Sir Keith Holyoake

Sir Keith Holyoake was one of New Zealand's longest serving Prime Ministers, and led the National Party to four election victories in 1960, 1963, 1966 and 1969. His remarkable public life spanned nearly half a century as he first entered Parliament in 1932 and retired, as Governor-General, in 1980. For many people Keith Holyoake came to embody the National Party. He was conservative but not illiberal. He was cautious but not inflexible. He was an instinctive democrat and sought to...
More Description

Sir Keith Holyoake was one of New Zealand's longest serving Prime Ministers, and led the National Party to four election victories in 1960, 1963, 1966 and 1969. His remarkable public life spanned nearly half a century as he first entered Parliament in 1932 and retired, as Governor-General, in 1980. For many people Keith Holyoake came to embody the National Party. He was conservative but not illiberal. He was cautious but not inflexible. He was an instinctive democrat and sought to govern consensually. He had the good fortune to govern in a time of full employment and economic growth. The Holyaoke years therefore are often thought of as "the good years". However, there were clouds on the horizon. Some historians have argued that New Zealand under Holyoake was complacent and insufficiently innovative. The seeds of our subsequent discontents, they say, were sown then. We didn't diversify our economy fast enough; Maori grievances were not addressed; and the concerns of environmentalists and feminists were ignored. All these questions are raised in this collection of essays "towards a political biography". Readers are given much evidence with which to judge the true stature of the man.