ROB CAMPBELL

He who goes.…just whichever way the wind blows

The notion of an immutable personal “identity” is a secular vestige of Abrahamic religious notions of an immortal soul and makes no logical sense. That said, albeit with incremental – and sometimes drastic - changes, most people exhibit some continuity in beliefs and preferred activities over their lives. Not so New Zealand’s Robert (“Rob”) James Campbell, Opportunist Extraordinaire.

Campbell is remarkably bereft of any semblance of core identity or continuity.

The defining features of Campbell’s life to date have been an uncanny knack of divining the flow of New Zealand’s zeitgeist and floating fruitfully on it. He gleefully portrays himself as a man of principle and service, but quite what those principles are, and who other than himself he might be seen to serve, are entirely elusive. In truth, his only fundamental guiding principle is self-service.

Campbell’s formative years were spent in the Wairarapa and Lower Hutt. He studied the amorphous fields of economics and political science and was initially an extreme “Leftie”, protesting (admirably, I’d say) against the Vietnam War and the Apartheid regime of South Africa and throwing himself headlong into the trade unions, which were strong in the 1970’s and 80’s. He refused to confirm or deny Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s accusation that he was a communist.

His first complete about-face coincided exactly with New Zealand’s Polar reversal from extreme unionism and central Governmental control to the laissez-faire “Rogernomics” ushered in by Roger Douglas. He joined the Board of Bank of New Zealand and, like a pig in new-found shit, fell in with such odious robber barons as Sir Michael Fay. He teamed up with disgraced paedophile Ron Brierley (formerly “Sir”) at Brierley Investments Limited. He chaired the kitsch exploitative gambling company, SkyCity, and in that capacity tried to justify Sky City’s retention of millions in taxpayer funded COVID wage subsidies, despite SkyCity remaining profitable. He threw himself into the “departure lounge” - rip-off retirement - industry.

In 2019, Campbell became a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit - for services to business - invested into that Order by then Governor General (and, bizarrely, current chair of the New Zealand Rugby Union) Patsy Reddy. Reddy was on the SkyCity board chaired by Campbell and, more particularly, the two of them had teamed up, with a select coterie of fellow charlatans, to wreck Brierley Investments in the 1990s.

When the Tidal Wave of Woke broke on New Zealand’s shores, Campbell was right there to surf it straight into the public purse. A compulsive political greaser, Campbell was appointed by Andrew Little in 2021 as the inaugural chair of Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand). It takes a rare type of egomaniac – like Campbell - to put his hand up to chair an organisation for which he lacks any expertise or experience in the relevant field; in Te Whatu Ora’s case, public health. Brave proper medicos called him for what he was, an ill-equipped charlatan and imposter.

As chair of Te Whatu Ora, Campbell claimed the key to solving New Zealand’s public health issues lies in healthcare steeped in – wait for it - Maori culture and being guided by “marginalised” groups such as ethnic minorities, the disabled and the LGBT+ so-called “community”.

At about the same time as he snared the Te Whatu Ora chair, Campbell neatly clipped the Green Ticket, taking the chair of New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority. His genius knows no bounds.

And no boundaries. Normal rules don’t apply to Campbell, according to…himself. Ignoring the clear and crucial policy dictate of the Public Service Commission that directors of Crown entities must remain politically neutral, Campbell – seeking to reward his political appointers and otherwise further ingratiate himself with Race Identitarians – publicly lambasted the National Party’s announced intention to scrap “Three Waters” (that’s the reform with the thinly-disguised aim of having New Zealand’s fresh water administered by people with Maori ancestry).

When National leader Christopher Luxon, National MP Simeon Brown and ACT party leader David Seymour pointed out the obvious – that Campbell had deliberately and egregiously breached the Public Service Commission policy mandate for political neutrality, Campbell of course labelled them a triumvirate of reactionary racists.

Then something weird happened. Labour, acutely conscious of the New Zealand public health death spiral and looking for a scapegoat, booted Campbell from Te Whatu Ora. Did Campbell commit his first major strategic error of his entire career? Or is it just possible that Campbell - astutely realising that in Te Whatu Ora he was in charge of nursing is a hopeless cot-case - kicked the chair and hung himself.

So what can we make of Will-O’-The-Wisp Rob?

Rob is a creature of the times in which he has lived, albeit an extreme example. He is a chameleon product of meta societal themes.

Since the 1970’s, the Western world, New Zealand included, has seen the rise of the managerial class. These are the ones who, without generating or risking their own capital or actually producing anything tangible (i.e. without any personal “skin in the game”), command a disproportionate share of societal spoils by dint of university degrees (in Campbell’s case, the drifty duo of economics and political science), talking the talk, blurting the buzzwords and hitching a ride on prevailing societal trends.

Related to, but distinct from, managerialism is the absurd fantasy that one doesn’t have to have core experience or skills in order to pop up in, and meaningfully contribute to, ventures in which one is completely bereft of applicable expertise. Campbell’s appointment to the chair of the Ministry of Health (Te Whatu Ora) is a prime case in point. These are the Wheat Bix packet MBA crowd. What New Zealand really needs, more than ever, are people with proper, professional expertise; people like formidably competent Emeritus Professor Gorman, whose straight talking on the Government’s response to COVID had him officially cancelled in favour of the formidably idiotic Lego-playing pink orb Siouxsie Wiles. In Raceified New Zealand, the I-Can-Do-Anything phenomenon manifests itself in the notion that people with Maori ancestors have mystical expertise in any and every field.

Campbell is also a product of the infantilisation of society. While constantly trying to portray himself as some sort of Philosopher King, his behaviours are, at core, child-like. He craves attention. His massive but fragile ego is a dopamine addiction machine. Barely a day goes by without one of his vacuous little Woke opinion pieces being published in some fawning media channel. He simply can’t shut up. When he doesn’t get his own way, he has childish tantrums.

Campbell is also a classic example of what we might call Western Guru-ism; the unhealthy, misguided notion that there a paragons of perfect people dwelling among us whom we have to worship and turn to in order to be saved from ourselves. Gurus are modern equivalents of the High Priests of yore. Campbell is a self-styled Guru. Gurus gravitate towards mentoring, in Campbell’s case to David “Brown Buttabean” Letele. Campbell loves to be “down” and mixing it with the cool kids. Like former Prime Minister Dame Ardern, Campbell exhibits a saviour complex.

Lastly, Campbell is an example of sad, striving conformity masquerading as dangerous, original thinking and action. It will come as no surprise that Campbell is now a loud proud vegetarian, teetotaler and driver of an electric car. And good for him. But at 72 years of age (apparently), couldn’t he just shut up and retire gracefully from the stage? Not on your nelly. That’s simply one more thing he’s not capable of doing.