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Anderton: His Life and Times
Jim Anderton, the Labour rebel who founded a new political movement and became deputy prime minister, is the subject of this compelling, warts-and-all biography by award-winning historian David Grant.
From his position as the Party’s most outspoken president, Jim Anderton became a backbencher in David Lange’s Labour Government when it was elected in 1984. He was soon leading the fight against Finance Minister Roger Douglas’s top-down free market revolution known as Rogernomics, and his campaign split the party and led to his decision to leave and launch NewLabour in 1989. From 1991 he was leader of the Alliance, a grouping of parties which in the early to mid-1990s was more popular than Labour and National, while Anderton was the most preferred prime minister in the opinion polls.
Anderton: His Life and Times tells the story of Anderton’s greatest triumphs, including founding state-owned Kiwibank and successfully holding his electorate seat while leading three different political parties. It also includes his failures as a politician and as a father who put his political career ahead of his family. Anderton emerges as a charismatic leader whose stubborn self-confidence inspired legions of voters but also alienated many in his own camp.
From his position as the Party’s most outspoken president, Jim Anderton became a backbencher in David Lange’s Labour Government when it was elected in 1984. He was soon leading the fight against Finance Minister Roger Douglas’s top-down free market revolution known as Rogernomics, and his campaign split the party and led to his decision to leave and launch NewLabour in 1989. From 1991 he was leader of the Alliance, a grouping of parties which in the early to mid-1990s was more popular than Labour and National, while Anderton was the most preferred prime minister in the opinion polls.
Anderton: His Life and Times tells the story of Anderton’s greatest triumphs, including founding state-owned Kiwibank and successfully holding his electorate seat while leading three different political parties. It also includes his failures as a politician and as a father who put his political career ahead of his family. Anderton emerges as a charismatic leader whose stubborn self-confidence inspired legions of voters but also alienated many in his own camp.
504 pages, Paperback
Published October 20, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 19, 2023
fantastic read!! i’m either a thoroughly boring person or the way this man writes just makes you want to stay up into the wee hours of the morning reading about universal student loans and paid parental leave. JIM ANDERTON!! what an iconic figure in new zealand politics, reading the alliance’s 1993 manifesto just wanted to make me scream it had so many good policies. that progressive taxation system makes me want to frolic around in a field somewhere. on an aside, there was an odd amount of typos e.g 9/11 did not happen on September 2 and a few others…other than that this book was a masterclass of political biography.
March 9, 2025
No detail is spared across hundreds and hundreds of pages! Wanna know about every political meeting Jim Anderton ever went to, who was there, and how much they charged for a cup of tea? This book is for you!
More gripping than this review implies, I loved it but it was never gonna be five stars just because can a political biography ever be? Anyway I have taken a lot of notes because like Jim I’m not here for privatisation of hospitals.
More gripping than this review implies, I loved it but it was never gonna be five stars just because can a political biography ever be? Anyway I have taken a lot of notes because like Jim I’m not here for privatisation of hospitals.
June 8, 2023
Brilliantly researched and written.
Only fault is the skimping over the vast electorate work over some 25 years which saw Anderton returned comfortably to parliament term after term and his willingness to deal with constituent issues from all around the country. These were not substantially dealt with by his Wgtn office as indicated in the book but undertaken locally by his electorate staff and volunteers.
The book compares very favourably with David Grant's "The Mighty Totara" - his biography on Norman Kirk - and both are highly recommended to all political science students and those wishing with an open mind to enter the higher end of politics at any stage. For general reading to learn of a very fascinating account of NZ's political history it is also highly recommended.
Only fault is the skimping over the vast electorate work over some 25 years which saw Anderton returned comfortably to parliament term after term and his willingness to deal with constituent issues from all around the country. These were not substantially dealt with by his Wgtn office as indicated in the book but undertaken locally by his electorate staff and volunteers.
The book compares very favourably with David Grant's "The Mighty Totara" - his biography on Norman Kirk - and both are highly recommended to all political science students and those wishing with an open mind to enter the higher end of politics at any stage. For general reading to learn of a very fascinating account of NZ's political history it is also highly recommended.
July 15, 2023
A big book about a man who had a big presence in his community and his country. I always remember fondly how he used to drop in to chat in the staff room when I taught in a local school.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews