Real Life With John CowanPaul Goldsmith is a dedicated New Zealand politician, currently serving as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister of Justice, Minister for Media and Communications, and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. Born in Mt Eden and educated at Auckland Grammar, he now lives in Epsom with his wife and four children.
Elected to Parliament in 2011 off the National Party list, Paul has held various Ministerial roles, including Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment. He also served as Chair of the Parliamentary Finance and Expenditure Select Committee and was an Auckland City Councillor from 2007 to 2010.
Before politics, Paul was a historian and biographer, publishing 10 books on New Zealand’s history and economic development. Outside of work, he’s passionate about music, holds a 2nd dan black belt in Taekwondo, and plays for the Parliamentary Rugby team.
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Gooda and welcome to real Life. I'm John Cown and my guest tonight is Government Minister the honorable Paul Goldsmith. Welcome, Paul, Hey, how are you? I'm well. Now. As well as being a politician, you're an author. You've written I think ten books and eight of them are biographies. And we've only got half an hour, but I thought it'd be fun to make a start on yours and dive into your story. Yeah up for that?
Yeah, well yes, yes, okay.
Right, we'll start with we'll start with the fly leaf, which is just sort of the introduction as to who the book's about. So a quick description. Paul Goldsmith is Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister of Justice, Minister for Media and Communications and Minister.
For Trivia BOITANGI Negotiations.
That's right. Born in Mount Eden and having attended Auckland Grammar School, Paul lives with his wife and their four children in the EPSOM electorate. Is first elected off the National Party list in twenty eleven. Okay, so that'll go on the fly leaf, Paul, what else could we add as to what you're currently doing. What's what's filling your calendar just at the moment.
Well, we're big focus of the government is to restore law and order, and so justice is a major focus. Trying to make people create an environment where people feel safe in their communities, and that combination of restoring real consequences for crime, but also dealing with those long term sort of drivers. You know, so if you think of youth crime, for example, you know, getting kids to actually go to school is a good place to start, and so you're dealing with the long term drivers and you're also dealing with the sort of consequences.
So that's keeping me very busy.
Okay, so let's move on to say chapter one your four Bears, the where did the goldsmiths start in New Zealand?
Ah, Well, different strands obviously, but the first goldsmith, my great great grandfather, arrived in the eighteen forties in Gisbon and he was a trader, very mixed up with the early history. Funnily enough, I was just looking at one of the books that's up for an award at the Book Awards this year as a history of the New Zealand Wars, and one of the elements of that is forty and his war, and my great granddaddy was very mixed up with that. Two of his kids were actually killed in massacre back then, so.
Early history on the East coast.
Famously, he was very enthusiastic fellow. He had a couple of wives and a couple of Maori wives, and so I'm related to many Nati Paro out there, which famously led to a bit of confusion at one point with Nikki Kay.
So there's that.
And on my mother's side as well, there's all sorts of different strands as Scott's and these.
Turners. One guy came, so I got lots of well, I like all New Zealanders go back a long way.
The Turner dynasty is quite famous.
Yes, yes, so my mother was a turner and so my great great grand parents on that side came from Cambridge, the UK. Actually they were fruit and vegie operators there and then they came out in the eighteen eighties and settled and formed Turners and Grows which was a great company and fine ed exported fruit and many things.
So yeah, I can remember going into Turners and Growers markets early in the morning back in the seventies when I was working for an orchard and just being amazed at that huge operation that was going there.
Yes, well, I over my university holidays. You still to work in there starting at three o'clock on a Tuesday morning, Monday and Thursday mornings, and I was in charge of Indian vegetables for a while.
I remember that it was all good fun and a great experience.
Yea, actually, actually that's the boy. But I remember the market's being a very cross cultural place. I watched lots of Chinese and Indian people working there and it was a fascinating place. Now you tell me about Margaret and Lawrence.
Well, well, my parents and dad was a school teacher, a maths teacher actually grandma for many years and you know that's still both going strong. And my mother was a nurse, finished up as a hospice nurse for a long time at Mercy Hospital. We had a we had said, a wonderful upbringing.
Grew up in Mount Roscale, down the end of Dominion Road, and I was, you know, reportunate to be raised in a loving home and with a couple of sisters and a brother and a family that really focused on on education and good, good values, and I was very fortunate.
Now you've mentioned a couple of times, even when speaking in the house, about your Baptist heritage, and I guess Mount Roskell would have been the heart of of the sort of the Baptist Bible belt of Auckland back then, with the hay family and people like that.
And yes, my best best mate at primary school was one of the Hayes. And yes, my my my grandfather on the Goldsmith side was a Baptist minister, Rex Goldsmith, and so that was very much part of the world and all the journals were all into the Baptist Church, and so that was very much.
My upbringing at Mount Talbot, all right. I met my wife.
There and it was a very important part of my sort of teenage years.
And you say it was an important part, Well, how is that composted down in your life now?
Well, I would describe myself as doubting Thomas. I suppose very extremely shaped by that up upbringing. I'm not sort of an active church goer these days, but still very well, who knows what the future holds. I actually sort of drifted from the Baptist to Anglicanism during my university period actually studied at Saint John's for a paper an Old Testament history and so forth, and the course of that all.
I suppose complicated some of my earlier understanding.
So I am I'm a I'm a like I say, doubting Thomas, but still very connected with the overall world.
Right. You referred to how had it influenced you when you were talking about the Definition of Marriage Act back in twenty and thirteen.
Yes, I can't remember that, but yes it's possible.
Yeah, Well you were talking about how it had created within you a lot of very conservative views, but you drew on your also the Baptist heritage of not being conformist.
Yes, nonconformist. Well, that's true.
I mean the people, I think often assume that the Baptist tradition and they think of the Southern Baptists in the US, and they think of extreme conservatism.
And that's certainly a strand.
But another strand of the Baptist tradition was very much the being nonconformist, being very much driven by individual conscious conscience and you know, a personal sort of view, and we're radical in their time. So yeah, there's different strands that people emphasize at different times.
Right, Okay, So you do reflect obviously a lot on life. You've you know, when you put yourself into the heads of people, and when you're doing your biographies that you've written, and when you're thinking about things, and so you probably thought, even though you describe yourself as a doubter, you've probably thought a lot about your faith over the years. And I'm just wondering, do you see it impacting any of your political ideas.
Well?
Well?
Yes, obviously one's heritage very much shaped the thinking and our way of life in New Zealanders. It's been hugely shaped by the Christian outlook and as interpreted through the sort of British institutions that we've inherited with, you know, strong all the sort of the human rights tradition, the the personal responsibility sort of strand and our thinking personal accountability.
I suppose.
All all of those things sort of are deeply reflected by where we come from.
And and I think, you know, it has been a good thing.
And in many respects I will focus on education, on striving to do well. You know a number of people I've written biographies about have been influenced by the parable of the talents and and and the sort of the notion that you know, to whom much is given, much as expected.
And you know, many New Zealanders have.
Benefited from, you know, in global terms, a wonderful upbringing and a great education. And you should get out and do some stuff and make have some purpose in life and set out to achieve something which is fundamentally about looking after Your first obligation is to look after your yourself and your family. Then also to I think make a contribution in the professional sense of of whatever, you know, whatever that is, whether it's making houses or fixing people's teeth or whatever one chooses to do. And then if you've got a bit of energy and time left, also making contribution.
In the voluntary sector, in the community and being.
So that that would be the order of priorities that you would see.
Well, I think you've got I think a good a good productive life is doing doing all those things.
If you've just joined us, I'm talking with the honorable Paul Goldsmith and the break we'll be talking about why it's probably not a good idea to get into a physical fight with him. This is real life on News Talk z'b. Welcome back, to Real Life and we're listening to some music that's been picked by our guest tonight, Paul Goldsmith. What are we listening to there, Paul.
Well, it's a piece from the most recent Crowded House album, Gravity Stars, and I love it. I think it's just got a beautiful, warm, crowded house sort of tone and feel with the little sort of background sort of vocals coming in.
I just like it.
I've always been a fan of Split Ends and Crowded House, one of the great New Zealand bands, and I always like it when late in their career these musicians keep putting out great stuff. One of the earlier one was a Bob Dylan one, and he's another example where he's been going forever, but some of his most recent stuff is as good as he's ever been at. I just I suppose I'm getting a bit old myself, and I like it when some of the oldies keep on producing.
So you're amuso yourself. Can do you play any of their music?
Ah?
Yeah, yeah, I played the piano and mainly classical music, but yeah I do knock out the odd crowded house tune. And it's an occupational hasn't because the word has got out that I played the piano quite often. I turn up somewhere and people pointed a piano and insisted I sit down and play it.
A couple of things up my sleeve, your party pieces that you can roll out without too much prayer. Now, I was interested that as well as your music, you're also into taekwon do, and I imagine both music and your martial arts put your head at a different place, which must be quite useful when you're involved as as intense as politics.
Yeah, I probably I probably should update my own I'll give you a little bit. When I first came into Parliament, I had been doing wonder quite a lot, and I've got a second done and I love it, and my kids were doing it. I haven't done a hang of a lot of it formally recently, although the sort of the elements of you know, if I ever get in front of a kicking pad.
Down at Parliament, I will go through my routines.
But probably my primary form of exercise these days is a game of tennis on the weekend, which I love, and short runs around the waterfront down in Wellington. The parliamentary day is, you know, typically starts at well before eight. It is at ten o'clock at night or after ten o'clock. Parliament sits through to ten o'clock on a Tuesday and or Wednesday night, and I find that I'd just go bonkers if I don't get out and go for a bit of a run in the sometime in the middle of the day, gets some fresh air, and on a rare occasion, well actually not totally over the summer, I'll run around to Oriental Parade and swim out to.
The little little deck that there is out there and run back wet, and I feel like I'm on top of the world.
Okay, so you need stuff stuff like that to keep your brain from shriveling up.
Yeah.
Well, I had the view that we're, you know, we're physical beings were you know, we're designed to be active and get out and do things, and so I certainly think it's very important to just try and get some physical exercise into the day.
Right when you were more active in your martial arts, could you do those speady leaping kick things.
Yes, yes, yes, you had to the old reverse spinning back hook kick or something like that.
I used to enjoy and messy and chopolates of wood and do things is great fun, and I got into it during university when I was studying history. Did in m A and history and again sort of sit around reading books is all well and good. But if you had an hour and a half at the end of the day where you just jumped up and down and yelled and hit pads and kicked and had fights and things like that, it was a good way to let off a bit of steam and then you felt a lot better at the end.
But now you're in parliament, you don't need to do that.
Well, it's not the kind of lifestyle that lends itself to being available at seven o'clock on a Tuesday night on a regular basis. On the downside, six it's very hard to sort of do things on a regular basis because something's always coming up.
I like the definition of poise as power held in control, and your poise in Parliament must in part be based on the knowledge that, if you wanted to, you could leap across the floor of the house and do one of those spinny flying kicks. And so members opposite. If you're listening, take note. Now you mentioned history and you did your ma I think on colenso is that right, but you also had that Auckland Grammar experience. Now it's interesting, how does that permanently implying people towards a life where you're expected to strive and it seems to have a personality to it a school.
Well, yes, John Graham was the headmaster when I was there, and he was former All Black captain and an extremely impressive figure. And striving for excellence was the kind of the sub theme. Yeah, you were expected to whether it's academically or sporting or well, a very strong emphasis on academic but also music or whatever you were doing, you know, sort of the idea wasn't just to necessarily participate.
It was to do the best that you can.
And I think, you know, as a nation, a bit of ambition there's no bad thing, and we should be striving.
Do you think that would be a good thing to inject into the wider educational system?
Yes, well, I mean Grammar is continues in that vein and I think, yes, I think there is the need for ambition, and I think it's a fair criticism of some elements of the education system. Will journally they seem to have a focus on maintaining well being at all costs, and that's all well and good, but you know that's a big bad world out there. We live in a competitive world, and I want to maintain the kind of living standards that we've got used to. You know, it doesn't sort.
Of land on our plate. We've got to go out there and compete and do well. And so.
New Zealanders have always found ways to succeed in little niches all over the place and to keep on finding it. And that requires people to.
Reach for the stars, as it were.
Now, one of your first working job working roles was with the White Hangy Tribunal, and it's still an ongoing part of your role.
It's looped back. Yes, quite surprising.
Yes, So I'd like to throw to you a thought exercise. Imagine for the bicentenary of the treaty, there is presented to the country already completed and negotiated a treaty mark two. I mean, it strikes me that the current treaty is treated like a bit like a raw sharking blot, where people project onto it what they think the treaty should be. Yes, but this is a new treaty, negotiated and agreed to by all parties, A treaty mark two for the two seconds, you know, for the bicentenary. What would you like that treaty to clearly state and plaim.
Well, look, it's a obviously quite a thought area with lots of different views that the simple way I look at it as a country, what we're trying to do is to or recognize and honor commitments made back in eighteen forty, but also more recently in treaty settlements that recognized things that went wrong over the years, while at the same time never losing sight of the basic expectations of people living in a modern democratic society. And those basic expectations are that you know, you'll have equal voting rights, that you will be treated equally before the law, and that broadly speaking, people will have an equal say in matters affecting their lives, and you know, a standard of citizenship. So those are basic expectations that people have them quite rightly so and you know you can. So there's a bit of a tension between those two things, and it sort of oscillates it in our politicical view is that the previous administration that under Cindra R.
Burnham and co.
Veered off off too far and away from those universal expectations in certain areas, and the most dramatic one being in the Canterbury Regional Council Bill where they sort of moved away from equal voting rights, allowing Naitahu to appoint.
Counselors and so forth.
And you know, I worry about that, and so we've got to sort of deal with those border issues, right, okay, carefully with goodwill, because you know, I think one of the strengths of our country is that, broadly speaking, we do have strong levels of social cohesion, and we could have maintained that, and so we work through that in a careful and considered lay.
In your maiden speech you said your greatest nervousness was how public life might impact your children. And now you've had quite an extensive experience and parliament, how has it impacted them?
But I'll look, I've been I mean, of course, the greatest joy of my life. Two have left home and two are still at home and they're all doing well. And politics varies enormously if you're if you're the electorate in p in a provincial town, you have a lot more focus on you and your family than you do if you're a listing p in Auckland, for example.
So they haven't had enormous pressure.
There's been times when they've had had slightly embarrassing circumstances and they've had to answer essay questions on quotes from me and things like that, which has been great.
But all in all they've done pretty well.
And obviously I've had a big focus on spending as much time as i can whenever I do. One of the things that writing biographies inoculates you against the idea of is that no matter what you do in your life and how successful you are, if you get towards you your life and your core relationships aren't in great shape, world life is a failure. And so I've always always had a real focus on that.
Paul, thank you so much for being part of Real Life tonight. I've enjoyed talking with you. We'll go out on another song that you've picked. It's Bob Dylan. You've got to serve somebody. This has been real life on News Talk s EDB. Looking forward to being back with you again next Sunday night.
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