Steve Maharey's Labours of love

WARWICK SMITH/Manawatu Standard

HAPPY DAZE: Steve Maharey talks about being made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for his services as a Member of Parliament.

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He once rode a motorcycle, lived in a rowdy student flat and played in a covers band. Then he grew up and became the Labour Party's "ideas man" and was touted as a future prime minister. His safe hands were entrusted with six portfolios and a $32 billion budget.

As a minister, his legacy includes capping tertiary fees and introducing the Working for Families and apprenticeship schemes. Now the coin has flipped and, since October, he has been vice-chancellor of Massey University. And Steve Maharey, 55, is revelling in his career change.

He signalled the move a year earlier when he told of how the death of his wife, Liz Mackay, from cancer in 2004 prompted a rethink of his priorities.

While he misses politics, he finds university life "exhilarating". "I likened it [politics] to putting your foot in a train and the train leaves the station and never stops. It's a wonderful experience. So you could not miss that.

"But was it time to change and do something else? Absolutely, and the other passion in my life is tertiary education."

So it is perhaps surprising that, after school, he floated between "incredibly boring" jobs. Then he noticed students having a grand time. He wanted in.

He gained UE through night school and correspondence, and started at Massey. It was the early 70s and the wannabe musician studied through "to when the Sex Pistols released their first record -- 1976". He eventually became a senior lecturer in sociology and then ventured into local body politics, becoming a councillor from 1986-1990.

He entered Parliament as Palmerston North MP in 1990 and, during his 18 years in the House, rose to Labour's fourth-ranked politician. As a senior minister his portfolios included broadcasting; research, science and technology; tertiary education and social development.

He is proudest of the Working for Families scheme, which was criticised at the time but has since been adopted by National. "It meant that 360,000 families have between $80 and hundreds of dollars coming through their door."

This week he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services as an MP.

He draws a quirky comparison between his return to academia and a fairytale. "It's a curious feeling, because you feel familiar with a lot of things and a complete stranger at the same time ... You feel like Rumpelstiltskin -- you go away and you come back."

As tertiary education minister, he was responsible for reforms including the fee maxima cap on fees, performance-based research funding (PBRF) and the Tertiary Education Commission and he has no complaints now, despite being on the other side of the fence.

"Someone once said, `What's it like being the gamekeeper turned poacher?' No one will be able to say to me, `See, you don't like working under these policies,' because I do. I'm perfectly happy." But, he says, individual policies should change over time, and one on which he will campaign is the fee maxima.

"When I put that policy in place, it was for three years. It's now five years and it urgently needs to be changed.

"The top of my tree is that they give us more money, but I would really like the opportunity to reshape our fees. Not losing the maxima idea, but let us have a go at reshaping our fees so we get them more realistically aligned with the costs."

The PBRF is due for one more round only and he wants more support for outstanding teaching. "I think working with the VCs [vice-chancellors] we can help the Government to get outstanding policy, as long as they give us some more money. We just can't be world-competitive if we are not given more money."

After more than two decades living in hotels and aeroplanes he hopes to spend more time in his hometown, but will visit the Albany and Wellington campuses regularly. "I really enjoy the fact that I'm living in three distinct communities.

"It's a stimulating way to live. I used to spend $32 billion and have six portfolios at once, and it's really incredibly stimulating to have all of that difference."

He has bold plans for Massey to double the number of postgraduate students and increase the number of domestic students by 6000 by 2016. It will also explore a public sector precinct on the Manawatu site and reducing its carbon footprint.

In his own time, he is working on a book, but don't expect a tell-all of the Clark years: "I think that's despicable. It's a privilege to be in the room with Helen Clark during a difficult moment and I have no intention of going to tell people how things work."

Rather, it will focus on how the ideas behind policy has changed, from Rogernomics to the Third Way.

He also hopes to spend more time gardening, cycling and building an eco-friendly home.

- © Fairfax NZ News