CALL OF DUTY

‘Raging against the dying of the light is a pointless exercise, certainly after a long and very fulfilling life. I am not fighting a battle against my cancer. It will do what it will do, and in the meantime, I will do what I can. Death is no more than the space we make for others to live.” From Labour Saving, A Memoir.

Sir Michael Cullen started writing as therapy after being diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer. In Labour Saving, he includes his perspective on the brutal battle between the David Lange and Roger Douglas factions in the fourth Labour government, from 1984 to 1990, and he reveals the personal toll as he tried to make the peace.

Labour lost the 1990 election, but, in 1999, Cullen became minister of finance and established a legacy that includes Kiwibank, KiwiSaver, the NZ Super Fund, Working for Families and, as a result of his fiscal conservatism, healthy Budget surpluses.

Cullen was born in London just before the end of World War II. The lower-middle-class family of four – he has an older sister – migrated to New Zealand when he was 10. His ambitious mother researched prospects for