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OCTOBER 23, 2025
Bolger remembered By Chris Gardner
Tributes have continued to flow for former Prime Minister Jim Bolger, who died last week. The father of nine had been undergoing dialysis since kidney failure last year. He died on Wednesday last week surrounded by his children, 18 grandchildren and wife Joan. “He could have asked for no better farewell,” Winston Peters told Parliament during tributes. Prime Minister Chris Luxon revealed that while he did not know Bolger well, since assuming office he had received “a few quiet phone calls from him… they were short, sincere, and thoughtful”. He offered “advice that I took seriously”. Labour leader Chris Hipkins referred to contradictions in the former PM’s life – among then… “his government sold the Bank of New Zealand…then he was the inaugural chair of the new government owned Kiwibank. Te Māori Pati co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer said his work around the cabinet table gave life to the principles of good faith and goodwill unto all. “He knew Te Tiriti o Waitangi promises a place for all in this country.” The former Taranaki-King Country member of parliament and prime minister was one of six legends to be acknowledged with a pou in Rora Street by Legendary Te Kūiti in 2023. Bolger’s pou stands in the town where he lived for many years and it is along side pou honouring Sir David Fagan, Dame Rangimarie Hetet, Sir Colin Meads, Squadron Leader and former mayor Les Munro, and Koro Wetere. “If you look at the pou in the street, five of them have now passed,” said
Bolger’s successor to the electorate National party member of parliament Barbara Kuriger. Shane Ardern served in the role between them, assuming the seat in 1998. “He was a mentor of mine and we very much will miss his banter,” Ardern said. “Because of Jim’s relatively humble upbringing, he had this ornate sense of what was right and what was wrong. He wanted to establish what he called a decent society. “That was the catchphrase, and in my opinion, he did everything he possibly could to achieve that. He will be dearly missed.” Kuriger recalled Bolger becoming prime minister in a landslide victory in 1990 - the same year she completed primary school - and meeting him a few years later at a National Party event on her parents’ farm. “He was not one to go home, retire and sit around,” she said. “He got by, by doing many things for society.” Bolger served as Ambassador to the United States from 1998 until 2001, chaired New Zealand Post and Kiwibank from 2001 until 2010, served as University of Waikato chancellor from 2007 until 2019, and chaired the Constitutional Advisory Panel from 2011 until 2013. Former Hamilton mayor and Waikato Regional Council chair Russ Rimmongton remembered Bolger as a humble “special man’”. “Farmers make brilliant directors and he had all the skills’” Rimmington said. John Robertson, who is beginning his third term as Waitomo mayor, remembered Bolger as his friend, mentor and boss. “When he became prime minister in 1990, I was one of the new MPs, and he was my boss,” Robertson said.
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Jim Bolger and wife Joan at the installation of his pou in Rora Street, Te Kuiti, in 2023.
“In our first caucus meeting he said, ‘I did not choose any of you and I have got to make a team out of you.” Robertson remembered Bolger for reshaping Crown–Māori relations by championing the resolution of historical injustices under the Treaty of Waitangi. Bolger signed the WaikatoTainui Raupatu Settlement in 1995 and the Ngāi Tahu Settlement in 1998. Another former Waikato Regional Council chair, Peter Buckley, recalled he met Bolger on several occasions “on matters that needed a wise man
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to guide us through matters with the government of the day”. “When there were issues relating the King Country, he was one of the go to men that could help sort out the problems. “His knowledge not only in politics, but in the community was invaluable as Jim held the community very high. “It was a sad loss to hear of his death, but he has left New Zealand in a better place. “We needed a Jim and Jim came through at the right time.”
Ardern’s tribute By Jesse Wood
Former Taranaki-King Country MP Shane Ardern describes the late Jim Bolger as a mentor and a person that you would always leave feeling “uplifted”. Although 25 years apart, Bolger and Ardern had much in common and shared three decades of friendship. The pair were both Opunake High School old boys from coastal Taranaki and brought up in farming backgrounds. Ardern now farms on the road where Bolger’s family lived when he was born in 1935, Watino Rd in Te Kiri. “He was my predecessor in the electorate. But I also had the position of electorate chairman for Jim when he was prime minister,” Ardern said. “Together, he and Joan could only be described as a very inspirational couple. “But being able to hold the positions he did, as prime minister and the many other ministerial roles prior to that, as well as raise a family of nine kids and run a reasonably large meat and wool farm in Te Kūiti at the same time… people have underestimated that.” Ardern recalled Bolger’s landslide win in 1990. the largest landslides the National Party had ever seen. The election was on the Saturday and on the Sunday afternoon, officials contacted Bolger saying, “we have to see you in Wellington today”.
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