Tim Shadbolt, the rebel, now earning a crust making the people laugh

Press, 18 July 1985, Page 17

Tim Shadbolt, the rebel, now earning a crust making the people laugh

By

KEN COATES

Tim Shadbolt, the controversial Mayor of Waitemata in the 1980 s and the young radical who , thumbed his nose at authority in' the 1960 s with “Bullshit and Jellybeans,” has become one of the most popular after-dinner speakers in the country. He has audiences laughing in carpeted boardrooms and at management seminars, guffawing at R.S.A. clubs, and almost rolling in the aisles in theatres.

The struggling concrete contractor who pledged he would tow his concrete mixer, "Karl Marx,” behind the Mayoral Daimler if elected, is in keen demand up and down the country. And he is loving evey minute of it, especially at a fee of $5OO a time.

He talked enthusiastically of his role as a speaker who entertains, rather than one who stirs, before an evening comedy show in Christchurch — styled as a debate in which he was one of the principal performers. His prime motivation is simply to raise money to defend a defamation action brought against him by the previous Mayor of Waitemata, Tony Covic. “Yep, that’s the big one,” says Mayor Tim. “It’s for $90,000 and it’s coming up in September. “It’s a bit of a nasty, because if you go under financially and become bankrupt you are finished politically. You can’t hold public office ever again, anywhere ... so I’m really having to fight.” Tim Shadbolt really can bigmouth it in the Kiwi idiom, like he does on that telly chocolate commercial (“yeah, that is another fund-raiser”) so at this point I asked him about the Mayoral Daimler.

What gave him the idea of pulling “Karl Marx” behind it, catching the imagination of people all over the country and getting marvellous publicity? “I dunno. I’ve always been doing things, written three books of poetry. I put forward 100 ideas, one will work, but I never know what it is.

“But this, hell . . . You know, it gave me a real fright too, because

I thought, what have I done right this time?” ' Maybe it was just the image called up in people’s minds, he adds. Everyone in New Zealand has had an experience with concrete, sometimes good, often bad. Then there was the New Zealand egalitarian thing. “I mean, here was a council like ours, very poor and $2O million in debt, trying to take on a pompous image.”

Tim Shadbolt, the one-time soapbox activist, began to warm to his

subject. “I mean, that car couldn’t even get around half the bloody corners on our roads, it was to big . . . you know. “We’re such a rough area, you know, with the mountains up there, the Waitakeres, the small towns, so I dunno ... It just seemed to work; people seemed to like the contrast of images.” The Waitemata Council has sold the Daimler and its Mayor now drives a plain Holden Commodore. “It’s much easier all round,” says

Tim Shadbolt. “I mean, you’d turn up at a slip at Bethells in that Daimler, you know, and bulldozer drivers would be throwing bits of clay at you, laughing. "You’d feel such an idiot, and people were always pointing. The thing was a real embarrassment. It had to be chauffeur driven all the time, and it wasn’t practical.” The aged Daimler was once ridden in by that persistent New Zealand High Commissioner in London who would not return even when an opposition Government was elected back home. Hugh Watt.

The High Commission tried to get £4OO for it, but no-one was biting. The car was put on a ship for New Zealand where it was sold at a Government auction for $BOOO.

Then a couple of used-car dealers shuffled it about their yards for two years, but could not get rid of it. “No-one wanted it,” says Tim. “They offered it to the Packard Museum, up in Scenic Drive. The motor was checked out and reckoned to be shot, and the museum wouldn’t touch it for $lO,OOO.

“Then a young salesman got the bright idea to take a glossy photo of it and circulate it to all the councils.

“So Waitemata snaffled it up for $33,000, the motor blew up a week later, which cost us another $7OOO, and it was just hopeless, breaking down all the time.” Now the Daimler, sold to a hire company for $26,000 (“and we were lucky to get that”) is trundled out for the occasional wedding and suchlike.

The mercurial Mayor vigorously denies that his speaking engagements are money for jam. He recalls that he has served a long apprenticeship as a speaker, starting on a soap-box in parks and on street corners 22 years ago. Making people laugh seems easy, and people think he must be simply having a good time up there. “But it is really quite exhausting.” After speaking at farmers’

gatherings and to sports clubs, he has found New Zealand’s social patterns have changed. In the old days they hired a band and had a dance; it was a closer social occasion.

Now people have a meal together and listen to a speaker. Fortunately for Tim Shadbolt’s fund-raising drive, there are not too many good speakers around. "Me, Jeremy Coney, the cricketer, and one or two others; that’s about it. So we’re really in demand. I have been going on two days a week.”

The reception he has been getting has obviously cheered Tim Shadbolt for he confided that if he is found guilty in the defamation action and has to pay up $50,000, he would simply appeal to New Zealanders.

“I’d just put an advert in every paper in the country and ask New Zealanders for a dollar, you know.

“I would hope that 50,000 would send me a dollar just to keep me in office. I hope by September I will have been all around the country.”

What does he serve up of an evening when well-wined and dined club members or conference delegates push back their now-empty plates and look towards the rostrum?

Basically he offers entertainment. “Sort of trying to do what I do in the city, just endeavouring to lift up their spirits, making people feel better about the country they live in.

“Perhaps I will give an understanding, an overview of local government in areas in which I work, that is humourous and stimulating.” But the activist with his strong convictions is still there: “At question time if they want to get heavy, or dig deeper, I’ll go any distance with anyone who wants to — in any direction. It’s up to them — they’ll end up with indigestion, not me.”

It becomes obvious that this new role has an attraction far removed

from laying concrete paths around Glen Eden. Tim Shadbolt the entertainer reflects the buzz he gets.

“I think communication and talking is now seen as a really interesting part of life. I’ll fly to some town, have dinner at 6 or 7, and might speak from 8 till 8.45. “Afterwards we’ll have drinks and I’ll end up by talking for two or three hours, just round a bar afterwards. Then they raise all sorts of subjects. People often get down to issues at this time.”

In Dunedin, the show he was in filled the “gods” of the theatre, the first time they had been opened since the Beatles. “I loved it. The whole theatre was just chocka and they couldn’t fit any more people in. Up to now it’s been only an electronic rock band that can attract that much interest. “I like to think the talking industry, the exchange of ideas and the humour, is also considered top entertainment and stimulating.”

At the interval and after the show, he has noted more talking, something New Zealanders should encourage. One problem with television, he adds, is that it has cut New Zealanders off from each other. Tim Shadbolt likens his job as Mayor to being a public relations officer for a big company. “I enjoy going to schools and opening new buildings. You’ve got to be an extrovert. I like knowing what’s going on; sort of in front of everything that’s happening in a community.” At 38, he is one of only three mayors in New Zealand under the age of 40. He concedes that he does not fit the classic picture of a mayor — “in his fifties or sixties, usually a millionaire or very successful businessman.”

The local body establishment has not appreciated his rise to Mayoral eminence, but the ordinary people do, he claims. “They really like it, and in a city such as ours, I think I am really the ideal mayor.” The average age in Waitemata city is 24 years and 7 months; it is the country’s youngest and fastest growing city. “It’s very working class, with no Pakurangas or Remueras. Our city is Massey, Te Atatu, Ranui, Glen Eden, Henderson. We’re just a very ordinary place.” In a recent by-election his candidate got 8600 votes and the nearest opponent polled only 450 votes.

This was in the Lincoln ward, which has the big military base at Whenuapai and Hobsonville with 5000 personnel attached, as well as a big farming and horticultural area. It was the only ward of the city he lost in when he first stood for Mayor. Of all big business, local government is the most conservative, contends Tim Shadbolt. Most city managers in Waitemata have been there for 30 to 40 years. “They have worked their way up through time rather than ability, and are supposed to be non-political.” Mayor Shadbolt came in for some criticism when he wore the Mayoral robes to a night of fun at the Henderson R.S.A. on Anzac Day. He was asked to enterain the troops, and during a skit flashed open his robes to reveal a bikini top and black slip over his ordinary clothes. A critic charged him with not only degrading women, but also lowering the dignity of the robes, the office of mayor, the council, and the image of the city. During the spat, the Mayor asked whether the critic was “just an-

other of the angry, indignant, bumptious, pompous sourpusses that seem to gravitate into managerial positions in local Government.” The Shadbolt version of the context seems to put the criticism in perspective. “It was a Henderson R.S.A. concert they held every Anzac Day and those guys had been in the R.S.A. since six in the morning. It was, ah yeah, a very relaxed evening, you know, very vaudeville, a classic bawdy soldiers’ concert party, I guess. “Those guys were prepared to risk their lives in the war and as far as I’m concerned, if I can bring them a bit of happiness and joy ... I mean, I got a standing ovation; they just loved it and I had to do an encore.

“It raised a bit of money for their retirement village, so, bugger it, I don’t see that it was a loss of Mayoral dignity at all.” Tim Shadbolt still turns up for the big peace marches, but he made a promise that his first commitment as Mayor would be to the city, and he reckons he has stuck by that promise. When he stood for Mayor, he was so confident he would not win, he ran by himself. The last mayor stood on a ticket because he was so confident he would win, but he did not campaign a great deal. Virtually the whole of the previous Mayor’s ticket got on to the council, with Shadbolt sitting in the Mayoral chair feeling isolated and councillors far from happy to see him there. “Next time I run I’ll make sure that more people stand for the council who don’t hate me,” he warns.