Guyon Espiner’s excellent RNZ series The 9th Floor, consists of interviews with five ex NZ PMs: Geoffrey Palmer, Mike Moore, Jim Bolger, Jenny Shipley, Helen Clark.
Here’s Mike Moore:
The Trader – Mike Moore: Prime Minister 1990
Former Labour Prime Minister Mike Moore worries about his party. Yes his party still. Oh, there is some bitterness and bad blood for sure, but he’s still a party member and desperately wants Labour to win office again.
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“Yes I’m proud of what the Labour Party has done for people. And we can do it again,” he says. “I hope I live long enough to see another Labour government,” he chuckles, in one of many laughs we had that day.But he has some sharp criticisms too. … “I think its basis is how you elect your [Labour] leader,” he says. “The caucus is our primary and sitting in that caucus you know what is going on and the idea that someone can not have the support in the caucus and the leader has to speak for that is a terrible idea.”
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Of course Labour was always going to be thrashed in 1990 given the firefight over Rogernomics. Moore was only installed to “save the furniture”. Remarkably he nearly become Prime Minister again, going from a record loss to a near win as National was nearly ousted after one term at the 1993 election. But then Moore lost the leadership to Helen Clark. That still hurts. A lot. Although he’s complimentary about her government (the first two terms anyway).Moore is a fascinating study of leadership. He knows what it is like to grasp power, to have power and to lose it. He’s also fascinating because he surprises. He’s a union man – yes, even now – and Labour party member, but he supports the TPP, ran the WTO and is a champion of globalisation. That’s why we called him The Trader in this series. …
Plenty more in the text, but for the full hour-long interview you’ll need to listen…
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