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Speaker 1: Afternoon, sad us this afternoon.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: Bob Jones, one of the characters of New Zealand business

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Speaker 1: and politics, has died at the age of eighty five.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: He died peacefully at his Wellington home, surrounded by family

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Speaker 1: after a brief illness, and one of his longtime friends

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Speaker 1: is former act MP Deborah Coddington. Who's with us now?

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Speaker 2: Hey, Deborah, Yeah, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm very well? Thank you? Now, Bob, Bob actually introduced

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Speaker 1: you to your husband, didn't he He did.

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Speaker 2: He match made us, Yes, that's right he did. Yep.

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Speaker 2: And then when it was all going well and we

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Speaker 2: decided to get married, he wanted to be the bridesmaid.

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Speaker 2: Well that was never going to happen.

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Speaker 1: If you had let him. Do you think he would have.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Actually he was. He could be quite reverent.

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Speaker 2: Well that's the wrong word, of course, because he always

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Speaker 2: said God was prancing around in any and now he'll

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Speaker 2: be able to find out if he ever gets up

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Speaker 2: to heaven, which I very much doubt. But he people

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Speaker 2: who watched him at our very small wedding ceremony said

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Speaker 2: he was. He had a beautific smile on his face,

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Speaker 2: so he was well pleased with the result.

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Speaker 1: Did you know that he was unwell in the last

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Speaker 1: few weeks.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I was told in the letter stages that he

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Speaker 2: was gravely unwell, and I was quite shocked, because, you know,

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Speaker 2: we always thought got Bob was going to live forever.

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Speaker 2: He was. He was always saying he was near death.

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Speaker 2: He said, how are you, Bob. I'm I'm ifing dying, mate,

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Speaker 2: I'm dying. You know, I'm really ill, and I'm going

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Speaker 2: to give up drinking. I'm just drinking beer and sherry

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Speaker 2: at the moment, you know, as if that wasn't alcohol.

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Speaker 2: But he always looked you know, he's very good looking

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Speaker 2: in his younger days. I think I met him when

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Speaker 2: I was about eighteen or nineteen, but he was very

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Speaker 2: good looking in those days. But then he you know,

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Speaker 2: he in gressingly head those bags under his eyes. Incidentally,

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Speaker 2: he would actually hate us saying it's very sad. He'd say, oh,

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Speaker 2: get over yourself here, you know, it's not sad. People die.

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Speaker 2: People die every day.

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Speaker 1: He was a realist, wasn't he. And he always he

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Speaker 1: always tried to find the funny, the funny side of it,

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Speaker 1: to the point that he would actually sometimes do it himself.

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Speaker 1: Or play the pranks and stuff you once wrote about him,

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Speaker 1: Jones entertains anyone who isn't boring or pretentious. What did

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Speaker 1: you mean by that?

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Speaker 2: He once said to me that he found men more

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Speaker 2: boring than women, because I think men A lot of

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Speaker 2: men took him too seriously. You could not take what

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Speaker 2: he said too seriously. You know, he was always thrying

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Speaker 2: insults at you, wasn't he. He would say things like oh,

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Speaker 2: he would just he would insult me all the time,

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Speaker 2: and you just had to laugh it off because sometimes

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Speaker 2: they would sound quite cruel. I mean I was thinking.

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Speaker 2: I kept thinking of all the things he did, you know.

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Speaker 2: I mean people called him a racist. Well, you know,

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Speaker 2: his first his eldest two children a Marii and his

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Speaker 2: youngest three children are Laotian, and I didn't see him

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Speaker 2: discriminate against any of those. He could be quite sexist,

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Speaker 2: he would say it, would say terrible sexist things to me, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, when you're getting out of his carrier say, oh,

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Speaker 2: come on, you know women can't get out of cars.

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Speaker 2: Look to you, you just take ages to get.

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Speaker 1: Out of the women can't drive as well.

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Speaker 2: Women can't drive. No, women can't drive. But that was

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Speaker 2: just Bob. That was the way he was.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, obviously as time has gone on,

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Speaker 1: people have increasingly found him offensive because we've obviously got

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Speaker 1: more and more thin skinned. How do you think he's

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Speaker 1: going to be remembered. Will he be remembered in the

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Speaker 1: way that the young people now see him, which is

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Speaker 1: this terrible racist and all these other things. Or will

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Speaker 1: he be remembered as the big, outspoken, very clever character

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Speaker 1: that he was.

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Speaker 2: I think it's a pity that those people didn't know

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Speaker 2: the Bob that you and I knew, the very well

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Speaker 2: read Bob, the Bob who was enormously intelligent, and you

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Speaker 2: are a lot about world affairs, world politics, all of

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Speaker 2: that sort of thing. He was a very good writer,

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Speaker 2: a lot of them, those early books, Letters from Bob Jones,

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Speaker 2: that little novella he wrote, The Permit, which was very

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Speaker 2: insightful about how the government can go too far. That

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Speaker 2: court case he took all the way to the Privy

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Speaker 2: Council that he won when he was and lawfully detained

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Speaker 2: by the police when he was taking his children to

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Speaker 2: the airport, And he said he took that case because

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Speaker 2: he could afford to. When a lot of people who

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Speaker 2: would be detained by the police on the side of

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Speaker 2: the road and left there would not be able to

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Speaker 2: afford to do that. Bob was very generous with his money.

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Speaker 2: He did that scholarship for refugees to study at university,

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Speaker 2: which a lot of them have graduated. There are a

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Speaker 2: lot of those things that people didn't see and didn't

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Speaker 2: know about him. Now, if you could ignore a lot

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Speaker 2: of the yes, offensive stuff that he said and look

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Speaker 2: past that to see what was underneath. The State House

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Speaker 2: boy from nine I who who ended up, he's leaving

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Speaker 2: a legacy of you know, several billions. Think of all

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Speaker 2: the GST that he's put into the New Zealand economy.

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Speaker 2: He didn't become a taxi exile. He didn't go off

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Speaker 2: shore like a lot of other billionaires who I won't

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Speaker 2: name did, and then from from London or wherever they settled,

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Speaker 2: carped on about what a useless education system we have,

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Speaker 2: a useless health education system we have. Well, a lot

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Speaker 2: of Bob's GST has gone into helping our state system

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Speaker 2: here and a lot of people have ignored that and

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Speaker 2: just thrown darts at him. And you know, okay, they

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Speaker 2: didn't get a chance to know him, but they could

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Speaker 2: have read his books and and cut him a bit

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Speaker 2: of slack.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so right, Debrah, thank you so much. Really appreciate

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Speaker 1: your time and be so Debrah Coddington, former act MP

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Speaker 1: and friend of Sir Bob Jones. For more from Heather

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