A thoroughly decent bloke

After the ongoing political debacles of the past year it's heartening to be reminded that politics can be something constructive and politicians can actually be capable of being leaders. That reminder came with the death of former prime minister Jim Bolger.

- Aaron Smale

My only professional encounter with Bolger was an interview in 2016 on the launch of Vincent O'Malley's book The Great War for New Zealand. Arguably, the high point of Bolger's time in office was negotiating the settlements with Tainui and then Ngāi Tahu.

He was a King Country farmer who had grown up in coastal Taranaki, where iwi were subjected to invasion and confiscation. He had lived with a dark history under his feet, then he stepped forward and created history of a different kind.

It's easy to forget how fraught the Māori-crown relationship was when Bolger was PM. But no one knew what came next, which only made the settlement between the crown and Tainui all the more remarkable. They both entered discussions with no precedent.

“Nobody really had any idea," Bolger told me. “The Treasury figure [for treaty settlements] was about $250 million. And I said that’s ridiculous. After the cabinet committee meeting got nowhere, I said to Doug Graham [treaty negotiations minister], I don't know exactly what the figure will be at all, but I think it'll be at least a billion dollars.”

What Bolger thought was the minimum eventually became the government’s capped maximum, known as the Fiscal Envelope, provoking a fierce backlash from Māori. But there were also fears bordering on hysteria from some Pākehā.