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The Honourable  John Phillip Key  MP
38th Prime Minister of New Zealand
Incumbent
Assumed office  19 November 2008
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governor–General	Anand Satyanand
Deputy	Bill English
Preceded by	Helen Clark
31st Leader of the Opposition
In office 27 November 2006 – 8 November 2008
Deputy	Bill English
Preceded by	Don Brash
Succeeded by	Phil Goff
Minister of Tourism
Incumbent
Assumed office  19 November 2008
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Damien O'Connor
12th Leader of National Party
Incumbent
Assumed office  27 November 2006
Deputy	Bill English
Preceded by	Don Brash
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Helensville
Incumbent
Assumed office  27 July 2002
Majority	20,547 (56.49%)[1]
Born	9 August 1961 (1961-08-09) (age 48) Auckland, New Zealand
Political party	National
Spouse(s)	Bronagh Key (m. 1984)
Children	Stephie Key (b. 1993) Max Key (b. 1995)
Residence	Parnell, Auckland
Website	www.johnkey.co.nz

John Phillip Key (born 9 August 1961) is the 38th and current Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of the New Zealand National Party.

John Key entered the New Zealand House of Representatives in 2002 representing the north-west Auckland constituency of Helensville as a National MP, a seat that he has held since then. In 2004 he was appointed Finance Spokesman for National and eventually succeeded Don Brash as the National Party leader in 2006. Key led his party to victory in the November 2008 general election.

Personal life

John Key (right), with (from left to right) son Max, wife Bronagh, and daughter Stephie, celebrating on election night, 8 November 2008.

Key was born in Auckland, New Zealand, to George Key and Ruth Key (née Lazar). His father was an immigrant from Great Britain, and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and World War II.^[2] He died of a heart attack in 1967. Key and his two sisters were raised in a state house in Christchurch by his Austrian-Jewish immigrant mother.^[3][4]

He attended Burnside High School, and earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree in accounting from the University of Canterbury in 1981.^[3] He has attended management studies courses at Harvard University.^[5]

Key met his wife Bronagh when they were both students at Burnside High School. They married in 1984. She also has a BCom degree, and worked as a personnel consultant before becoming a full-time mother. They have two children, Stephie and Max.^[4]

In January 2009 Key slipped on some stairs at a Chinese New Year celebration, breaking his right arm in two places.^[6]

Before politics

His first job was in 1982, as an auditor at McCulloch Menzies, and he then moved to be a project manager at Christchurch-based clothing manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin for two years.^[7] Key began working as a foreign exchange dealer at Elders Finance in Wellington, and rose to the position of head foreign exchange trader two years later, then moved to Auckland-based Bankers Trust in 1988.^[3]

In 1995, he joined Merrill Lynch as head of Asian foreign exchange in Singapore. That same year he was promoted to Merrill's global head of foreign exchange, based in London, where he may have earned around US$2.25 million a year including bonuses, which is about NZ$5 million at 2001 exchange rates.^[3][8] Some co-workers called him "the smiling assassin" for maintaining his usual cheerfulness while sacking dozens (some say hundreds) of staff after heavy losses from the 1998 Russian financial crisis.^[4][8] He was a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from 1999 to 2001.^[9]

In 2001, on learning of his interest in pursuing a political career, the National Party president John Slater worked actively to recruit him. Former party leader Jenny Shipley describes him as one of the people she "deliberately sought out and put my head on the line – either privately or publicly – to get them in there".^[4]

Member of Parliament

Electorate office of John Key, MP for Helensville and Prime Minister, New Zealand. Located between Waimauku and Huapai on State Highway 16.

Auckland's population growth, as evidenced in the 2001 census, led to the creation of a new electorate called Helensville, which covered the north-western corner of the Auckland urban area. Key beat long-serving MP Brian Neeson (whose own Waitakere seat had moved on paper to being a Labour seat by the boundary changes) for the selection. At the 2002 elections Key won the seat with a majority of 1,705, ahead of Labour's Gary Russell, with Neeson, now standing as an independent, coming third.^[10] Key was re-elected with ease at the 2005 election garnering 63% of votes cast in Helensville,^[11] and increased his majority again in 2008, gaining 73% of the electorate vote.^[1]

Finance spokesman

In 2004, Key was promoted to the Opposition front benches by party leader Don Brash and was made the party spokesman for finance. In late 2006 Brash resigned as leader, citing damaging speculation over his future as the reason. His resignation followed controversies over an extramarital affair, and over leaked internal National Party documents which were later published in the book The Hollow Men.^[12]

Leader of the Opposition

In his maiden speech as leader on 28 November 2006, Key talked of an "underclass" that had been "allowed to develop" in New Zealand, a theme which received a large amount of media coverage.^[13] Key followed this speech up in February 2007 by committing his party to a programme which would provide food in the poorest schools in New Zealand.^[14]

He relented on his stance in opposition to Sue Bradford's Child Discipline Bill, which sought to remove "reasonable force" as a defence for parents charged with prima facie assault of their children. Many parents saw this bill as an attempt to ban smacking outright.^[15] Key and Prime Minister Helen Clark agreed a compromise giving police the discretion to overlook smacking they regard as "inconsequential".^[16]

In August 2007, Key came in for criticism when he changed his position regarding the Therapeutic Products and Medicine Bill:

"John Key had finally slipped up. National's leader had told the Herald on Tuesday he would have signed up to a New Zealand First-initiated compromise on the stalled Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill had he seen it - and was still willing to sign up - only to change his mind yesterday after his remarks appeared in print."^[17]

Also in August 2007, Labour's Trevor Mallard hinted in Parliament that Labour were going to try to link Key to the 1987 "H-Fee" scandal, which involved Key's former employer Elders Merchant Finance and a payment to Equiticorp Chief Executive Allan Hawkins. Hawkins and Elders executive Ken Jarrett were later jailed for fraud. Key forestalled the accusation by declaring that he had left Elders months before the event, that he had no knowledge of the deal, and that his interview with the Serious Fraud Office during the investigation into the affair could only have helped to convict the people involved. This statement was supported publicly by then-SFO director Charles Sturt.^[18][19]

Labour MPs criticised Key for not releasing specific policy information at their annual conference. Key responded that National will set its own policy agenda and that there is adequate time before the next election for voters to digest National Party policy proposals.^[20]

On 25 July 2008, Key was added to the New Zealand National Business Review (NBR) Rich List ^[21] for the first time. The list details the wealthiest New Zealand individuals and family groups. Key had an estimated wealth of NZ$50 million.

Prime Minister

Key after winning the 2008 general election

Key became Prime Minister following the general election on 8 November 2008 which signalled an end to the Labour-led government of nine years under Helen Clark. The National Party, promoting a policy of "change", won 45% of the party vote and 59 of the 122 seats in Parliament (two seat overhang), a substantial margin over the Labour Party which won 43 seats.

Key was sworn in as Prime Minister on 19 November 2008 along with his new cabinet.^[22] His first international outing as Prime Minister was the 20th APEC meeting in Peru the following day.

Arriving at the Ngapuhi Te Tii marae the day before Waitangi Day 2009, Key was briefly shoved and grabbed by two protesters before diplomatic protection officers pulled them off. He told reporters he was "quite shocked" but continued onto the marae and spoke, while police took the two men away and charged with them with assault.^[23][24]

Key has also been tied with the National Cycleway Project since its conception at the national Job Summit in early 2009. He proposed it, and as Minister for Tourism, was instrumental in getting NZ$50 million approved for initial construction work.^[25]

On 10 September 2009, a molotov cocktail was thrown through a window in Key's electorate office in Kumeu, causing minor damage.^[26]

UN Security Council bid

Key launched New Zealand's campaign for a Security Council seat at the UN General Assembly meeting in September 2009.^[27] He met briefly with US President Barack Obama and former US President Bill Clinton. While in New York, Key appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. He read out the Top Ten list, 'Top Ten Reasons You Should Visit New Zealand'.^[28]

Political views

Key portrays himself as more centrist than his predecessor, Don Brash. However he also notes the differences are more of style and focus rather than view.^[29] Key has in the past noted others' concern at the pace of asset sales, but argued that the arguments against selling assets in the 1980s were largely irrational.^[30] In a 2002 interview he said "some form of orientation towards privatisation" in health, education and superannuation, such as giving firms tax breaks for employer super schemes, made sense.^[31]

Key has a mixed voting record on social issues: he voted against the bill creating civil unions,^[32] claiming that this represented his constituents' views but he supports them personally.^[33] He was part of a large bloc of MPs voting to defeat a bill that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.^[34] Key has also stated that he doesn't oppose gay adoption.^[35] Key voted for an ill-fated attempt to raise the legal drinking age from 18 back to 20.^[36]

Key says that he believes that global warming is a real phenomenon, and that the Government needs to implement measures to reduce human contribution to global warming. Key has committed the National Party to working towards reducing greenhouse emissions in New Zealand by 50% within the next fifty years. Critics note that as recently as 2005, Key made statements indicating that he was skeptical of the effects and impact of climate change.^[37]

Critics note that Key has changed his views on the Iraq war since becoming leader of the opposition. In 2003, as an opposition MP, Key emphasised National's position of supporting New Zealand's traditional allies, the United States and Australia. Key came under fire in the New Zealand Parliament in August 2007, when the Government claimed that had Key been Prime Minister at the time, he would have sent troops to Iraq.^[38]

Like his predecessor Helen Clark, Key views a New Zealand republic as "inevitable", although probably not for another decade. "If Australia becomes a republic there is no question it will set off quite an intense debate on this side of the Tasman,” he said. “We would have to have a referendum if we wanted to move towards it." ^[39]

Religious views

Key attends church frequently but was reluctant to give a direct answer when asked if he believed in God: he did state that he did not believe in life after death and said that "if you're asking me if I'm religious it depends how you define religion. I look at religion as doing the right thing....I go to church a lot with the kids, but I wouldn't describe it as something that I ... I'm not a heavy believer; my mother was Jewish which technically makes me Jewish. Yeah, I probably see it in a slightly more relaxed way."^[40] Key's wife, Bronagh (née Dougan) Key, is the daughter of Northern Irish immigrants of Catholic and Protestant confession.^[41] Key is the third premier of New Zealand with Jewish ancestry (Julius Vogel, a practising Jew, and Francis Bell, whose mother was of Jewish ancestry but converted to Christianity, being the other two).

References

External links

• www.johnkey.co.nz
• Prime Minister of New Zealand
• New Zealand Herald feature: John Key - the unauthorised biography

 

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