Helen Clark: A Political Life

by Denis Welch. Penguin. 240 pages. $40.

Don't pick up this book if you expect to read about the private life of the person recently polled as the Greatest Living New Zealander. Apart from a few hints as to personal interests, there is little in this biography to suggest Helen Clark even had a personal life.

Moreover, it is an unauthorised biography. She refused to be involved in its preparation, so the material within is a rejigging of previously published work, interwoven with some personal interviews with people near her.

That is the downside. What Welch has produced is, in fact, a useful summary of a unique political life. Ultimately, it is not a question of whether she was successful or not, as much as it provides the raw material for the reader's individual perception of her nine-year reign. In short, you are invited to draw your own conclusions.

The fact that much of it has been previously published is beside the point. What is valuable is to have it all drawn together so it is possible to see the young protester becoming a party activist and then junior MP. She is overlooked for cabinet office when Labour becomes government in the 1980s.

By the next election she has modified her views at the cost of her close working relationship with Jim Anderton. Her reward is a Cabinet post.

Welch reviews her work in the Cabinet and eventual rise to the top job. He lists what he considers her successes and failures.

Having been an Alliance candidate and a parliamentary correspondent, Welch is well placed to take on the task. He has produced a book that is readable without it being a compulsive page-turner. If there is one shortcoming, it is that most of his references quote people from academia and various shades of the Left.

He questions whether there is even a difference between the main Left- and Right-wing parties in New Zealand. A few comments from the Right – apart from the repackaged Richard Prebble – would have added to the overall picture. Well worth a browse.

• John Ewan is a freelance reviewer from Nelson.

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