Influential New Zealand politician Sir Michael Cullen died this week aged 76.
Last year, the former Labour Party deputy prime minister spoke to Kathryn Ryan about his memoir Labour Saving and what he saw from a ringside seat in Parliament.
Photo: VNP /Phil Smith
In early 2019, Cullen began receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer and began writing about his life for something to do.
Although he avoided writing about his work life and politics at first, Cullen found himself unable to craft "long and florid descriptions" about his own personal experience, which he suspects is a generational thing.
He does feel lucky to have possessed a kind of intelligence well-suited to parliamentary debate and Question Time.
"I have a very quick mind which can get me into trouble - and it did - but more than often got me out of trouble."
Genetic gifts like this don't make a person more inherently valuable as a person, though, Cullen adds.
"If you have talents in any particular area it's a very important thing to try and keep your head in the right place. Just because you're good at thinking and writing or rugby or cricket or whatever it doesn't necessarily make you a better person or make you a more worthy person than somebody who has no particularly great talents."
Cullen admires the character traits of many of the National Party politicians he once opposed - particularly the "intelligence and integrity" of Bill English, Jim Bolger's ability to keep the National Party coalition together for three years, John Key's "tremendous skill in being personable" and the debating skill of George Gair and Paul East.
Helen Clark Photo: RNZ
By the time the Labour Party won the 1999 election, the earlier reputation of leader Helen Clark as "cut-throat" had been transformed into respect, Cullen says.
"Helen's consistency and her hard work and her clarity of thought and expression started to come through more."
Over the nine years Clark was prime minister and Cullen her deputy and finance minister, the pair developed a deep trust and together led a very stable Labour Party leadership team, he says.
"Very little was done without the other one having a clear knowledge of what the other wanted to do and what the steps in that were."
As a politician, Sir Michael Cullen is best known for introducing the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, also known as the Cullen Fund; Kiwi Saver and the Working for Families package. After leaving politics in 2009, he became chairman of New Zealand Post and held a number of other public service roles.
