Chris Finlayson's 'venomous' memoir
The best two New Zealand political autobiographies or biographies of recent decades are Michael Bassett’s contentious 2008 Working with David and Sir Michael Cullen’s wonderful 2021 Saving Labour. Both were written by academic historians. In contrast, most attempts by recent New Zealand politicians or their proxies to document their time in office (and settle scores) have been lightweight and risible. I guess they know their market, and their subjects. Christopher Finlayson’s new memoir Yes, Minister is another easy-to-read sketch, but it's full of the magnificence of his intellect, wisdom...and venom.
Inevitably, I took most delight in Finlayson’s takes on the National Party, since I agree with almost everything he says about both the party’s personalities and practice. It turns out we despise the same National people, despair of the same party tendencies and celebrate the same elements of social and economic progress National has delivered over the last three decades.
National’s membership – and those of other parties – will benefit from Finlayson’s reminder that it was a much stronger institution when it was controlled by its members, before Steven Joyce’s 2003 constitutional “reforms” allowed it to be captured by the current incompetent and self-replicating clique. Finlayson’s five-point plan to solve National’s “mistakes of the past 20 or so years” – bullet-pointed on pages 26-27 for ease of reference – should be displayed on big-character posters in every party office, and be implemented unamended.
Finlayson claims to have followed the old idiom that if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, then don’t say anything at all. He tries to follow the rule. He has a lot to say about those National Party figures he rates, predictably John Key, Bill English and Joyce, plus Gerry Brownlee and Anne Tolley. Many others earn at least a few nice words.
Mercifully, though, Finlayson fails to be entirely faithful to his pledge. Legendary National strategist and long-serving Foreign Minister Murray McCully, a major party player since the 1970s, gets only brief mentions. But none are nice.
McCully failing to answer a letter from Finlayson about state-immunity legislation warrants early inclusion, followed by a tart “no surprises there”. Finlayson delights in the US Ambassador inviting him to an urgent debate of the UN Security Council on terrorism without first notifying McCully as protocol demands. “I said [the ambassador] shouldn’t worry about that at all,” Finlayson smirks.
There's a page-long and entirely justified rant about McCully’s costly, disruptive and ultimately failed interventions into the management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, followed – surely intentionally – by lavish praise of Labour’s Andrew Little, NZ First’s Denis O’Rourke and the Greens’ Kennedy Graham for their constructive approach towards Finlayson’s 2017 spy bill.
Finlayson clearly wanted to be Foreign Minister himself. He expresses surprise that McCully was kept on as Foreign Minister when English became prime minister. He describes his new boss’s phone call confirming he would stay in the same jobs as “somewhat graceless”.
Later there is a bit of a sulk when English chooses Brownlee when McCully belatedly stepped down. Fair enough. Finlayson would have been a better foreign minister than either of them. “Perhaps I was regarded as too pro-Israel,” he suggests.
For both National haters and those who love the party and want it restored, the best bits of Yes, Minister concern the wrecking of National’s brand after Key retired, and then English and Joyce were pushed out by the so-called Class of 2008 and others who took command 10 years later in 2018.
He writes: "[They] were never really up to it. They had come into Parliament when John Key reigned supreme. Often they would fly into Wellington on a Tuesday morning and attend caucus, where, as I say, John was completely in command. They received a competent financial overview from the deputy prime minister, Bill English. The polls were always rosy and Steven Joyce was on top of all the politics. Then they would go to the House and possibly ask a few questions, which were prepared for them by the Government Research Unit. They would go to select committee on a Wednesday or Thursday, and generally have a great party on a Wednesday night after the House rose at 10 pm. They didn’t really work at all and thought that this was the norm. They thought they could do it as well as John Key, Bill English and Steven Joyce, but they were wrong. They weren’t up to it, and when the tough times came, they couldn’t cope. The National Party is better off without them.”
I'm grateful for this passage because it is exactly what I observed in my brief time back with National in the winter of 2020.
Finlayson admits that, like me, he was wrong first about Simon Bridges and then Todd Muller. But he was never in any doubt about Paula Bennett, who he clearly despises, and it was over her that he began to fall out with Bridges. Putting it subtly, perhaps on advice of the defamation lawyers who worked overtime to get Yes, Minister ready for publication, Finlayson says he was “concerned” at the prospect of her becoming deputy leader when English became Prime Minister in 2016.
He and Brownlee approached Bridges to run for deputy leader to block her. Bridges put his name forward but then began negotiating with “various people”, presumably including English and Bennett. Bridges then reports to Finlayson that he wouldn’t be proceeding with the challenge since he “had done very well” from the talks.
Finlayson was unimpressed: “When I suggested that he stand as deputy, it was not so that he could burnish his credentials by becoming a senior minister, but in order to stop Paula being the deputy leader." He wishes he had asked his friend Tolley to stand.
But Bridges obviously maintained some spell over Finlayson, at least for a little longer. “I have made many mistakes in my life,” he laments, “but way up there among the worst was my decision not to support Steven [Joyce] over Simon Bridges for the leadership in 2018.”
Bridges appears not to have reciprocated for his support. Finlayson writes that he was treated “shabbily”. The final straw was the Jami-Lee Ross tapes where – among the matters currently being examined by the High Court – Bridges was revealed to have slagged off his colleagues and desired many, including Finlayson, to retire. “I never spoke to Simon Bridges again after that tape,” he reports coldly.
Yet, like me, Finlayson’s misjudgements weren’t over yet. He reports being pleased when Muller took over from Bridges, saying he "had always looked as though he would be a future leader, and his contributions in caucus and Parliament were always measured and sensible.” In retrospect I wonder if it just looked that way to many of us, since Muller turned out not to have anything material to say about anything.
Finlayson hints at an early indication of Muller’s lack of substance. When English, as Opposition leader, asks Finlayson who should look after the Crown-Māori relations brief, “I immediately named Todd. However, he did nothing in the portfolio, apparently thinking it would be a dead end for him politically.”
Another incident is soon revealed, which I remember well: “I was asked to meet with [Muller] to talk through Treaty of Waitangi issues before he had an interview on one of the Sunday morning programmes. He knew nothing about that area and couldn’t even answer simple questions during the interview – it was an embarrassing performance.” Finlayson might be relieved – or more probably alarmed – that his experience was little different from other experts called in to brief Muller and his hapless senior MPs.
There is specialist material to enjoy. Security geeks, James Bond fans, and Julian Assange and Nicky Hager co-conspiratorialists will parse the chapter on Finalyson’s time as Minister In Charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and Government Communications Security Bureau for more clues about the spy agencies than it reveals. Advocates for pre-1900 arts, culture and heritage will enjoy Finalyson’s recollections of his time in that portfolio. Those who have progressed at least as far as cubism, art deco or the gramophone era will be reminded why they were pleased to see the back of him.
Finlayson’s stories of his rise through the National Party branch structure should be made compulsory reading for everyone with political aspirations, in any party. For lawyers, there's his chapter on what it was like to be Attorney-General and what the job involves, the first such account by a holder of that role. Finalyson’s adamance on the rule of law and the need for Attorneys-General to act independently of their Cabinet colleagues’ political considerations is refreshing in a hyper-partisan era. The entire book is dedicated to former Canadian Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould, who resigned rather than by corrupted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the prosecution of construction and engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.
His opposition to and repeal of Helen Clark’s despicable Foreshore and Seabed Act is explained through that lens. Those who haven’t read his outstanding book He Kupu Taurangi: Treaty Settlements and the Future of Aotearoa New Zealand, published last year, will benefit from this precis of Finlayson’s extraordinary work as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and his unwavering admiration for Dame Tariana Turia.
If you only buy one Finlayson book, He Kupu Taurangi is the more noble. But it's best to buy both, since only by reading Yes, Minister will you understand the imperfect process and personalities that make the progress outlined in He Kupu Taurangi possible, and the fascinating man who stands behind so much of it.
Yes, Minister, by Christopher Finlayson (Allen & Unwin, $37) is available in bookstores nationwide.
