Audrey Young talks to lawyer and author James Christmas, who is tipped to become Attorney-General and Treaty Negotiations Minister if National forms the next Government.
It says something about James Christmas that when it came time to reveal any skeletons in his closet when he was seeking selection for National, he said his great-grandfather had taken part in the 1951 waterfront strike.
“That was the only one I had, which was that my great-grandfather was on the wrong side of [former National Prime Minister] Sidney Holland.”
Christmas’ great-grandfather, Alfred Francis Christmas, died in 1976 aged 76. The Press described him as one of Lyttelton’s more colourful seafaring identities who had spent 27 years on the waterfront, prominent in union activities.
As well as his love of the law, James Christmas, 37, has a great interest in politics and the history of New Zealand and the National Party.
In between campaigning for National, he is writing a book about one of his political heroes, reforming liberal-minded Justice Minister Ralph Hanan, who abolished the death penalty in New Zealand law.
Christmas also co-authored a book with Christopher Finlayson, He Kupu Taurangi: Treaty Settlements and the Future of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Christmas had a close-up view of Finlayson’s work when the latter was Attorney-General, Treaty Negotiations Minister and the minister in charge of the SIS and GCSB intelligence agencies during the last National government’s tenure from 2008 – 2017.
“I had the privilege of working at the top of the government with him… what I got exposed to on a daily basis was all of government, policy, legal issues, cases and constitutional problems.
“It was just such a good apprenticeship.
The good thing about Finlayson was that he treated staff as colleagues rather than as staff.
“We would throw issues around and debate them, and Chris’ expectation was, I think, that we would disagree with him. He always liked a good disagreement. He liked having his ideas tested.
“That was the environment. It couldn’t have been better.”
In 2016, Christmas went to the ninth floor to become an adviser to Prime Minister Sir John Key on the intelligence agencies. Key quit politics six weeks later, and he then worked as an adviser to the next Prime Minister, Sir Bill English.
“I had a great year with Bill.”
So, what did he learn from English?
“If you want to be able to talk at a high level, you need to have mastery of the detail. That’s what I always found with Bill. When Bill said something, you could almost see all of the reading and influences that had gone into his thinking.”
Since leaving Parliament in 2017, Christmas has been practising law on his own in Auckland.
Christmas said he has not been promised any particular job in politics and was willing to make his contribution however he could.
But the Herald understands he is the favourite for the role of Attorney-General and Treaty Negotiations Minister if National ends up in Government after the October 14 election. And exceptions have been made in every MMP government for some new MPs to go straight into the ministry.
National allows itself up to five list-only candidates, and after missing out on selection for the Christchurch seat of Illam, the party board offered Christmas a place as a list-only candidate.
The party’s other list-only candidates are Gerry Brownlee, who lost Illam in 2020, Nancy Lu, an Auckland-based businesswoman who emigrated from China at the age of nine, and Agnes Loheni, an Auckland-based business woman of Samoan descent who was previously a list MP.
Whether they are elected or not will depend on their place on the party list, which is likely to be released around August 20.
Christmas has always been drawn to politics, even as a student at Burnside High in Christchurch - incidentally, John Key’s old school.
“Someone reminded me the other day that in 1999, I made ‘re-elect Jenny Shipley’ badges and used to wear them around school.”
“I’ve always been that way inclined,” he said. “I don’t know why. I suppose you think through the issues and find where you’re at.”
He did not come from a political family. His mother was a teacher and his father was an industrial chemist. They are both retired and are still living in Christchurch.
It was music that had taken him to Burnside secondary school, which he classes as having one of the best, if not the best music programmes in the country.
He played the piano, the French horn and tuba.
And it was through his love of music that he first met Finlayson when Christmas was a politics and history student at Canterbury University.
He had gone to a concert of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in 2005, and during the intermission, he saw Finlayson and Kate Wilkinson and commended them on the maiden speeches they had recently given.
Finlayson’s had been about National taking the best of liberalism and conservatism and of his admiration for Sir John Marshall.
Christmas went on to study at Victoria University, where he got a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Arts. And from there he went to work for Finlayson.
Christmas also has an interest in Marshall as a contemporary and fellow liberal of Hanan.
They entered Parliament in the same year, 1946, and were the party’s leading liberals but defined that in quite different ways, highlighted by their differences on capital punishment.
The previous Labour Government suspended its use.
Hanan introduced the Crimes Bill as the new Justice Minister in 1961, which abolished capital punishment, but he said he would be supporting an amendment that opposed that part of it.
Hanan and nine other National MPs, including Sir Robert Muldoon, Sir Brian Talboys, Duncan MacIntrye and Bert Walker voted with the Labour opposition to successfully abolish capital punishment.
Christmas wondered what would have happened if Hanan had been around in 1975 when the first attempt to decriminalise homosexuality was made by then-National MP Venn Young but failed. Marshall opposed that move vociferously as well.
The law legalising homosexuality was passed in 1986, a year after Christmas was born.
It is not unrelated to his personal circumstances; he has been in a same-sex relationship for 20 years – with a man also called James – and they are married.
James Christmas’s husband is James Carpinter, who is a former head boy of Burnside High and works for a US-based technology company.
He affiliates to Ngāi Tahu and is descended from Iwikau, a chief on Banks Peninsula who signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Akaroa.
How times and skeletons have changed.
Audrey Young covers politics as the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018. She was previously political editor, leading the Herald’s Press Gallery team. Venn Young, mentioned in the story, is her father.
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