Parliament's new Speaker originally chose to be a whip but fate intervened. Meet the man who marshals the MPs: an interview-walk through the fascinating life and career of Adrian Rurawhe.
You may have noticed that parliament has a new speaker. You could call him the accidental speaker. It's certainly not a role he sought out. Quite the opposite. But knowing his story you might also think his background and experience have provided the ideal training. Quite accidentally.
Adrian Rurawhe is the Labour MP for the Māori electorate of Te Tai Hauāuru which covers the west of the North Island from Tawa to Te Awamutu.
He doesn't much throw himself into the limelight and so is not well known outside his wider rohe, but it is useful surely to know a little of parliament's new landlord, spokesperson and chairman.
Let's begin with the beginnings and move on to politics later. Though you will note that somehow it is all a little bit politics.
Listen to the audio version of this interview.
The Railway Years
Adrian Rurawhe is of Ngāti Apa iwi, but was born and raised outside their Manawatū/Whanganui heartland, in Taihape, where his father drove steam engines for New Zealand Rail. Taihape was a key stop on the Main Trunk Line and rail was the major business in town.
"Growing up within a small rural community, the railway families all stuck together. It was a really neat little place to grow up. I really enjoyed my childhood."
When Adrian Rurawhe passed School C (the first in his family to do so), his dad decided he was now 'job ready' and organised him a job - on the railways of course - but in the clerical office, away from the shift work he had endured as a driver.
The young Rurawhe quite took to the role and eight years later (1986) he was working on payroll at Railways' head office in Wellington.
It's hard now to envisage just how encompassing rail was in New Zealand at the time. It trained every trade it might need internally rather than contracting any roles. It had engineers, trainbuilders, plumbers, electricians, catering, everything. Even hairdressers.
Governments used it to soak up unemployment. When Rurawhe started work, there were around 20,000 employees.
In the late 1980s a wholesale restructuring drastically downsized Railways, and for his final two years he spent all his time processing final pays. It was a 'pay run' they processed every day.
"The last one I did was my own, in September 1991."
By that time about 75 percent of the Railways workforce had gone.
"You can see it had to happen. I don't know if it needed to happen the way it happened. You probably wouldn't do that today."…