London calling to Minister of Wine

Former speaker, Jonathan Hunt is pictured at his appartment in Auckland City. Picture / Fotopress

Jonathan Hunt's gracious Greys Ave apartment in central Auckland is thick with the art of a lifetime, including 40-odd photographs and paintings stacked against the wall, most of them still in bubble wrap, after their trip from the Speaker's flat in Parliament Buildings.

"I'm still deciding which to take with me to London," says the outgoing Speaker of the House, the country's longest-serving MP and the Prime Minister's long-time pal, who leaves for his new job in London at the end of the month.

Today is his last day as Speaker. After the formalities are satisfied, Margaret Wilson will be appointed.

And Jonathan Hunt, who enjoys formality and has lived his life by procedure, rules and parliamentary processes for 38 years, is looking forward to the change.

His two-storey apartment, which once belonged to Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright and her husband, Peter, has wide windows with wonderful white slatted shutters and high ceilings, all of which provide the perfect backdrop for Hunt's fine pottery collection, most of it in use, and reflecting his 30 years as MP for New Lynn, the nation's former ceramics capital.

An early Len Castle carafe still full of the Kumeu River wine given to him by the late Mate Brajkovich (and now thoroughly undrinkable) sits on the bench.

His sculptures are superb. He's even wearing a work of art in the form of a purple, hand-designed Pacific-style shirt.

"I won't be able to wear this much from now on," he says in a voice that is surprisingly different from the cool, deliberate tones that have emanated from the Speaker's chair over the past three years.

"It won't be heavy enough [or formal enough] for London."

Instead, the consummate planner, who probably wouldn't be able to buy off the peg anyway, has ordered a formal white tie suit ("I've never had one before"), a dinner suit and a reefer jacket to be made by Kirkaldies in Wellington.

And he's paying for them himself. "Don't let anyone think they're on the House!"

It was last year that Hunt sold the Karekare house which got him into trouble over the $29,170 worth of taxi fares he ran up in one year travelling between the west coast beach and Auckland Airport 52km away. "I don't like driving at night," he says.

Now, with an apartment only a few hundred metres from the Town Hall Concert Chamber, Aotea Centre and movie theatres - and the concerts, opera and movies he loves - he doesn't need to.

In person there is little of the pomposity that people talk about behind Hunt's broad back. The parliamentary life has been kind to him. At 66 he looks as pink and scrubbed as a much younger man.

And although he concedes that "I'm a little overweight", he passed the medical tests they put him through before giving him the London job.

As he says, he comes from sturdy stock. His mother is well and healthy at 94 - he glosses over the genetic inheritance from his father who died much earlier, in his 60s.

He is also welcoming and thoughtful with a first-class memory that whizzes from yesterday to the days when he was Quiz Kid to his first seat in the parliamentary chamber alongside Mabel Howard in 1966.

Hunt lists his greatest achievement as the passing of the Adult Adoption Information Act he introduced as a private member's bill in 1978, "and every year until 1985 I repeated the dose". Despite the opposition of Sir Robert Muldoon, who vowed "while I'm Prime Minister you'll never get a vote on this, Jonathan", the bill was passed in 1985.

Although he was never part of an adoption triangle himself, Hunt talks about how Bob Harvey, who was, and who found his birth mother after the legislation changed, brought around a "huge bouquet" of flowers to congratulate him.

"I said, 'I've done that for you, now you've got to stand for mayor of Waitakere'."

For all the victories, Hunt is well aware that enemies, and even friends, refer to him as the Minister for Wine and Cheese and Billy Bunter behind his back.

There is no way he will be photographed slumped in his leather Lazy- Boy, lined up opposite the TV, remote at the ready. As for the Wine and Cheese tag, he's proud of it. "I make no apologies for championing the wine industry, 80 per cent of which was grown in West Auckland at the time," he says. He is also careful to catch himself when referring to the Prime Minister, using the more formal Helen Clark, rather than the plain Helen he has known her by since they were at Auckland University. "We were in the Princes Street [Labour Party] branch together," he recalls.

The Princes Street era, when young Jon Hunt, who became president, had thick black hair, dark-rimmed glasses and buckets of energy, is one of the pivotal periods of his career.

There he discussed politics with people including the group's mentor, Norman Douglas MP, father of Roger, Michael Bassett, and later Helen Clark and Phil Goff.

All went on to become key players in the formation of modern NZ. Even today the loyalty runs thick as blood. "Helen knows when she talks to me it won't turn up on the front page of the Herald in the morning."

When Hunt got the country's highest honour - membership of the Order of New Zealand - in the New Year's Honours list, many questioned the selection. "What has he done to deserve it?" demanded the editorials. Is he really one of the 20 most deserving people in the country?

Helen Clark pitched in in his defence, saying such criticisms were "mean-spirited". Hunt himself, just a hint of hurt in his voice, points out that "I got a very nice letter from the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, and colleagues from all sides of the political fence." He reels off a list: Sir Tipene O'Regan, Sir Geoffrey Palmer ... "I've contributed a lot to Parliament in my time."

He certainly appreciates the honour - and is looking forward to the presentation on March 31 at Government House in Wellington. "My mother, who's 94, is coming down, and my two sisters."

His plans for London, worked out with Helen Clark, include efforts to extend links with Scotland. "They've got an MMP system almost identical to ours, we have extensive trade links." He will also, as High Commissioner, be obliged to take a trip to Nigeria, which brings a sparkle to his eyes.

Possibly most important will be Hunt's close observation of the UK elections, and passing what he learns on to the New Zealand Government.

And regrets? He has just one. "That I wasn't able to get married and have a family," he says. The reason, says Hunt, is because of the split life between Auckland and Wellington that he would have foisted on a family. "There are marriages that don't work," he says.

And were there love interests back in the past?

"No comment," he says. "Walter Nash gave me the best advice on that subject: 'Young Jon Hunt, when you get the same urges as other young men - just don't do it in the building'."