Many others have paid tribute to him, outlining his host of amazing achievements, but this one is from me - a mere journalist who knew him well and followed his stellar career in awe.
We first met in Manila in November 1974 when Jim was a member of a New Zealand Parliamentary delegation to the Philippines. It was his first OE as an MP (in opposition at the time) and mine as a TV reporter making a documentary on aid projects in Asia.
We met the infamous President Marcos then travelled the length and breadth of the Philippines, seeing first hand projects New Zealand was funding. This included visiting the Island of Mindanao where there was a civil war raging at the time. The old DC-3 we flew in had a few bullet holes in the wing and we had an armed escort throughout the trip.
We naturally teamed up especially because of our love of agriculture and our Irish Catholic backgrounds. We went to mass together at the Manila Cathedral.
A year later, Jim became the undersecretary for agriculture in the Muldoon government.
As an agricultural journalist, our paths crossed many times over the years, and I developed an enduring friendship with him. I last talked to him a few months ago at a friend's 80th birthday. It's always been gidday Pete - gidday Jim.
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Jim Bolger (Left), Philippines, 1972. |
As a person, I always found Jim and his wife Joan to be completely unpretentious - never flaunting the baubles of high office. His children went to the same Catholic school as my step children and the Bolgers behaved like normal everyday parents.
Jim Bolger was unusual for a National Party Prime Minister in that he openly embraced the concept of social justice and like Peter Fraser, one of the other great New Zealand Prime Ministers of the 20th and 21st centuries, developed close links with Māori. Sir Tipene O'Regan believed that Bolger's Irish ancestry might have influenced him a lot in regard to realising the impact of colonisation on a country. A true statement if ever there was one. Bolger and Fraser are my top Prime Ministers of the modern era.
Jim Bolger was born to Irish immigrant parents from Co Wexford who ran a dairy farm near Opunake.
He left school at 15 to work on the family farm and then farmed in his own right in the Waikato where he was heavily involved in Federated Farmers before winning the King Country seat in 1972 which he held until his retirement in 1998.
While Jim was all things unpretentious and gentle, he was not afraid of getting involved in the hurly burley of politics and led a couple of unsuccessful coups before gaining the leadership of the National Party in 1986 and then becoming the Prime Minister in 1990.
But his tour of duty for New Zealand never ended when he left politics - he became our ambassador to the United States, Chancellor of the University of Waikato, and Chair of NZ Post to name a few.
He became great friends with Ireland's first ambassador to New Zealand, Peter Ryan, and helped give birth to the concept of Ngati Irishness and his Irish wit and humour was always there.
A woolshed orator, politically astute, insightful, a promoter of equality, social justice and family, and a decent society, a republican who refused a knighthood, and a leader whose legacy will abide for generations.
Jim... May the wind be always at your back. May the sunshine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
