He was brought up in poverty as the son of a Holocaust refugee, admires Tony Blair and says it is inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic.

John Key, a multimillionaire former investment banker who stormed to victory over his rival, Labour’s Helen Clark, in New Zealand’s general election on Saturday, is the country’s 48th Prime Minister and its most inexperienced in 100 years.

A politician for only six years, Mr Key, 47, will be a very different kind of leader not just from the formidable Ms Clark, who ran the country for nearly a decade, but also from his predecessors at the top of the conservative National party.

He has been called New Zealand’s David Cameron and, like the Tory party leader, he has moved his party towards the centre, abandoning its harder-edged policies. However, in an interview with The Times he admitted that while he “likes David a lot”, it is Tony Blair that he really admires, even though his party is ideologically closer to the Conservatives.

Living in Barnes, southwest London, and working as a currency trader for Merrill Lynch in the 1990s, Mr Key saw at first hand the change that Mr Blair forced in the Labour party.

“I like Blair. He wasn’t afraid to do things that were not in the historical pattern of his party and I thought he was a breath of fresh air,” he said. “David [Cameron] is like a young Tony Blair, and again he isn’t afraid to go into new territory for the Tories.”

Mr Key compares himself with the two British politicians, saying that he is a “natural” liberal, although his childhood was less advantaged than that of either Mr Blair or Mr Cameron. He grew up in poverty in New Zealand’s South Island, and he attributes his centrist views to the values instilled in him by his mother, an Austrian Jewish immigrant, and to those of his “eminently sensible” parents-in-law, Northern Irish immigrants.

His mother, Ruth, was abandoned by her husband when Mr Key was 7. She worked nights to support him and his two sisters. “My politics are a function of my relatively poor background,” he said. “There was a lot of love in my family but not necessarily a lot of money. My mother taught me the value of things.”

His family enjoys “a really nice life-style now, but we remember that people struggle”.

The “really nice lifestyle” shared with his wife, Bronagh, daughter Steffi, 15, and son Max, 13, includes a luxurious house in the upmarket Auckland suburb of Parnell, and a holiday home in Hawaii.

In New Zealand’s fiercely egalitarian society, his wealth has engendered respect rather than resentment. While the business community admires his financial acumen – he also spent two years on the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York – those at the lower end of the economic spectrum see in him a possibility for them all.

“If he could start poor and get that rich,” said Sandra Bisley, a shop assistant in the wine-growing region of Napier, “then we can too. That’s what I tell the kids.”

He surprised many when he took over the leadership of the party in 2006 – earlier, he admits, than he had wanted – after his predecessor Don Brash led National to a humiliating defeat.

In power, he plans, controversially, to restrict Ms Clark’s greenhouse gas emissions-trading scheme to make it more favourable to business, and to cut taxes and government spending. His policies will have to be agreed with ACT and United Future, the two smaller parties that, under New Zealand’s proportional voting system, will form a coalition with National.

Mr Key also says that it is inevitable that the country will become a republic, although probably not for another decade.

“If Australia becomes a republic there is no question it will set off quite an intense debate on this side of the Tasman,” he said. “We would have to have a referendum if we wanted to move towards it. But I don’t think that will happen for some years yet.”

Shifting away from the Right

— Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, has shifted the conservatives into a centrist position, promising to fix, not dismantle, the cherished welfare system

— Stephen Harper was elected Prime Minister of Canada in 2006 and has positioned himself at the centre of the political spectrum. He oversaw the merger of the Conservatives and Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada

— Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, governs through a coalition with the Social Democrats. Although head of the conservatives, she is known as the “Green Chancellor” and refused to commit troops in southern Afghanistan.

— François Fillon, the French Prime Minister and President Sarkozy’s right-hand man, sits to the left of Mr Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement party and is a proponent of social inclusiveness.

Source: Times Archive

John Key was quick to compare himself with last week’s other election victor at a press conference on Saturday night. “I’ve got a bit of bad news though, guys: there’s no puppy coming,” Mr Key said, in reference to Barack Obama’s promise to reward his children with a new dog. But, after a mild rebuke from his audience, he reneged: “Maybe we better reconsider the puppy. The cat won’t like it but we can work our way through that.”

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Heed the great stabiliser’s words
• How a voice for everyone led to stalemate
• Bakara market becomes a slaughterhouse