Reflections On The Legacy Of Sir Tim Shadbolt
by Margaret Evans · SCOOP1 September 2026
“Shadbolt: Tim’s Final Chapter”
Sir Tim Shadbolt’s distinctive voice is about to re-emerge. It’s in a new book, a full-bodied account of his final challenging years.
“Shadbolt: Tim’s Final Chapter” is due for release next month [on October 10], and author Margaret Evans says it responds to the question so many people have asked: “What happened to Tim?”
“Tim always had the ability to shine the light on what is important, and to speak ‘to and for the people’ with eloquence, deep seated honesty and humour, but little regard for what this might cost him,” she says.
Evans [a former mayor and journalist] dug deeply into official reports and media coverage to provide context to Sir Tim’s own writings. The result she describes as a “colourful account” reflecting on his final years as Invercargill mayor.
“He was so much more than his big toothy grin and wicked sense of humour. Tim’s life portrays the key episodes of the past half-century in New Zealand, and his writings from that final decade as mayor are an important illustration of contemporary challenges for democracy and local leadership”.
The book concludes with Sir Tim’s Civic funeral in January. It was “like a state occasion” attracting thousands in person and online.
Book Pre-orders to www.thebestlittlebookstore.nz $40 plus postage
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The book is published by TOTI Charitable Trust www.toti.co.nz and printed by Print House (Hamilton)
Book Launch: Invercargill Public Library 1pm Saturday 10 October
Notes:
The book chapters (from 2013 – 2026) illustrate Sir Tim’s interest in and love of almost everything, beginning with his ‘pig project’, through to unemployment and saving Tiwai Point. Then there is the Magna Carta, the Queen and the Commonwealth, Sister Cities, Anzac Day, festivals and films, youth, cats and dogs, and the unjust energy system … gutsy journalism, freedom of speech, and the unsuccessful defamation case against him leading to “eight years of hell”.
As noted in the book’s introduction: “The passionate activist with the big toothy grin took his energetic advocacy, intellectual curiosity and public popularity into local politics in 1983 and spent most of the next four decades as the nation’s most widely known mayor, elected for a record setting 11 terms – two in Auckland’s Waitemata, nine in Invercargill.”
And: Sir Tim possibly holds the New Zealand record “for the most words, spoken, broadcast, and written by and about him” since he emerged as a passionate activist and authored his 1971 best-seller ‘Bullshit & Jellybeans’. The Invercargill mayor’s scooter riding became a global sensation with 750,000 social media viewers in 2016.
Sir Tim’s funeral on January 16 (2026) packed Invercargill’s Civic Theatre, people lined the streets, and 52,000 viewers logged on to the City Council’s live stream, thousands more to national media coverage.
Margaret Evans says the idea first emerged “when a pack of us, with Tim, were sorting through boxes of his personal archives and he wanted to save everything”. The proposed book became a serious project last year, spurred on by the public response to his funeral in January this year (2026) as well as the coalition government’s commitment to local government reform.
BOOK COVER
This features Dee (Deidre) Copeland’s portrait “Seriously Tim” from Invercargill City Council’s collection.
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