PALMER: The Parliamentary Years
Raymond Richards
Canterbury University Press, $45, pbk
As such it deserves the closest attention by any reader with an interest in New Zealand government.
Geoffrey Palmer, a politician largely devoid of the personal charisma expected by the modern electorate (although privately a charming man), was the back-room boy in the fourth Labour government, the most reforming administration in our history.
He devised and very often wrote the legislative licence for the revolution we have come to know as "Rogernomics".
And, as Raymond Richard describes, Palmer was a fully committed supporter of Roger Douglas' economic policies, believing they were necessary to lift New Zealand out of the prison of debt triggered by the investment in the National government's "think big" disasters.
An enthusiast, yes, but, according to the author, one who came to believe too much was done too quickly.
Richards, a Waikato university history lecturer, has had access to Palmer's papers, including material that has not previously been made generally available to the public.
This means fresh insights can be made into the way several key events in the 1980s evolved, including the showdown over Anzus, the Rainbow Warrior affair, and the irrational and occasionally imperious behaviour of David Lange ...
While this material adds a lot to our knowledge of what went on inside the government, especially with regard to international matters, it was the colossal amount of new legislation largely designed by Palmer that will carry the greater interest.
Yet towards the end of his political career, and that of the government he led, the gap between Palmer's many pronouncements on parliamentary reform - especially the need to do away with treating legislation under urgency in favour of giving everything careful select committee consideration - grew ever wider as he hypocritically rammed through Bill after Bill under urgency, more so once the fate of the fourth Labour government became obvious.
Still, he can be proud of many achievements which have made this country a better place: I would count among these his Resource Management Act, which codified long-overdue environmental protection and public rights; the Bill of Rights - a first step towards proper constitutional protection; and the enabling of Maori claims back to 1840.
He also had a hand in the eventual changes to our electoral system and gave greater status to the functions of the Law Commission (of which he later became president), among others.
The range of legislation he sponsored is astonishing, giving the reader a useful indication of the boundless energy with which Palmer was blessed, and with which he often exhausted staff unable to match his demands.
I'm pleased to say this is substantially - as claimed by the publisher - a "warts and all" portrait.
Palmer is not spared the critical eye, although the strengths as perceived by Richards far outweigh his subject's weaknesses.
New Zealand politics is a robust, down-to-earth affair - somewhat agricultural to sophisticates - and Palmer was never able to shed the persona he acquired early in life, that of the studious school prefect.
He was by no means naturally suited to politics, but used politics to further issues he personally believed in and which he considered necessary for the good of the country and its people.
You can't "do" politics without a prodigious ego, often misapprehended as arrogance alone, and Palmer was not short of either.
As the subtitle "the parliamentary years" suggests, this is not a full biography.
It sketches in some detail Palmer's upbringing in a loving home, the influence on him of his newspaper editor father, and especially of his mother, and their joint desire for him to make the best of his intelligence.
In his adult life Palmer seems to have benefited greatly, too, from his long and happy marriage to his intellectual equal, Margaret, with whom he was able to share an almost daily debriefing of what was going on in his political life.
Palmer's departure from politics seems to have been one of few regrets on his part, but he has continued to contribute much to New Zealand life in other fields: the academic world, in literature, in private law practice, in an advisory role, and in a few important public appointments.
He was certainly the best deputy prime minister we have ever had, an ideal foil of reason for Lange's theatrics and instabilities, yet even he eventually came to mistrust his leader (and with good reason, as is explained here).
Richards remarks with, I think accuracy, that Palmer was mostly right on the issues he confronted.
His achievements easily outweigh the limitations and flaws evident in his political career.
No doubt the passage of time will revise this view - wasn't it Chesterton who said we nearly always think history turns the right corners? - but in the meantime we have this version of events, and it is excellent.
• Bryan James is the books editor and was political editor of the Otago Daily Times throughout Geoffrey Palmer's career as an MP.
