Jim Bolger was Shane Ardern’s Taranaki-King Country electorate predecessor. Photo: Supplied
Former Taranaki-King Country MP Shane Ardern describes the late Jim Bolger as a mentor and a person that you would always leave feeling “uplifted”.
Joan and Jim Bolger pictured with Cathy and Shane Ardern. Photo: Supplied
Although 25 years apart, Bolger and Ardern had much in common and shared three decades of friendship.
The pair were both Opunake High School old boys from coastal Taranaki and brought up in farming backgrounds.
Ardern now farms on the road where Bolger’s family lived when he was born in 1935, Watino Rd in Te Kiri.
“He was my predecessor in the electorate. But I also had the position of electorate chairman for Jim when he was prime minister,” Ardern said. “Together, he and Joan could only be described as a very inspirational couple.
“But being able to hold the positions he did, as prime minister and the many other ministerial roles prior to that, as well as raise a family of nine kids and run a reasonably large meat and wool farm in Te Kūiti at the same time… people have underestimated that.”
Ardern recalled Bolger’s landslide win in 1990, the largest landslides the National Party had ever seen.
The election was on the Saturday and on the Sunday afternoon, officials contacted Bolger saying, “we have to see you in Wellington today”.
“Their reason for urgency was because the Bank of New Zealand, the largest bank in New Zealand, was about to go bankrupt. Here was a guy who, one minute, was an opposition leader. Overnight, he has become the prime minister elect, still not the prime minister, and the treasury and government officials are almost ordering him to Wellington on a Sunday afternoon to deal with what could only be described as a crisis.”
Jim and Joan Bolger at the pou in Te Kuiti.
That shaped his first three years as the prime minister of New Zealand.
Ardern said it was challenging, as there were many things Bolger had campaigned on, said he wanted to do, genuinely believed he would be able to do – based on the information he’d been given – and then wasn’t able to.
He said Bolger was an encyclopaedia of world knowledge and often “regurgitated the most minute of statistics, figures, facts” in debates.
“The other skill he had, was the ability to read enormous amounts of material, digest what he read, retain and regurgitate.
He recalled taking John Key to the annual running of the sheep in Te Kūiti.
Bolger was home from Washington and Ardern caught up with him on the street.
“The prime minister was busy at the time and said to me afterwards, where do the Bolgers live?” Ardern said.
“I said, ‘I’ll take you there if you want to go and see them’. We went to the Bolgers place spontaneously and stayed for dinner.
Joan didn’t complain, chucked a few more spuds in the pot to go with the roast meal and they had a wonderful evening.
“They were a very inspirational couple. They had nine children. It wasn’t a one-man band. It was a family and Joan really played a key role in that ability to be such a good leader for such a long time,” Ardern said.
Jim Bolger was Shane Ardern’s Taranaki-King Country electorate predecessor. Photo: Supplied
