Phil Goff

Philip Bruce Goff (born 22 June 1953) is a New Zealand politician and diplomat.

He currently serves as High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom since 2023.

Goff joined the Labour Party in 1969, the same year he left home, and held a number of administrative positions within the party.

He was chairman of the Labour Youth Movement and was twice elected a member of the Labour Party's national council.

Goff was also campaign chairman for Eddie Isbey in the electorate.

In 1973, he was Senior Scholar in Political Studies, and also won the Butterworth Prize for law.

While completing his MA, he lectured in Political Studies.

After his overseas experience in Europe Goff returned to New Zealand where he became an Insurance Workers Union organiser.

He was a member of the New Zealand Parliament from 1981 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 2016.

In early 1981 Goff put himself forward for the Labour candidacy for the Roskill electorate.

He beat 13 contenders (including Malcolm Douglas, Owen Greatbatch, Ken Hastings, Norman Kingsbury, Wayne Mapp and Lois Welch) to win the nomination on 23 April 1981.

The next day he resigned his trade union job to be a candidate full-time.

In the 1981 elections, Goff was elected Member of Parliament for the Roskill electorate.

In 1983 he was appointed as Labour's spokesperson for housing.

Three years later, when Labour won the 1984 elections, Goff was elevated to Cabinet by Prime Minister David Lange, becoming its youngest member.

He served as Minister of Housing and (from 1986) Minister for the Environment.

As Minister of Housing Goff provided money to finance loans to households in dire financial situations and purchased state rental units.

In the disputes during the Fourth Labour Government between Roger Douglas (the reformist Finance Minister) and other Labour MPs, Goff generally positioned himself on the side of Douglas, supporting deregulation and free trade.

After the 1987 elections, Goff dropped the Housing portfolio, but also became Minister of Employment, Minister of Youth Affairs, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Education (with responsibility for tertiary education).

Goff instigated changes to funding of tertiary studies incorporating financial contributions by students rather than the complete government funding that existed at the time.

State funding was seen as unsustainable due to large increases in student numbers.

The changes included direct fees and streamlined bursaries and student loans.

The bursary changes were generally regarded to be fair and were also backed up by a government guarantee to banks willing to fund loans by students.

As Minister of Employment Goff oversaw a large increase in unemployment which had risen to 128,000 people by November 1988.

There were several protests and marches on Parliament where he faced and spoke to crowds of unemployed people.

In response he committed $100 million to reinstate government subsidised training schemes to help the unemployed gain skills for new jobs.

Later, after a significant rearrangement of responsibilities in August 1989 following Lange's resignation, Goff became Minister of Education under new Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer while relinquishing Employment and Youth Affairs.

As Minister of Education he was against any further cuts to tertiary education threatening to resign if there were.

He also inherited responsibility for the Tomorrow's Schools reform initiative discovering budgeting errors and a staffing shortage that occurred under his predecessor in the portfolio (Lange).

According to cabinet colleague Michael Bassett Goff, despite his best efforts, was never able to regain the initiative in education as a result of this.

In the 1990 elections, Labour was defeated, and Goff lost his parliamentary seat to the National Party's Gilbert Myles.

While many commentators blamed Douglas's controversial reforms for Labour's loss, Goff said that the main problem had been in communication, not policy.

Goff was appointed to a position at the Auckland Institute of Technology, and later accepted a scholarship to study for six months at Oxford University.

During the Fifth Labour Government, in office from 1999 to 2008, Goff was a senior minister in a number of portfolios, including Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Minister of Defence, and Associate Minister of Finance.

He served as leader of the Labour Party and leader of the Opposition between 11 November 2008 and 13 December 2011.

Goff was elected mayor of Auckland in 2016, and served two terms, before retiring in 2022.

Goff was born and raised in Three Kings, Auckland.

His family was very poor, and his father wanted Goff to enter the workforce immediately after finishing high school.

Goff, however, wished to attend university, a decision that caused him to leave home when only sixteen years old.

By working at Westfield Freezing Works and as a cleaner, Goff was able to fund himself through university, gaining an MA (with first class honours) in political studies at the University of Auckland.