHB deficits and staffing woes – the controversies never end.

‘‘But Labour eventually just turned all guns on it. And they campaigned hard on funding and of course they couldn’t make a dent in the economy. In health you can always find cases to illustrate the point that you’re trying to make.

‘‘So you might be judging on a person not being able to get an operation, well, that’s an indictment of the whole health system, which may or may not be the case.’’

It is renowned as one of the hardest jobs in government, perhaps second only to prime minister.

‘‘I remember on my first night as minister for health reading three letters from people in quite difficult situations. I was just starting the job and I was thinking ‘gee, this is going to be hard’, Coleman says.

‘‘When you’re dealing with people in desperate situations and, frankly, without the power to help them without fundamentally changing the model to favour some individuals over others . . . that is really difficult. You’re in charge of a big system – $17 billion, that’s bigger than the dairy industry.

‘‘Ultimately, in the health system you are looking to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

‘‘Over time, the test of that is in the big statistics.’’

Coleman has no qualms in admitting he didn’t achieve everything he would have liked – he cared most deeply about children’s health and obesity – but he is proud of what National’s statistics show in the portfolio.

‘‘You’re part of a team which takes collective responsibility, but every minister, I think, if they were really able to have their way without being held by the 19 other Cabinet colleagues, the policy that would come out of their office would be a bit different.

‘‘That certainly would have been the case with me as it would have been for other colleagues,’’ he says. ‘‘But if we were going bad in health, I tell you what, we wouldn’t have polled 46 per cent on election night.’’

Much has been written about Coleman’s upbringing, education and work before politics. Born and raised on Auckland’s North Shore, his father died when he was 12, leaving his mother to raise him and his two brothers. A former head boy at Auckland Grammar, and later Oxford educated, he would go on to become a GP who started his own practice in London, did a stint in Australia’s ‘‘flying doctor’’ service and then took his skills to Otara, South Auckland.

Among all of that, he gained an MBA and worked in London for consultancy firm PwC. National’s ‘‘dark horse’’ had held a senior ranking in the party for some time, but kept a low profile until his unsuccessful tilt at the leadership after former prime minister Sir John Key’s resignation.

As defence minister he was at the helm of New Zealand’s forces during a pivotal thaw in relations with the US, oversaw massive structural change and the withdrawal of troops from Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan. While known especially for his role as health minister, it only made up a third of his parliamentary career.

A chronic case of over-achieving, that can’t be done without a steely-cold focus.

But that tends to belie the quiet idealism and/or thoughtfulness that also comes with anyone who takes the time to keep a daily personal diary.

Coleman has long held an interest in writing – other people’s mainly – but keeps his own counsel on the page and in the trust of a small number.

‘‘It’s to be able to reflect on things and how things are going. It’s not based around work but work’s obviously part of your life,’’ he says. ‘‘But also, about every year I want to read back and see what I was up to. I know it may sound strange, but the fact is, when you’re in those ministerial jobs, I mean so much happens in a year and you read back and you can’t believe it.

‘‘Good and bad. It’s the pace of things, it’s very stimulating,’’ Coleman says. ‘‘But I just think life goes by in a flash and you don’t want to be looking back all the time. But I want to live a full life in the sense of doing some good work and at the same time making sure I enjoy my family and making sure that along the way I’m taking time to actually enjoy life.

‘‘I think sometimes, just reading back and looking at the great experiences you’ve had and not so much what you’ve achieved, but literally what you’ve been doing and how all that’s fitted in – it’s good to have that record.

‘‘Because you can literally just forget.’’ Coleman also uses it to test ideas, write pros and cons, but he went slightly further afield to test his decision to resign and force a by-election in his comfortably held Northcote election, consulting his wife, a handful of old friends, one parliamentarian and key people in his electorate team. ‘‘I was concerned how people would view that I was leaving Parliament, I was concerned how people would feel in my electorate.’’

But he says the overwhelming response has been positive. ‘‘Parliament I’ve enjoyed,’’ he says. Yes, even the cut-andthrust and sparring with former opposite Annette King. ‘‘But I won’t miss that in the way that I’ll miss the electorate.’

‘‘I’ve had a really interesting time in Parliament, I think I’ve been really privileged to not only have 13 years as an MP but be a minister for 9 years, and I did some really interesting stuff.

‘‘But to be honest, the greatest pleasure I’ve got in my time as an MP is to being with people in the community, going to schools and being part of the community,’’ he says.

‘‘It’s a big decision – I’m leaving a life really, I’m not leaving just a job.’’