Roger Bridge Obituary:

I was a Labour City Councillor and Mayor. One thing I learned in office was that my tribalism was often challenged by people who I thought would be against my beliefs. That was so often not the case.

One person I enjoyed working with was Roger Bridge. We should not have got on. He was a serious Tory, and I was solidly (and still am) Left wing. Over the years we got to know each other well and often had long drinks in a pub, and countless cups of coffee. Roger was a terrific gossip, as am I, and we shared hours over the years “chatting” kindly, and unkindly, about people and issues in this city. We shared common dislikes of a few people and thoroughly enjoyed undertaking detailed analysis of their perceived shortcomings from our perspective.

Roger was appointed to chair the Rata Foundation, I think on a couple of occasions, and many community agencies owed much to his advocacy for their applications. I well remember Roger approaching community agencies after the earthquakes and encouraging them to come up with on-the-ground projects which would assist with this community recovering from our disaster. I know of an agency which invested the funds supplied through Roger’s advocacy in a housing project which houses homeless people to this day. There will be countless others that I don’t know about. Supporters, like Roger, are essential figures behind the scenes for community projects and too seldom their actions go un-thanked.

Roger played a key role in the National Party both locally and nationally. Roger overplayed his hand during a by-election in Auckland and rang a radio talkback programme pretending to be somebody other than himself. He got identified and, even though his actions were not to benefit him, he was dreadfully treated by National Party officials and unceremoniously dumped. He learned that current politicians have little time for those who have gone before them in the Party which nowadays politicians see as theirs. That’s probably why Jim Bolger was not invited to last year’s National Party conference.

So, I want to place on record that I really liked Roger Bridge and miss our political debates, and gossip. This town owes him heaps.