Graeme Hunt: The Rich List

Reed $34.95

Review Jack Leigh

To read about the super-rich is to indulge an interest which author Hunt says is sometimes prurient. It sits uneasily with the typical Kiwi ambivalence to wealth.

Well, so be it. Curiosity over other people's affluence is not a bad thing if, while rejecting cult status for the rich, we can feel free to learn from their hard work and business success - business being what Rich List absentee Sir Ron Trotter calls the wealth-producing organ of society.

The national importance of wealth-creation by enterprising individuals gets short change in our written record, says Hunt, who sets about widening the scope of the annual National Business Review Rich List, which he has edited since 1994, into a full-blown history of affluence in New Zealand. It is a celebration of wealth that would convince a fakir.

The saga extends from the early traders to the 2000 Rich List which has 139 individuals and 36 families with fortunes ranging from $11 million to $1900 million (the Todd family), and an overall total of $11.2 billion - a fraction of the wealth of Microsoft wizard Bill Gates. The New Zealand list has a $10 million entry threshold.

The book is a hoard of general and business information, will settle many arguments and is rich in human interest. It is a chronicle of names, some legendary, such as Shacklock, Wattie, Fletcher; some all but forgotten, such as the Morrin brothers, namesake of Morrinsville.

The scene is ever more lively as people's origins, connections, successes, failures and marriages are charted. There are bizarre, tragic, sometimes scandalous sidelights; the whole human thing. Names synonymous with high dealing are tracked through the protean half-world of mergers and takeovers.

The sporting Rich List is topped by Bruce Farr ($15 million), Chris Dickson ($14 million) and Bob Charles ($13 million). The richest Maori resident is Dame Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu, estimated at $9 million.

Names interweave surprisingly. Caughey weds Richwhite. Fisher weds Paykel. Jane Campion's mother was a Hannah.

How do the rich do it? Their secret is that there is no secret. It all rests on whatever personal vision and energy the go-getter can muster. The rich are not a uniform class, says Hunt. Don't look for their virtues and vices, but the results of their enterprise.

This book, which is intensely researched, forcefully written and well illustrated, offers some helpful advice at the start, to save wasted effort.

For those who prefer to read about poverty, child molestation, indigenous land rights, industrial relations and gender equity, it says, this is not the book for you.

* Jack Leigh is an Auckland journalist.