What Happens to the Recycled Prime Ministers

I just don’t get it. Why would a perennial over achiever like John Banks want to get back into Parliament, particularly as a backbencher in a party likely to be a victim of a welcome consolidation of party numbers, which should also see the merciful end of United Christian Futures as well as Act?
Banksy has self made wealth, flash homes and cars, a helicopter, a lovely wife and nice family and that is already more than most. He has been a government MP, a cabinet minister and mayor of our biggest city. Each of these achievements exceeds that of most politicians. Other than his unfortunate habit of still wearing drab suits and ties when he can afford the uniform of successful New Zealanders, namely jandals, shorts and floral shirts, his lifestyle seems desirable to most Kiwis. Yet he seems about to put himself through all this hassle and ridicule once more.
While I can sort of see the appeal of the power of the top two jobs, PM and Treasurer, there must be some other hidden addictive part to politics that the rest of us just don’t get.
While I’m on about Banksy it occurs to me that for a country not a lot older than my house, we have a hell of a lot of former Prime Ministers and former Finance Ministers floating around. What are they doing and what do we learn from it?
With apologies to any I miss out I can think of Lange, Moore, McLay, Shipley, Bolger and Palmer plus a few Treasurers or nearly PMs, like, Birch, Caygill, Douglas outside parliament and Anderton, English and Peters still inside.
While all enjoy the perks of an overly generous super scheme and flash free travel, some have adjusted well to life after Parliament with supposedly left leaning politicos learning to love the life of fees and consultancies. Although aurguably the least effective as PM, process focussed Geoffrey Palmer is probably top of the pops here, having inflicted the Resource Management Act on the country, he now earns heaps charging people to have it interpreted for them.
Other short-termers, Mike Moore and Jim McLay have carved out a niche on the international scene, Moore at the World Trade Organisation, and McLay at the Macquarie millionaires factory.
After a spell in Washington, courtesy of his replacement, Jim Bolger seems to be enjoying himself as Chair of NZ Post. This odd arrangement, where the former leader of the supposedly business friendly National party is now setting policy at the Kiwi Bank, the brain child of his old foe, Jim Anderton, shows that MPs have taken the concept of iwi to heart and look after each other more than they look after the voters who they don’t seem to trust with their own money any more.
Jenny Shipley has stuck to her private enterprise philosophy and is actively involved in China using her PM job skills on the wider stage.
Lange, who strode the World stage during his tenure has retired home to Mangere to battle privately with his health challenges and make the most of his family time, especially with his beloved daughter Edith.
What of our future retired leaders, whenever that may happen? Well it’s worth considering now as the battle lines draw for the forthcoming election. Helen Clark, the current heavyweight, may well have more of a scrap on her hands than we thought some months back. A string of annoying minor hiccups has coincided with a well intentioned budget that has left the appealing tax cut door wide open for the Nats to cause some doubts.
If the Rugby analogy of the winner being the one with the most will to win follows in politics, then Helen Clark will take a lot of beating. I have no special knowledge of her plans but I suspect that like John Banks, just being a retired PM is not enough for her and she has had plans for far more than being on the Whaling Commission, which seems to be the well plod path to post PM life.
If I am not wrong and if she does win a historic third term as Labour PM, then I suspect that in the future she will become almost as well known internationally as our only true world-wide name, Sir Edmund Hillary. The first female secretary of the United Nations perhaps? I hope that’s not what is driving us to be the first to pay Green House taxes!

Wayne Brown