{"id":530279,"date":"2026-07-17T07:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/530279\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T07:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:15:12","slug":"prominent-former-national-party-mp-sir-bill-birch-dies-aged-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/530279\/","title":{"rendered":"Prominent former National Party MP Sir Bill Birch dies, aged 92"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prominent former National Party MP Sir William “Bill” Birch has died, aged 92.<\/p>\n

Sir William served as Minister of Finance from 1993 to 1999 in the fourth National Government under prime ministers Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley.<\/p>\n

He also served in the third National Government under Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, where, as Minister for National Development, he oversaw the construction of a string of energy projects that came to be known as ‘Think Big’.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Birch was “a giant of the National Party and delivered more for our country than he would ever take credit for”.<\/p>\n

Former National Minister of Finance under Bolger, Shipley dies aged 92 – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Then<\/p>\n

Then National Party Treasurer Bill Birch receives flowers and a kiss from Prime Minister Jenny Shipley after reading the Budget. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

“His close to 30 years in Parliament coincided with a period of significant reform as we modernised our economy and grappled with who we are as a country. Throughout, Sir William maintained his legendary diligence and work ethic, knowing that the sacrifices of public life were worth it to leave a better country for future generations.<\/p>\n

“On behalf of the Government and the National Party, I express my deepest condolences to his family and thank them for sharing him with all of us for so many years.”<\/p>\n

Sir William entered politics in 1972, representing the Franklin electorate. He retired at the 1999 general election after 27 years in the halls of power.<\/p>\n

He was appointed a Knight Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for public services as a Member of Parliament and Minister of the Crown in 1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prominent former National Party MP Sir William “Bill” Birch has died, aged 92. Sir William served as Minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,135,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-530279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}