43 Facts About Rodney Hide

Rodney Philip Hide was born on 16 December 1956 and is a former New Zealand politician of the ACT New Zealand party.

Rodney Hide stepped down as ACT leader in April 2011 after a leadership challenge from Don Brash and retired from Parliament at the general election later that year.

In 1960, due to sickness, Philip Rodney Hide sold the small farm and moved to Rangiora, continuing to drive trucks until his retirement.

Rodney Hide attended Rangiora High School, before gaining a degree in zoology and botany from the University of Canterbury.

Rodney Hide worked for some time on oil rigs in the North Sea.

Rodney Hide eventually returned to New Zealand by way of Romania, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.

Rodney Hide then took up a teaching position at Lincoln, first in resource management and later in economics.

Rodney Hide completed his master's degree in economics from Montana State University with a thesis on New Zealand's transferable fishing quotas.

Rodney Hide accepted, and began working at a radio station owned by Gibbs.

Later, Rodney Hide met Roger Douglas, a former Minister of Finance whose radical economic reforms Rogernomics had made a considerable impression on him.

When Douglas established the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, Rodney Hide had close involvement as the organisation's first chairman and president.

Rodney Hide first entered Parliament in 1996 as a list MP.

Rodney Hide won the party parliamentary leadership role in a closely contested primary after the retirement of Richard Prebble in 2004.

Rodney Hide then went on to win the Epsom electorate from sitting National Party MP Richard Worth in 2005 with the campaign message "ACT is back".

Rodney Hide had a reputation for strong views, for his media profile, and for his confrontational style.

In 2002, when Rodney Hide still sat on the back benches, one commentator described him the "leader of the opposition".

Rodney Hide held the seventh place on the ACT party list for the 1996 election.

Rodney Hide gradually rose through the party's ranks, reaching second place in the ACT list for the 2002 election.

Many people had known for some time that Rodney Hide saw himself as a potential parliamentary leader of the ACT party, and he himself showed no reluctance in saying so.

At several points, rumours circulated that Rodney Hide planned to challenge party leader Richard Prebble for his position, although such a challenge never emerged.

When Prebble announced his retirement, Rodney Hide quickly indicated that he would seek the caucus leadership.

Prebble appeared unenthusiastic about the prospect of Rodney Hide succeeding him, and in a speech praising each of the new leadership contenders, pointedly dwelled on the others.

Rodney Hide campaigned against Stephen Franks, Ken Shirley, and Muriel Newman for the ACT party parliamentary leadership.

In 2006, Rodney Hide voiced speculation on the leadership cadre of the National Party, a strategy which gained him headlines but complicated the once co-operative relationship between ACT and National.

In 2006, Rodney Hide appeared as a contestant in the celebrity-based Dancing with the Stars television series, in which he, paired with professional dancer Krystal Stuart, competing against other celebrities.

Rodney Hide stated that he appeared on the show as a personal challenge, having never danced before, and despite harsh criticism from the show's judges placed fourth, after dropping his dance partner.

At the 2008 election, Rodney Hide retained his Epsom seat; with a subsequent rise in party popularity, ACT increased its representation in parliament from two seats to five.

Rodney Hide was appointed as a Minister outside Cabinet and was appointed to the office of the Minister of Local Government, Minister for Regulatory Reform and Associate Minister of Commerce.

Rodney Hide faced criticism from various parties over the local authority amalgamation.

That same year, the Labour Party accused Rodney Hide of mismanaging the Auckland reform process and criticised Rodney Hide's advocacy of privatising council assets and services.

Rodney Hide indicated to Brash he would not be standing in the 2011 general election.

Rodney Hide was criticised in November 2009 for taking his girlfriend Louise Crome on a tax-payer funded private holiday to Hawaii and on a tax-payer funded trip to London, Canada and the United States.

Rodney Hide said that the legislation would drive up the cost of basic goods, ruining businesses and farmers.

In November 2008, after ACT had negotiated with National for a review of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, New Zealand Herald journalist Brian Rudman commented that Rodney Hide had "fruitcake views on global warming".

In 2010, in a speech to Parliament, Rodney Hide compared government-funded climate science to the Spanish inquisition.

Rodney Hide accused the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research of being involved in a scandal with its temperature data and claimed that its scientific credibility was shredded.

In 2012, Rodney Hide continued to write opinion articles in the press questioning climate science and emissions trading schemes.

Rodney Hide agreed that CO2 from fossil fuels is a greenhouse gas that has caused warming, but that the warming wasn't worrying until the effect had been multiplied with computer models that are programmed to cause scary climate change.

In December 2011 Rodney Hide was granted the right to retain the title of The Honourable in recognition of his term as a Member of the Executive Council of New Zealand.

Rodney Hide was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order in the 2013 New Year Honours, for services as a member of Parliament.

Rodney Hide wrote a political column for the New Zealand Herald for a time, and has worked as a casual labourer.

Rodney Hide taunted her in his newspaper column, urging her to use her parliamentary privilege to breach the name suppression order protecting the defendant in the Queenstown suppressed indecency case.

In February 2022, Rodney Hide expressed support for the Convoy 2022 New Zealand protesters who had camped outside Parliament.