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Hollow Men
There has never been a book about New Zealand politics like this before. Over a two year period, sources from inside the National Party provided Nicky Hager with an astonishing collection of internal reports, emails, appointment diaries, meeting minutes and face-to-face interviews, documenting the rise to power of Don Brash and a two year campaign to become government. The result is an unprecedented picture of the internal workings of a political party and a disturbing, but riveting study into the nature of modern politics. The National Party sources were prompted to blow the whistle because they believed their party was behaving in dishonest, unprincipled and even unlawful ways. In The Hollow Men we are able to see - up close and in the participants' own words - the secret backers behind Don Brash's successful leadership challenge; the precise details of the party's hidden alliances with the Exclusive Brethren church and others; the strategies behind the Orewa speeches; the identities of the big donors; the cynical imported election campaign techniques and foreign advisers used by the party; and much, much more. The book goes to the heart of why many New Zealanders feel disillusioned about politics. Nicky Hager believes that the way politicians and others in politics conduct themselves - the games they play to advance themselves - can harm the whole political system. Exposing their activities is the first step towards change.
351 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 7, 2018
A sobering read regarding what did happen in New Zealand National party behind close doors leading up to general election of 2005 which I doubt many voters and/or members of the party even aware of. I wasn't aware that lobbyists, PR companies and big money were part and parcel of New Zealand political scenes; I thought it only happens in the US politics! How naive! Because this book was based mostly on materials supplied by whistle-blowers from within National Party and if the sheer volume alone was an indicator; National Party leadership (if they care that is) need to take a serious look at its structures, code of conducts, values, visions and those in between that ultimately defined National Party as a political party that care for all New Zealanders. Now, I understood as to why National failed to formed a coalition with either New Zealand First or the Green Party, I guess National's conducts in the past had burnt one to many bridges. At presents, the leaks of internal communications in National Party is like a plumbing problem that everybody knew about it and what caused it but those in the leadership are too busy making excuses than actually dealt with the cause of the problem once and for all and that to me is very sad indeed for National Party, its members and general voters.
BTW I think Hager did his due diligent with this book in comparison to Dirty Politics.
BTW I think Hager did his due diligent with this book in comparison to Dirty Politics.
January 17, 2023
I honestly can't recall the impact The Hollow Men had upon its release, nor whether certain revelations within materially impacted my vote in 2005. However, a decade and a half later, it remains the most revelationary book on NZ politics.
The book arises out of an intra-party dispute between factions of New Zealand's National Party. Don Brash took National close to victory in 2005 as party leader. His hard right approach eventually cost him the leadership post election.
Money Money Money
The speech marks his descent into unprincipled politics because of the motives and political calculation that lay behind the decision to make that sort of speech at that time.
The Hollow Men is written to be a coherent narrative, tying together several elements involving the "politics of deceit". It reaches too far in that regard, but we should not damn it for that, most issues being ones of interpretation rather than error.
The Exclusive Brethen advertising campaign is up front, an exception to the otherwise chronogical layout. While that is slightly jarring, it makes sense. It was Hager's biggest scoop and the clearest evidence of electoral impropriety. Other acts of collusion with Racing NZ and "anonymous" donors feature, along with the use of the Parliamentary budget for election expenses (which Hager notes, Labour also did), all coherently covered in detail.
These are the best parts of The Hollow Men, "lifting the veil" on the corruption that does exist within New Zealand politics. To be clear, this isn't a National specific issue. I don't see Hager as biased for or against particular parties and he goes where his sources lead him.
The background to Brash's Orewa Speech in 2004 that resurrected National's fortunes is also worthwhile, in that we get the advisory and drafting process that led to it. It's a case of opportunism and its legacy isn't as important to the New Zealand political system, but it (and the failed attempts to recapture the lightning in a bottle) are interesting vignettes.
Again the messages were driven entirely by expediency.
The expression 'punters', as used in the internal discussions, is inherently contemptuous of the supposedly ill-informed, uninterested, irrational and easily influenced masses.
As I put above, I don't consider Hager biased towards any party in his writing, but he does have a certain idealism towards how politics should work.
Democracy is an ugly thing, and while political parties may do things that seem dishonest (some of which are dishonest), we've got to be big boys here. Unless there are serious restrictions on journalists' ability to investigate, analyse and report on such actions of "deceit" in New Zealand, I'm not necessarily worried about them from a systematic perspective.
The Hollow Men lists certain actions by National to pull the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders, and hilariously eating the proverbial over it. The "Gone by lunchtime" nuclear policy, demotion of Katherine Rich over the welfare speech, overheated red tape claims, and Brash's reverse on the Civil Union Bill fill the pages. But that's more campaign diary stuff - bad political decisions that got punished in real time rather than corrupt acts. Singling National out is unfair. I get it fits Hager's theme for the book by creating a flowing narrative and they aren’t necessarily bias, but those faux pas weren't really unique to National nor reveal issues in politics that are amenable to reform. Politicians are human and will always shade issues - it's on the media to ferret them out.
Even outright good decisions by National get shaded as deceitful, possibly because Hager has the leaked internal emails about those decisions. Yet their internal discussions aren't actually hurtful:
This sort of thinking ran utterly counter to their free market beliefs, but Sinclair noted that winning the election 'will mean some very hard ideological compromise at times.'
...might read badly, but how either of New Zealand's main centre parties would engage in anything else would be baffling to me. Accepting four weeks paid leave as a dead issue, spending an off-election year meeting with commercial groups that do support National's political goals rather than low information voters, or getting outside political advice, are all fine actually. The apparent suggestion that National imported anti immigrant sentiment from some Australian consultants feels like a simplistic portrayal - NZ's complicated relationship with immigration runs across the political spectrum and needs more detail than the tangential attention in The Hollow Men.
The evidence that National would have lurched hard right upon gaining power is, frankly, flimsy and rests mostly on dinners with donors and puffery between political advisors. How Brash could have managed to have pulled the whole party and at least one likely to be resistant coalition party is unexplained. Hager repeatedly writes off the rest of the caucus of National MPs, but I suspect that speaks to the limited breadth of sources (deep as they were).
Further, while Brash was on the hard right for National, it did exist as a faction. That he hung out with similarly minded people is understandable, if not a great choice for political longevity. Whatever her subsequent leanings, Ruth Richardson was a former National MP. Hager makes too much of Brash's involvment with her, leading to him reading a little too much into the tea leaves:
'I am a patient man,' she wrote (a curious typo for a woman)
...a weird statement about Richardson by Hager on multiple levels.
For the Ages
While not perfect, it is essential, and alot of what Hager wrote stands up (pointedly, no one ever seems to have debunked him on the facts). It's a four star read because some of its parts are five star stories, that I'm not going to overly drag down for choices as to composition.
The book arises out of an intra-party dispute between factions of New Zealand's National Party. Don Brash took National close to victory in 2005 as party leader. His hard right approach eventually cost him the leadership post election.
Money Money Money
The speech marks his descent into unprincipled politics because of the motives and political calculation that lay behind the decision to make that sort of speech at that time.
The Hollow Men is written to be a coherent narrative, tying together several elements involving the "politics of deceit". It reaches too far in that regard, but we should not damn it for that, most issues being ones of interpretation rather than error.
The Exclusive Brethen advertising campaign is up front, an exception to the otherwise chronogical layout. While that is slightly jarring, it makes sense. It was Hager's biggest scoop and the clearest evidence of electoral impropriety. Other acts of collusion with Racing NZ and "anonymous" donors feature, along with the use of the Parliamentary budget for election expenses (which Hager notes, Labour also did), all coherently covered in detail.
These are the best parts of The Hollow Men, "lifting the veil" on the corruption that does exist within New Zealand politics. To be clear, this isn't a National specific issue. I don't see Hager as biased for or against particular parties and he goes where his sources lead him.
The background to Brash's Orewa Speech in 2004 that resurrected National's fortunes is also worthwhile, in that we get the advisory and drafting process that led to it. It's a case of opportunism and its legacy isn't as important to the New Zealand political system, but it (and the failed attempts to recapture the lightning in a bottle) are interesting vignettes.
Again the messages were driven entirely by expediency.
The expression 'punters', as used in the internal discussions, is inherently contemptuous of the supposedly ill-informed, uninterested, irrational and easily influenced masses.
As I put above, I don't consider Hager biased towards any party in his writing, but he does have a certain idealism towards how politics should work.
Democracy is an ugly thing, and while political parties may do things that seem dishonest (some of which are dishonest), we've got to be big boys here. Unless there are serious restrictions on journalists' ability to investigate, analyse and report on such actions of "deceit" in New Zealand, I'm not necessarily worried about them from a systematic perspective.
The Hollow Men lists certain actions by National to pull the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders, and hilariously eating the proverbial over it. The "Gone by lunchtime" nuclear policy, demotion of Katherine Rich over the welfare speech, overheated red tape claims, and Brash's reverse on the Civil Union Bill fill the pages. But that's more campaign diary stuff - bad political decisions that got punished in real time rather than corrupt acts. Singling National out is unfair. I get it fits Hager's theme for the book by creating a flowing narrative and they aren’t necessarily bias, but those faux pas weren't really unique to National nor reveal issues in politics that are amenable to reform. Politicians are human and will always shade issues - it's on the media to ferret them out.
Even outright good decisions by National get shaded as deceitful, possibly because Hager has the leaked internal emails about those decisions. Yet their internal discussions aren't actually hurtful:
This sort of thinking ran utterly counter to their free market beliefs, but Sinclair noted that winning the election 'will mean some very hard ideological compromise at times.'
...might read badly, but how either of New Zealand's main centre parties would engage in anything else would be baffling to me. Accepting four weeks paid leave as a dead issue, spending an off-election year meeting with commercial groups that do support National's political goals rather than low information voters, or getting outside political advice, are all fine actually. The apparent suggestion that National imported anti immigrant sentiment from some Australian consultants feels like a simplistic portrayal - NZ's complicated relationship with immigration runs across the political spectrum and needs more detail than the tangential attention in The Hollow Men.
The evidence that National would have lurched hard right upon gaining power is, frankly, flimsy and rests mostly on dinners with donors and puffery between political advisors. How Brash could have managed to have pulled the whole party and at least one likely to be resistant coalition party is unexplained. Hager repeatedly writes off the rest of the caucus of National MPs, but I suspect that speaks to the limited breadth of sources (deep as they were).
Further, while Brash was on the hard right for National, it did exist as a faction. That he hung out with similarly minded people is understandable, if not a great choice for political longevity. Whatever her subsequent leanings, Ruth Richardson was a former National MP. Hager makes too much of Brash's involvment with her, leading to him reading a little too much into the tea leaves:
'I am a patient man,' she wrote (a curious typo for a woman)
...a weird statement about Richardson by Hager on multiple levels.
For the Ages
While not perfect, it is essential, and alot of what Hager wrote stands up (pointedly, no one ever seems to have debunked him on the facts). It's a four star read because some of its parts are five star stories, that I'm not going to overly drag down for choices as to composition.
April 3, 2015
Disturbing insight into the deceitful and amoral process by which the National party were hijacked in the leadup to the 2005 election. Well written but sometimes less than objective, in fact coming close to polemic in places. Well worth a read though, particularly helpful in understanding the heritage of the party now in power in NZ.
June 29, 2020
I was recently persuaded to read this book. I had previously avoided it, being of the view that Nicky Hagar's use of leaked documents was lowbrow muck raking.
In fact this book is well researched and incredibly well written. It is a fascinating portrayal ofthe behind the scenes influence of major donors and lobyists.
Many ofthe themes, such as very simple, emotive messaging are equally applicable to the Trump and Brexit campaigns. The applicability of these comparisons some years on are fascinating.
Though the book isn't without bias Hager does point out that similar dealings would be found in other parties. National happened to be the one he had access to.
Superb writing and highly recommended for anyone interested in political strategy.
In fact this book is well researched and incredibly well written. It is a fascinating portrayal ofthe behind the scenes influence of major donors and lobyists.
Many ofthe themes, such as very simple, emotive messaging are equally applicable to the Trump and Brexit campaigns. The applicability of these comparisons some years on are fascinating.
Though the book isn't without bias Hager does point out that similar dealings would be found in other parties. National happened to be the one he had access to.
Superb writing and highly recommended for anyone interested in political strategy.
Read
January 23, 2026Reading in 2025 and recognising so many names evokes the feeling of watching the "Where are they now" part of a film at the beginning, rather than at the end. Very interesting to start, but the repetitious structure that covers the same beats with the players slightly changes over the same period of time in every chapter grates by the end.
Funny to read the chapter railing against how "PC" is used as a blunt, thought terminating cliche and mentally replacing it with the word "woke" with zero loss of meaning. Nothing ever really changes.
Funny to read the chapter railing against how "PC" is used as a blunt, thought terminating cliche and mentally replacing it with the word "woke" with zero loss of meaning. Nothing ever really changes.
September 2, 2020
The deceit and lying of Don Brash, John Key and their flunkies exposed by members of their own party. The back room manipulations of the wealthy elite for all to see. The activities of the exclusive brethren exposed. What a shower of humanity.
July 13, 2023
Brilliant expose of the National Party leadership's actions in 2005/6.
July 28, 2011
I really enjoyed this, read it when it first came out, even though I was hideously sick at the time.
Very clearly covers the events of winter 2005, when the politics of campaigning in NZ took a huge shift to the American style of dollars-for-votes paradigms.
Very clearly covers the events of winter 2005, when the politics of campaigning in NZ took a huge shift to the American style of dollars-for-votes paradigms.
August 11, 2011
Some solid research which lead to a positive result. The best of political writing.
June 22, 2012
I've just finished reading this book, and I wish that every New Zealand voter would also read it! I'd also love to see a recent follow up...
November 8, 2015
I loved this book.
It's a brilliant insight into politics in New Zealand in the lead up to an election.
It's a brilliant insight into politics in New Zealand in the lead up to an election.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews