‘Caesars to me are about the big picture, with a huge strategic direction, and having the boldness and authority to see that through … Yes, Thatcher, definitely. Sarkozy, probably. Reagan, certainly.’
What a cast. It was like a concept album, something far-reaching and monstrous, as performed by Meat Loaf. Richardson also counts herself as a fan of Midnight Oil and U2. ‘But Pink Floyd is always my default position. I used to do all my exams by turning up Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here really loud.’
What a force of nurture (‘My father was a very strong man’) and nature (‘Prepared to execute’) she was, what an embrace of life and its opportunities to create chaos. She was made for her time in power; now, though, MMP had ‘stuffed up’ New Zealand politics: ‘MMP banishes any impulse for radical reform. It’s all about tactics and no long-term strategies. You see it every day, in government and in opposition.’
I asked her whether she saw New Zealand as state bureaucracy versus the innovative private sector. ‘I think there are three New Zealands,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the rulers, who will be good, bad or indifferent. Then you’ve got the governed, who fall into two categories. There are those who are kept in the zone, and the zone is: “This is what the state will do for you”. We’ve just seen writ large in the latest budget the fatal conceit that this government has the answer to every economic and social ill, that somehow it will dictate how we live happy and fulfilled and successful and risk-free lives. Yeah, isn’t that great?
‘So you’ve got dependency New Zealand: stay in the zone, be a drone, be dependent on the state, and be grateful for it. Then you’ve got what I call the discovery class – the ones who want to go out of that box. Unhappily, many of the discovery New Zealanders go and discover elsewhere.’
But there was nothing new or original in that speech. The lines creaked with age. She was consistent; she had the same message, the same philosophy that was ‘good for all seasons’. In the early 1990s, she was in a position to alter New Zealand in her image. She was the woman who needed a war. She seemed such a dangerous person back then; now, though, her power stripped away, she just seems like a good sort, a marvellous and harmless antique, a brisk, hearty woman – Gladiator in togs.
[June 10]
2 Chester Borrows
Chester’s Patch
Most people in Chester Borrows’ world are roosters. As a former cop, he once met the disgraced assistant police commissioner, Clint Rickards. ‘Unusual guy,’ he said. ‘A sullen sort of rooster.’ Now, as the National Party’s police spokesman, he has debated with Annette King, the minister of police. ‘Yes, well,’ he said, ‘she’s a sharp sort of rooster.’ On Friday, he held a private meeting with Hank Pullen, president of the Patea chapter of Black Power. ‘He’s all right,’ Borrows said. ‘He’s a quiet sort of rooster.’
They met in Patea’s abandoned primary school. It was closed in 2005 by education minister Trevor Mallard. A chill wind blew over the netball courts and hopscotch squares; inside, a blackboard left behind a sad relic of order and learning – the alphabet, spelled out carefully in chalk. Patea has never truly recovered from the 1982 closing of its freezing works, and loss of over a thousand jobs. The dismal fate of the primary school makes the small Taranaki town (population at the 2006 census: 1,143) feel even more emptied out. The freezing works is now derelict. The school is all ghosts.
Borrows sat in the middle of an empty classroom with Pullen and another senior Black Power member, Ngapari Nui. The Whanganui MP was there to discuss the gang insignia bill he is about to attempt to introduce as law. A public referendum in Wanganui has voted in favour of banning gang patches worn in public places; as the local MP, Borrows supports the initiative, and will present the bill in parliament.
The two Black Power men have known Borrows on and off for many years. He was the sole charge cop in Patea between 1985 and 1988. After the meeting, they stood outside in the playground. ‘No patch, that’s one thing,’ said Pullen. ‘But what about the T-shirt, the cap …’ I asked him what disadvantages there would be if the bill was made into law. He said, ‘It’d be a new crime to be arrested for. Fines. Money that takes food out of the mouths of families. I’d say that was a disadvantage.’
He didn’t say much else. A quiet rooster. He was a short, serious man somewhere in his forties; you could tell by his hands that he was a hard worker. He gave away none of his personality: it was stored away for another time and another place. ‘Last time I arrested him,’ said Borrows, ‘was when he shot someone point-blank in the stomach.
‘But the thing about that was that incident – and it must have been about 20 years ago – was just totally … no one could believe he was actually involved in it. It was just so out of character. He was a guy who was running stock, grazing beefies and doing pretty well, and he had a lot of respect locally. He wasn’t someone who was close to trouble.’
Or since, as far as Borrows knew. ‘As far as Black Power in South Taranaki goes, they’re virtually all employed. I’d say ninety percent of them are working and paying taxes. I could have driven
