Words: Andrea Vance Image: Kelly Hodel

Damien O’Connor was supposed to be holidaying in Rarotonga this week – a 50th birthday present for his partner, Sharon. But after a chat with ‘‘the boss’’, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, it was clear the break would have to go on hold, while the agriculture minister tackles the Mycoplasma bovis crisis.

Instead of lounging at a beachfront resort, he was criss-crossing the country, explaining the complex decision to eradicate the contagious cattle disease to roomfuls of irate farmers.

Finally home to their small farm outside Motueka, he was then put to work: pulling up posts and building a corral for their 10-year-old daughter’s new pony.

O’Connor, 60, isn’t one for relaxing, anyway. ‘‘I’ll be lying down for a long, long time, so while I am standing up I’ve got to go for it.’’

A self-confessed action junkie, the fast pace and pressure of politics suits him. ‘‘It’s still probably the most addictive and challenging job that you can have if you want to make a change. I’ve had [a] whitewater rafting [business] – it’s challenging, the pressure and the adrenaline. But you can get that in politics as well.’’

When he’s not at Parliament, he’s farming (until recently harvesting boysenberries in each summer recess). ‘‘Any time you get out on the farm to do something and see what you’ve achieved is a really good break from politics, where often you work really hard and you can’t see the results.’’

When he’s not on the tractor, he’s tearing up bush tracks on a mountain bike, or racing his KTM690 dirt bike. Smashed ribs meant he was unavailable for the parliamentary rugby team – another pursuit – last season.

From the wild West Coast, and of Northern Irish roots, O’Connor has always been slightly untamed. He was told not to return to sixth form at Christchurch’s St Bede’s College. ‘‘The advice was not to come back as a boarder. Sneaking out, smoking – it was just normal stuff that under a strict regime didn’t quite fit.’’

At 17, he lasted for only a short spell at Lincoln University. ‘‘I was probably a bit too young . . . I didn’t have the motivation, I’d run out of money and chasing lots of other things

. . . girls and fast cars, yes.’’

He completed a contract – 16 kilometres of fencing – for Landcorp, before leaving for Australia. Mining and sales jobs followed, but five years later he returned to sharemilking on the family farm on the mouth of the Buller Gorge. His youngest brother now runs the farm; his mother Adelma still lives there.

‘‘Because I had been away at school I didn’t have any drive to get out. I always enjoyed going home and what we had at home. I guess I had the benefit of being able to have home on the Coast, but school and a life elsewhere.’’

But dairy farming wasn’t enough. ‘‘I bought a jetboat, put it in the paddock, put a sign up and started an adventure tourism business.

‘‘I wanted more interaction – the farm was on the main road, so we were always having hitchhikers stopping in – they might be staying in the barn or helping on the farm. Foreigners appreciated what we had, but most locals took it for granted.’’

Buller Adventure Tourism grew into a successful operation, offering rafting, horsetrekking and kayaking in the dense bush and surging rivers around the farm.

O’Connor became one of the country’s first registered river guides, and featured on the cover of Lonely Planet’s 1993 guide to New Zealand.

It was frustration at red tape and central government that drove him into politics. ‘‘I got involved in marketing and promoting the Coast. It was a realisation that all that good work that could be done on the ground in the region could be undermined by decisions made in Wellington for the wrong reason. It was an irritation and, having grown up with an awareness of politics and how it works, it was fairly natural to step up and have a go. ‘‘

He grew up with politics at the kitchen table. Grandfather Roderick and father John both sought selection for the Labour Party. John O’Connor recently died, aged 90. He’d fought for farmer compensation when bovine tuberculosis broke out in the 1960s. O’Connor remembers the threat of losing his pony to slaughter.

‘‘They did tests every three months . . . and you wouldn’t know, it was kind of an ongoing agony . . . I have kind of reflected back on that with M bovis – not dissimilar – a disease that had to be addressed, lots of accusations. Farmers were accused of bad farming practices, when in fact it was the possums coming in from the bush on to the farms.

‘‘The reality on a farm and the reality in Wellington was quite different, and he was advocating from the farm perspective. ‘‘

Despite the grounding, O’Connor’s early years in politics were rocky. National held the traditionally red West Coast seat for one term,