Leading into the November election, politics lecturer Bryce Edwards is interviewing New Zealand politicians each Friday at noon. Last Friday, National backbencher and North Dunedin electorate candidate Michael Woodhouse took the stage and talked about being the fifth of nine children, his take on drugs, and the joy of lignite mining.
Michael Woodhouse may not be Dunedin’s electoral candidate, but he is every bit the Dunedin boy. Born in 1965 in South D, Woodhouse was the fifth of nine children born to a Catholic mother and father, a registered nurse and a technician at Port Otago respectively. Woodhouse admits that his lineage is more politically left than right, but puts the difference down to his membership in Generation X, and even his middle child status. His first moments of political awareness were coloured, no doubt, by the end of Rogernomics and the landslide return to power of Jim Bolger’s National government.
Woodhouse fully embraced the working class identity. He left high school at the end of sixth form (year 12 for you lot) to go and work in a bank for five years. It wasn’t until after returning from his OE in London that he decided he liked money enough to stump up for a university education. And stump up he did. His return to education coincided with Lockwood Smith, then tertiary education minister, sneaking student fees in through the backdoor (which is where most students would like to shove student fees again now).
Woodhouse took a “Shit happens, times are tough” approach to having to pay for his own tertiary education, preferring to smoke in the union hall than join in the anti-fee protests. He describes himself as “hugely interested [in], but uninvolved” in politics during his student days. He worked multiple part time jobs while studying, largely it seems to finance buying a ten-speed bike and a watch. The big ticket items, like an engagement ring for his future wife, were placed on his student loan (that’s right people, you used to be able to put anything you liked on your student loan, even diamond rings).
After finishing uni Woodhouse qualified as a chartered accountant and began to accumulate the necessary wealth to secure entry into the National Party. His final job before entering politics was Chief Executive of Mercy Hospitals. His experience sowed a political conviction that the more profitable you are, the more you can do for society. He believes that NZ needs to do more to build its trade and export sectors if it is to fund the social services that New Zealanders have become so use to.
While Woodhouse considers himself more socially liberal than most of his National counterparts, he struggled when challenged to provide concrete examples. Questioned whether he supported drug law reform, Woodhouse was opposed, despite admitting to having hit the bong over twenty years ago. He considers alcohol to be different from other drugs, as it is something that you can have “normally, without your head spinning”. Woodhouse went so far as to say that if you want access to social services, he wants the right to intervene in the way you run your life. His major concern is that if further legalisation of marijuana occurs it will make the drug problem in NZ worse. His concern carried over to Kronic, saying “If we (National) cannot solve the current Kronic problem, our mandate to govern is seriously eroded”. His socially liberal street cred was further stressed when he overtly supported offshore drilling and lignite mining in Southland. “I do not believe there is a mutual exclusivity between sustainability and benefitting from our natural resources” said Woodhouse.
Woodhouse seemed happy with his backbencher role, calling the select committees that make up so much of his work the “engine room of parliament”, though he admitted to hoping for bigger things “I would like to be a Minister in a John Key government… I hope, and I think it is generally a meritocracy”. Asked what was the highlight of his tenure in parliament, Woodhouse was in no doubt that it was seeing the final passage of treaty negotiation legislation, “It makes your hair stand on end to see people who have struggled for a hundred and fifty years to get what see what they see as justice, and have members of the iwi stand in parliament and sing a waiata, is something I will never forget”.
This Friday 12th August at noon in Archway 2, Clare Curran, the Labour MP for Dunedin South will step up to the plate.
Vote Chat: The Power Hungry Mr Woodhouse
