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Steven Joyce: The Insider
"
Steven Joyce was one of the most senior ministers in the Key National Government and the National Party's campaign strategist since 2005. He entered Parliament in 2008 when National came back into power and led the party's winning campaigns in 2011 and 2014. John Key, Bill English and Steven Joyce were the three key powerbrokers of the Key government, with Joyce both strategist and enforcer of party discipline. This book goes into detail about what it takes to win and keep office and how strategy and a strong campaign are essential components of that.
Joyce has been a senior minister for nearly all of his 10 years in Parliament and gained a reputation as ""minister for everything"" when former Prime Minister John Key took to sending him in to clean up messes like the Novopay debacle and to run the new super-ministry the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.
He spent eight years as an effective apprentice to former Finance Minister Bill English, before becoming Finance Minister when English became Prime Minister. He has also held the heavyweight transport and infrastructure portfolios.
Highlights during Joyce's decade in Parliament including setting up major infrastructure projects like ultrafast broadband, the motorway and expressway projects that were now beginning to be used, and the electrification of Auckland's commuter rail network.
"
Steven Joyce was one of the most senior ministers in the Key National Government and the National Party's campaign strategist since 2005. He entered Parliament in 2008 when National came back into power and led the party's winning campaigns in 2011 and 2014. John Key, Bill English and Steven Joyce were the three key powerbrokers of the Key government, with Joyce both strategist and enforcer of party discipline. This book goes into detail about what it takes to win and keep office and how strategy and a strong campaign are essential components of that.
Joyce has been a senior minister for nearly all of his 10 years in Parliament and gained a reputation as ""minister for everything"" when former Prime Minister John Key took to sending him in to clean up messes like the Novopay debacle and to run the new super-ministry the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.
He spent eight years as an effective apprentice to former Finance Minister Bill English, before becoming Finance Minister when English became Prime Minister. He has also held the heavyweight transport and infrastructure portfolios.
Highlights during Joyce's decade in Parliament including setting up major infrastructure projects like ultrafast broadband, the motorway and expressway projects that were now beginning to be used, and the electrification of Auckland's commuter rail network.
"
320 pages, Paperback
Published December 15, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 8, 2025
I think that too often in political life we prioritise collective endeavour at the expense of achieving great outcomes for people. Think of education, for example, and health, where collectivism too often leads to mediocre performance.
Another reason I love libraries in terms of wanting to read a book without wanting to spend money on it.
A Series of Yarns
You can never tell in advance when something like the red / blue billboards will come along and capture the public or the medias imagination. I liken such moments to the America’s Cup red socks campaign. Nobody would have expected a simple pair of red socks to take off like they did. When you discover a marketing device like that your job is to ride it for as long as you can — and we did.
If you want to read a comprehensive insider’s guide to the National Government of 2008-2017, well you are out of luck. Joyce has his ministerial interests and particular skeletons in his cupboard (for the second time, Brash’s exit post 2005 is retold with far more decorum that it appeared at the time). Read them all, I guess, and try to create a discernible mosaic out of the shifting perceptions. To be fair, the National did run relatively smoothly throughout this period so there is consistency in that sense.
As for On the Record in particular, a work of literature it is not. As other reviewers have noted, On the Record is a series of anecdotes that breezily run through events with the lightest of touches in terms of opinion making and fact checking (such as who it was that coined “chewing gum tax cuts”). As I have read several political memoirs (or hit pieces) covering overlapping time periods, Joyce’s facts and interpretations are open to dispute. Realistically that will always be the case and I don’t particularly care to re-litigate them in a Goodreads review.
Where Joyce does write well is in respect of his family. It is up to Joyce whether he wants to further share those deeply personal experiences and challenges with an autistic child, but I do believe he would be a good advocate.
The Rightward Lean
My view is the Australians made two major errors. Firstly, they didn’t structure their arrangements to give themselves other options to contract with besides Telstra; and secondly, they effectively renationalised the network by buying Telstra’s pipes and ducts, rather than partnering with the private sector, which is almost always more efficient.
I have bagged On the Record a bit. However, I do consider it an essential read, for a reason that mirrors my endorsement of Labour Saving . Joyce, the pragmatic manager of corporate interests, repeatedly sets out what a “Centre Right” government is, right from the trope of his hardworking small business parents through to Joyce’s own struggles with and manipulations against government interference in business.
I have seen the criticism that Joyce is a little woolly where the boundaries are between Centre Right and libertarian viewpoints, however I am relatively forgiving as politics does force compromises and vagueness. It is clear enough that Joyce is looking to give a helping hand to businesses so they can more effectively make money and lift national prosperity. Sometimes it is at a relatively hands on level, such as with Rocket Lab or the Rena grounding, otherwise it is more high-level as to preferences for roading or improving university performance. Joyce comes off as active at all levels, which does make sense because he wrote this book but compared to, say, Rory Stewart, his sense of perspective is wider.
I read On the Record as a broad statement on the values of Centre Right governance, even if it lacks the detailed nuance of Yes, Minister or Labour Saving. Even if Joyce is an “unreliable narrator” on certain facts (and who isn’t), there is an authenticity to what he stood for. I am willing to park whether I agree or disagree with the policies and their impact, because On the Record gives me useful guidance for whom I should vote for without needing to do detailed policy analysis. Encouraging capital appears to be the driver, rather than encouraging labour.
Many people argue we already do better than many countries in enabling businesses to invest and grow. And it’s true. Lots of large countries are very bureaucratic. But our small size and relative isolation means we have to work harder to attract businesses and entrepreneurs to set up here than they do in, say, Texas, Tokyo or even Sydney. The reality is that it is easier to make money in a bigger population than a smaller one.
If you read On the Record with Labour Saving, you should be equipped to understand what the differences are between a Centre Right government and a Centre Left one, at least in a New Zealand context. That truly has value to me as it is more than cultural signifiers that tend to dominate the discourse in American dominated media (we are blessed that the parties have a lot of alignment in those areas). So, while it’s a lucky four star, it’s a fair one.
As an aside, there is a bit of campaign management stuff as Joyce served in that role over several elections. I get he does have to cover it and it is not irrelevant, but I could not care less about it. Your mileage may vary.
Another reason I love libraries in terms of wanting to read a book without wanting to spend money on it.
A Series of Yarns
You can never tell in advance when something like the red / blue billboards will come along and capture the public or the medias imagination. I liken such moments to the America’s Cup red socks campaign. Nobody would have expected a simple pair of red socks to take off like they did. When you discover a marketing device like that your job is to ride it for as long as you can — and we did.
If you want to read a comprehensive insider’s guide to the National Government of 2008-2017, well you are out of luck. Joyce has his ministerial interests and particular skeletons in his cupboard (for the second time, Brash’s exit post 2005 is retold with far more decorum that it appeared at the time). Read them all, I guess, and try to create a discernible mosaic out of the shifting perceptions. To be fair, the National did run relatively smoothly throughout this period so there is consistency in that sense.
As for On the Record in particular, a work of literature it is not. As other reviewers have noted, On the Record is a series of anecdotes that breezily run through events with the lightest of touches in terms of opinion making and fact checking (such as who it was that coined “chewing gum tax cuts”). As I have read several political memoirs (or hit pieces) covering overlapping time periods, Joyce’s facts and interpretations are open to dispute. Realistically that will always be the case and I don’t particularly care to re-litigate them in a Goodreads review.
Where Joyce does write well is in respect of his family. It is up to Joyce whether he wants to further share those deeply personal experiences and challenges with an autistic child, but I do believe he would be a good advocate.
The Rightward Lean
My view is the Australians made two major errors. Firstly, they didn’t structure their arrangements to give themselves other options to contract with besides Telstra; and secondly, they effectively renationalised the network by buying Telstra’s pipes and ducts, rather than partnering with the private sector, which is almost always more efficient.
I have bagged On the Record a bit. However, I do consider it an essential read, for a reason that mirrors my endorsement of Labour Saving . Joyce, the pragmatic manager of corporate interests, repeatedly sets out what a “Centre Right” government is, right from the trope of his hardworking small business parents through to Joyce’s own struggles with and manipulations against government interference in business.
I have seen the criticism that Joyce is a little woolly where the boundaries are between Centre Right and libertarian viewpoints, however I am relatively forgiving as politics does force compromises and vagueness. It is clear enough that Joyce is looking to give a helping hand to businesses so they can more effectively make money and lift national prosperity. Sometimes it is at a relatively hands on level, such as with Rocket Lab or the Rena grounding, otherwise it is more high-level as to preferences for roading or improving university performance. Joyce comes off as active at all levels, which does make sense because he wrote this book but compared to, say, Rory Stewart, his sense of perspective is wider.
I read On the Record as a broad statement on the values of Centre Right governance, even if it lacks the detailed nuance of Yes, Minister or Labour Saving. Even if Joyce is an “unreliable narrator” on certain facts (and who isn’t), there is an authenticity to what he stood for. I am willing to park whether I agree or disagree with the policies and their impact, because On the Record gives me useful guidance for whom I should vote for without needing to do detailed policy analysis. Encouraging capital appears to be the driver, rather than encouraging labour.
Many people argue we already do better than many countries in enabling businesses to invest and grow. And it’s true. Lots of large countries are very bureaucratic. But our small size and relative isolation means we have to work harder to attract businesses and entrepreneurs to set up here than they do in, say, Texas, Tokyo or even Sydney. The reality is that it is easier to make money in a bigger population than a smaller one.
If you read On the Record with Labour Saving, you should be equipped to understand what the differences are between a Centre Right government and a Centre Left one, at least in a New Zealand context. That truly has value to me as it is more than cultural signifiers that tend to dominate the discourse in American dominated media (we are blessed that the parties have a lot of alignment in those areas). So, while it’s a lucky four star, it’s a fair one.
As an aside, there is a bit of campaign management stuff as Joyce served in that role over several elections. I get he does have to cover it and it is not irrelevant, but I could not care less about it. Your mileage may vary.
December 1, 2023
I read all the chapters on his time as transport minister first so that put me in a bad frame of mind and the book is better than that. I wasn’t a fan of NZTA at the time but he bags them too much with only him seeing the right fixes and when they persuaded him to change his mind, it’s been shown to be a mistake anyway. So while he says he’s glad to be out of politics, those chapters are definitely political feeling of “all good decisions were mine, all poor ones were someone else’s”. However going into the other chapters, I came to like him more. You can’t help but be impressed that he did get a lot of stuff done. And even if I didn’t 100% support it, boy we need more happening again in the infrastructure space.
January 22, 2025
I should start by saying that Mr Joyce is by no means particularly skilled in the craft, which I am sure he would agree with, so there are more than a few very interesting anecdotes and case studies you really want to know more about. His time analysing National’s 2002 failure, rebuilding the party ahead of their eventual 2008 victory and constructing the rollout of the fibre network all stand out as fascinating insights into quite complex problems, but lack the sort of rigour and detail you’d really want in a true retrospective. I would gladly read a whole book about his time in radio, if I knew he had enough material to stretch out (compared to just two chapters).
I think the book was written too soon because it required more reflection on the Minister’s part. Other than a pair of paragraphs on how Dame Jacinda Ardern seemed the most put together of anyone in the Labour Party even prior to her ascendancy, he does nothing but cast aspersions on his political opposition. I would expect that with time having passed he might have taken the time to reflect on the circumstances of those events where he disagreed with Labour’s approach, but he casts them each time with the same petty, disorganised and cynical brush. That is not to say that the Labour Party did not deserve that depiction at times; his analysis of the 2017 election may have contained kernels of the truth regarding the way in which they charted their course. The problem is that you can’t determine for yourself whether he has a point because he hadn’t really reflected on anything positive they had done. Every single mention of the Labour Party is either as an unjustified roadblock or claiming a National success in Government. Their actions are never justified in his eyes, and so it’s hard to glean any sort of valuable insight on either party from one of National’s most successful campaign directors.
Indeed, the book gives the distinct impression that Mr Joyce never once in his 15 year political career even thought to stray from the party line. He only comes close to reflect on the National Party structure he inherited in 2002, insightfully pointing out that they, who had dominated politics in the second half of the 20th century and were coming off their worst ever election result to date, were a mess. I do not expect a politician to necessarily turn on his party members in a salacious tell-all but it beggars even more belief that someone can spend nearly a full decade as the number four man in the party without some serious dispute with other party leadership.
Steven Joyce occasionally refers to his ideology using American-ish buzzwords that he doesn’t even seem to believe himself, claiming to be on the “freedom” end of the political spectrum on several occasions in a very dispassionate and poorly explained way. It leads me to believe that this is some line he developed later on to explain his political ambitions long after the fact. The only time he reveals any sort of actual ideology is his justification of the 2017 Budget (his only, as Sir Bill English’s Finance Minister) when he explains the decision to focus on paying down the national debt. He explains that a country like New Zealand is too small and isolated to maintain higher debt-to-GDP ratios that are too risky for funders to bother with, and that there are “lots of advantages” that he doesn’t list for being a country that is “not particularly significant on the world stage”. Just what you want to hear from a senior politician of that country. It’s hard to not see the country’s woes of today (low productivity, peaking emigration of skilled workers, absent infrastructure from lack of investment) take shape from such a worldview.
I think Steven Joyce could be accurately explained as a businessman who went into politics to run the country like a businessman, proving himself in making business like deals but with a businessman’s sense of responsibility (as another reviewer put it, the successes are his and the failures are everyone else’s). The creativity with which he solves problems on world leading initiatives like fibre have to be taken with his pettiness towards the Opposition and his cynical view of New Zealand’s global prospects.
His version of the 2016 Waitangi dildo incident isn’t a riveting read but he is a good sport about it. It’s funny how, when the context is laid out over two and a half pages, something so funny in concept can really be kind of meh.
I think the book was written too soon because it required more reflection on the Minister’s part. Other than a pair of paragraphs on how Dame Jacinda Ardern seemed the most put together of anyone in the Labour Party even prior to her ascendancy, he does nothing but cast aspersions on his political opposition. I would expect that with time having passed he might have taken the time to reflect on the circumstances of those events where he disagreed with Labour’s approach, but he casts them each time with the same petty, disorganised and cynical brush. That is not to say that the Labour Party did not deserve that depiction at times; his analysis of the 2017 election may have contained kernels of the truth regarding the way in which they charted their course. The problem is that you can’t determine for yourself whether he has a point because he hadn’t really reflected on anything positive they had done. Every single mention of the Labour Party is either as an unjustified roadblock or claiming a National success in Government. Their actions are never justified in his eyes, and so it’s hard to glean any sort of valuable insight on either party from one of National’s most successful campaign directors.
Indeed, the book gives the distinct impression that Mr Joyce never once in his 15 year political career even thought to stray from the party line. He only comes close to reflect on the National Party structure he inherited in 2002, insightfully pointing out that they, who had dominated politics in the second half of the 20th century and were coming off their worst ever election result to date, were a mess. I do not expect a politician to necessarily turn on his party members in a salacious tell-all but it beggars even more belief that someone can spend nearly a full decade as the number four man in the party without some serious dispute with other party leadership.
Steven Joyce occasionally refers to his ideology using American-ish buzzwords that he doesn’t even seem to believe himself, claiming to be on the “freedom” end of the political spectrum on several occasions in a very dispassionate and poorly explained way. It leads me to believe that this is some line he developed later on to explain his political ambitions long after the fact. The only time he reveals any sort of actual ideology is his justification of the 2017 Budget (his only, as Sir Bill English’s Finance Minister) when he explains the decision to focus on paying down the national debt. He explains that a country like New Zealand is too small and isolated to maintain higher debt-to-GDP ratios that are too risky for funders to bother with, and that there are “lots of advantages” that he doesn’t list for being a country that is “not particularly significant on the world stage”. Just what you want to hear from a senior politician of that country. It’s hard to not see the country’s woes of today (low productivity, peaking emigration of skilled workers, absent infrastructure from lack of investment) take shape from such a worldview.
I think Steven Joyce could be accurately explained as a businessman who went into politics to run the country like a businessman, proving himself in making business like deals but with a businessman’s sense of responsibility (as another reviewer put it, the successes are his and the failures are everyone else’s). The creativity with which he solves problems on world leading initiatives like fibre have to be taken with his pettiness towards the Opposition and his cynical view of New Zealand’s global prospects.
His version of the 2016 Waitangi dildo incident isn’t a riveting read but he is a good sport about it. It’s funny how, when the context is laid out over two and a half pages, something so funny in concept can really be kind of meh.
August 25, 2024
An insight into NZ politics at a time when I was living overseas so much of this wasn’t detail I followed day to day. The first half about his radio business and entry to politics was interesting. He got a lot done, or seemed to, because he picked the ones that were successful and blamed the failures on others. He stretched his influence a bit far in his recollections of events. Illustrated a little farcically when he described trying to turn the America’s Cup around - as if he could influence a yachting race!
The latter third of the book feels a bit like he was writing to a deadline, a bit lighter on detail and some selective recollections of the way events played out that I would call highly subjective, mind you it’s his memoir I guess. All in all a good read despite those criticisms. It provides an inside view of the workings and changes in the National Party, how much hard work and hours go into a political career, and NZ politics in general.
The latter third of the book feels a bit like he was writing to a deadline, a bit lighter on detail and some selective recollections of the way events played out that I would call highly subjective, mind you it’s his memoir I guess. All in all a good read despite those criticisms. It provides an inside view of the workings and changes in the National Party, how much hard work and hours go into a political career, and NZ politics in general.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews