The 9th Floor

by Guyon Espiner, Tim Watkin

If you’re going to lead, you have to have certain values that are important to you, otherwise you can’t lead, you just flip-flop around the place.
Jim Bolger

Nowhere is it written down what are the powers of the Prime Minister. . . . it’s your personality, it’s the skills that you’ve got, it’s how you use the office.
Helen Clark

Based on the acclaimed RNZ podcast series, and including new material, The 9th Floor by journalists Guyon Espiner and Tim Watkin presents in-depth interviews with five former Prime Ministers of New Zealand. Geoffrey Palmer, Mike Moore, Jim Bolger, Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark reflect on their time occupying the prime ministerial offices on the 9th floor of the Beehive. Their recollections amount to a fascinating record of the decisions that shaped modern New Zealand.

The question is, as always in politics, is what happens to people at the bottom? How do you make them catch up? Mike Moore

Until you’ve had the levers of power at your disposal, you don’t realise how fragile democracy is. Geoffrey Palmer

Sometimes you have to do the hard thing which is right, not the mindless thing, which may be popular, but actually is a terrible legacy to the next generation. Jenny Shipley

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2017

About the author

Attended the University of Canterbury.

New Zealand investigative journalist.

Married Emma Wehipeihana in 2012.

Reviews

[Duncan Croft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for NZ history or political buffs.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful series of interviews with past NZ prime ministers. Recommended.

[Aranka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overview
This book is a transcript of interviews done by Radio New Zealand with five former NZ Prime Ministers, from Geoffrey Palmer (1984-89) to Helen Clark (1999-2008). History becomes more lively and vivid as being told by those who actually shaped it. However, I would strongly recommend going through a generic political history book first before reading this one, because the highly colloquial texts are full of contexts that outsiders might find unfamiliar. The appendix of chronology helps a bit though.

Impression
It seems that difficult economic situations bred tougher governments, which need a strong leader to adopt fierce/swift policies. Those that left strong marks include the near dictatorship of Seddon and Muldoon, despite that the opposite might be a stereotype ideological perception. Radical privatisation sought by Bolger is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher.

It is staggering to know that there are few books/research about Shipley, even though she was the first female PM. Personally I think her talk was more "down-to-earth", with denser information to linger thoughts on compared with others'. Her responses were also lengthier, but then the interviewer also seemed to have tougher questions to her, presumably because she was elected by the caucus rather than the country.

Quotes

Obviously Treasury and those of that irk said, 'Well, we can't afford it.' ...
But... We need a museum that captured who we were as a people, as a nation, as a country...
We didn't have to spend much money at the beginning and by the time we had to spend real money we'd have the economy fixed.

-- Jim Bolger
That was Bolger talking about Te Papa, which proves to be a legacy today. This still holds for other regional museums, some of which might be minor but nevertheless leave a richer impression on visitors.

Leadership. The skills of leadership, to bring people to the acceptance of what was the right and best way forward.

-- Jim Bolger
This was talking about political negotiations that can happen among people who were previously "enemies".

'Will they sell their soul for anything?' I mean, in the end, there's no choice.
You have to say, 'There's an issue here and we're going to deal with it, and we'll then look at how we broaden the support for this.

-- Helen Clark

[Bianca Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful look into what it takes to lead the country and the difficult decisions you have to make. I thought it was really interesting how little outline the role of PM actually has and how each leader used that in different ways. Would definitely recommend if you want to gain a surface level understanding of big political events within New Zealand during the time these leaders were in power

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting insight into the recent history of NZ. Hopefully in another few years we can get a follow-up book featuring Key, English and Ardern. It’s a shame that something like this - a nostalgic interview series - isn’t around for Lange and Muldoon, Kirk and Holyoake.
Should be required reading for all NZers.

[Tanya TL · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book from the back to the front, i.e. starting with Helen Clark and working backwards to earlier PMs. I was interested to know what their successor thought of them, before I went on to read their takes. I thought the interviewers did a good job putting things fairly to them. As someone living outside NZ and who only really noticed NZ politics around Jim Bolgers time, it was an interesting read especially since each PM's personality shone through.

NB: My initial review (above) was from Jan 2020 from my first reading& I actually went & re-read it after reading Blue Blood by Andrea Vance and yep, just as good as I remember it.