Wild Westie by Hazel Phillips

Author:Hazel Phillips [Phillips, Hazel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781743486764
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

20. Going Into Labour

Even after the success of the 1984 election and in spite of his love of politics, Bob hadn’t necessarily intended to stay within the Labour camp. The Rowling failure had left a sour taste in his mouth for a long time. But things changed when, on 5 January 1999, Labour Party president and successful Wellington businessman Michael Hirschfeld died, aged fifty-four. Hirschfeld, worth around some $20 million according to the

National Business Review’s rich list, had been involved with Labour since the 1960s, on its executive since 1971, and president for the four years preceding his death. His election to president had been seen as ‘a boost to Labour’s fundraising activities in a suspicious corporate sector’ and a break from the stigma of political correctness that had dogged the party in the early 1990s, wrote New Zealand Herald political editor John Armstrong in an obituary the day after Hirschfeld’s death. It would be a hard act to follow for whoever took up the mantle. Bob, who at that point was into his third term as mayor of Waitakere City, was a prime candidate for the role.

Bob had recently worked on a story for North & South magazine about transatlantic rower Phil Stubbs, who had died in a light plane crash on Karekare beach. The research had made him think about mortality and dreams, on top of Hirschfeld’s death. ‘Here was a guy dead at thirty-seven,’ Bob says of Stubbs. ‘He’d had an incredibly full life. The man had been over the Huka Falls three times, rowed the Atlantic and had now departed. What a bloody good life. And I’m thinking, how come I haven’t picked up too many new things lately? Waitakere City is ticking over nicely. The people are happy. Everything is in balance. I thought maybe it was time to do something new.’

The two things Bob had wanted most – re-election and getting a book, Untamed Coast, published – had finally happened and he found himself with a bit of time to play with. Bob still believed passionately in the Labour cause, although he theoretically should have been more in the National camp than anywhere else on the political spectrum. He’d built up a business from nothing, sold out of it and done very well, with two houses, a nice car and money in the bank. Bob’s narration of how the Labour presidency happened to him comes across as perfectly simple: ‘I went to a man’s funeral and came away with his job,’ he says. ‘I was at Karekare when I heard that Michael Hirschfeld had died. It just stopped me in my tracks. I had thought of Hirschfeld as being absolutely key to the success of the Labour Party and the Labour government’s return to power.’

Hirschfeld was well respected within Labour Party ranks as a dedicated fundraiser for the party. Bob had been in touch with him over the preceding two years about contacts in Auckland he might approach for money, and because the pair

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