Power. More substantial than fame. More sought after than money.
Those who have it lead us and shape us, for good or ill. Theirs is the opportunity and responsibility, ours the consequence.
But, in a Westminster-style democracy we as ordinary citizens, and especially as journalists, also have the opportunity and responsibility to watch that power closely. The old journalist’s maxim is “to speak truth to power”. How can we do that if we don’t investigate where power resides?
So that’s what we’ve done. Seek power. In politics, business, media and culture (and we mean culture in the broadest sense; from arts, science and sport to different ethnic communities). What we’ve found are the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand.
The people we sent on this expedition all know power inside out. They have either wielded it themselves or seen it firsthand. Our power panellists are introduced below.
We set some boundaries on our hunt. First, we established a relevant definition of power: “The ability to influence and shape the lives, lifestyles and values of New Zealanders this year.”
In our discussions, a few questions kept coming up – would everyone take this person’s call, do they get undivided attention when they speak, would they survive when others fall, does the buck stop with them?
We judged contenders on their standing and influence in 2004 alone, as we intend to repeat the project next year, and the year after.
We also looked for actual power – not potential power, not latent power that is left to lie, but power that is either wielded or assumed.
We have also limited ourselves to New Zealanders who live in New Zealand. We want to be indigenous. Previously powerful New Zealanders who have left New Zealand, such as Doug Myers, are no longer relevant to our lives, lifestyles and values. The power of New Zealanders acting on the world stage, such as Tim Groser at the WTO or Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon, is broad internationally but not deep locally.
We also ruled out non-New Zealanders. If not, foreigners could arguably have made up most of the list. As a small country, we are prey to winds of influence rolling in from overseas. Osama bin Laden and George Bush have made our whole world a more dangerous place, Paris Hilton has influenced the way young women style themselves, and Alan Greenspan and the currency traders have had more impact than most New Zealanders on our bottom-lines. But we wanted to dig out the powerful in this country; those we can reasonably keep an eye on.
So we excluded foreigners in our midst, too. Jane Diplock at the Securities Commission and Roy Hemmingway at the Electricity Commission, for example, might have registered, but they are not Kiwis and we don’t know how long they will stay. (The exception in the list is Aussie David Butler at IRD. He calls himself a Kiwi and is settled here.)
With those rules in mind, the panellists met in Auckland to whittle down a long list of 150 contenders to the final 50. They then gave each of those 50 a score out of 400: zero-100 in the four categories, politics, culture, business and media. After some statistical smoothing we had our list.
What did we find?
Some power is obvious (Clark, Brash), especially in a small country, but much is not (Rumball, Te Atairangikaahu, Edgar). Some power is very direct (Bollard, Turia) and some very subtle (Gibbs). Some power has been around a long time (Hillary), and some is very new (Morgan). Some can be celebrated (Ulmer and Scribe). Some might last no longer than next season’s fashion show or test match (Cooper and Umaga, respectively). And some only as long as they’re in the job (Belgrave).
This year’s trends in power were towards Wellington and towards Maori. As this govern-ment pushes back against the free-market trends begun 20 years ago, so it reclaims power for itself and public-sector heavyweights, such as IRD head David Butler, DOC chief Hugh Logan and, ironically, Chief Justice Sian Elias.
Hands-on and interventionist by instinct, ministers such as Clark, Cullen, Tamihere, Mallard (and, for a while, Turia) are remoulding the country. Steve Maharey, Margaret Wilson and Phil Goff were also significant, and missed places on the list by only a whisker.
Opposition Leader, in comparison, is a position with limited tangible power, but Brash squeezed every last drop out of it at Orewa. It earns him a high placing, even though by the end of the year, his influence had shrunk.
Of other politicians, only Turia and Peters, through both their threats and support, ever had any real grip on political power this year.
The good thing about this trend, thankfully, is that it ultimately gives the power back to us, the voters. But that’s for next year’s list.
Auckland, so dominant in the 80s and 90s, suffers as a result. It is Rod Deane and Ralph Norris, who can flex their muscles in both main centres, who claim the highest positions among business leaders.
Don’t get us wrong, wealth, profit margins and networks matter. Just not as much as they did.
The paradox of Brash’s Orewa speech and the foreshore and seabed legislation is that, although arguably setting back Maori interests, they actually provided a platform and a chance for Maori power to grow.
So 10 Maori make the list. At 20 percent, that’s higher than their proportion of the population. Notably, there are no Asian leaders included (though lawyer Mai Chen came closest).
Despite the prevailing theory that we’re a country ruled by women, only 10 make the list. Which raises the interesting question of who didn’t make it. One of the supposedly ruling women, our titular head of state, Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, caused hardly a murmur from our panel. Note also that although sport is present, it’s hardly ascendant. The panel had little time for celebrities, even though they can seem inescapable at times. “That is not real power,” they kept saying. Scientists, with their long-term views, were hard to pin down, but are seen as a coming force. AgResearch head Andrew West only just missed out.
Artists and writers, often a significant force in overseas power lists, simply didn’t have much to say that swayed or moved us. (Michael King, of course, would have been a contender, but we decided to limit the list to the living.)
And so, power remains mostly male, Pakeha and middle-aged. Having said that, by far and away the dominant figure this year was Prime Minister Helen Clark. Although this was her toughest 12 months in government yet, she ends the year as strong as a rampart and looking good for an historic third term.
We hope you enjoy the list, and are as intrigued as we were. Please join the debate about where power lies in this country; and keep a close eye on the blighters.
POWER PANEL
Michael Bassett is a historian, formerly Minister of Health and Arts in the Lange government and a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.
Russell Brown is a media columnist, radio host and web publisher.
Margaret Clark is professor of political studies at Victoria University.
Graeme Hunt is an Auckland-based journalist and author. He edited the National Business Review Rich List from 1994-2003.
Pauline Kingi is Auckland regional director of Te Puni Kokiri, and a trustee of Leadership NZ.
John Lancashire is a science strategist and former GM of AgResearch and Grasslands.