Mr Galvin active in party’s early days

Press, 5 August 1985, Page 4

Mr Galvin active in party’s early days

PA Auckland Mr John Galvin, elected leader of the two-year-old New Zealand Party, was never considered a dark horse by observers. The Matamata dairy farmer, a one-time fencer, scrubcutter and university dropout, has replaced Mr Bob Jones, the party’s founder, who resigned as leader oa fortnight ago. In the party organisation, Mr Galvin is well regarded. He has been a member of the ruling council almost from the start, and stood as the party candidate in Matamata at the snap General Election winning 3022 votes, 17 per cent of the total and a close third behind the Labour candidate.

When he defeated the apparent front-runner, Mr Earle Thompson, Mr Galvin told the cheering conference, “one problem: my wife is on holiday in Australia. I’m not sure what her reaction will be when she gets home. Mr Galvin, aged 36, and the father of a son, Neville, aged 16, and a daughter, Vanessa, aged 12, sent his wife, Rosina, a telegram telling her she was married to .the youngest leader of a major political party. However, he says he ran for the post with her encouragement. He sees his priorities as developing his own political style and advancing the party’s policies. “The Prime Minister thing is long-term and something I do not think about.” Given the turmoil in the party over the last month,

and the doubts raised about whether it would continue to exist, Mr Galvin believes the rank and file have been shaken from their complacency and that the task ahead should be easy by comparison with the weeks of public blood-letting. Mr Galvin was born in Lower Hutt, educated there, and did two years of a law degree before heading for Europe and then Australia — “sick of the academic life” — to see something of the world.

Although professing a lifetime interest in politics, he had never joined a political party before the New Zealand Party was born. However, he has always believed in private enterprise and individual liberty, which prompted him to work as a fencer and scrub-

cutter to "earn a living for myself without being beholden to anyone” before going into farming in 1975. Today he has a sharemilking contract, with 320 cows.

Mr Galvin says the New Zealand Party is one of individualists.