Sir William Francis Birch (9 April 1934 – 17 July 2026) was a New Zealand politician. He served as Minister of Finance from 1993 to 1999 in the fourth National Government.
Birch was born in Hastings on 9 April 1934, the son of Charles and Elizabeth Birch. He was educated at Hamilton's Technical High School and through Wellington Technical Correspondence School. He was trained as a surveyor, and established a business in Pukekohe, a small town south of Auckland. Birch quickly became involved in various Pukekohe community organisations. He served on Pukehohe's borough council from 1965 to 1974, and was deputy mayor from 1968 to 1974.
In 1953, Birch married Rosa Mitchell, and the couple went on to have four children.
Birch first entered parliament in the 1972 election and would remain an MP for the next twenty-seven years.
At first, Birch stood in Franklin, succeeding the retiring National Party MP and Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives Alf Allen. The seat had once been held by Prime Minister William Massey. Its name and shape changed regularly as required by post-New Zealand census boundary adjustments. Over Birch's career, the extreme borders of his electorate sometimes extended as far as north as Beachlands, as far south-west as Pirongia Mountain and as far east as Thames (though never all at once). However, no matter the name, Birch's electorate always included the town of Pukekohe.
After his retirement in 1999, he was succeeded by Paul Hutchison as MP for Port Waikato.
Third National Government, 1975–1984
Birch's initial term of Parliament was in Opposition, but under leader and finance spokesperson Robert Muldoon, the National Party won the following three elections and formed the Third National Government. After holding a number of internal National Party positions in his first six years as an MP, including senior whip from 1976 to 1979, Birch was made Minister of National Development, Minister of Energy, and Minister of Science and Technology when National won its second term in government at the 1978 election.
As a minister in the Third National Government, Birch supported the Government's dawn raids against overstayers, which disproportionately targeted the Pasifika community. In response, the Polynesian Panthers activist group staged "counter raids" on the homes of Birch and the Minister of Immigration Frank Gill, surrounding them with light and chanting with megaphones. As Minister of Energy during the 1979 oil crisis, Birch oversaw the introduction of temporary petrol demand reduction measures including carless days and the ban on petrol sales during weekends.
After the 1981 election, he swapped the Science and Technology role for the Regional Development portfolio. As Minister for National Development, Birch was closely involved in the Think Big project, a series of high-cost programmes designed to reduce New Zealand's dependence on imported fuel. When National lost the 1984 election, Birch's ministerial career was interrupted, but he remained in parliament.
Muldoon kept Birch on in the Energy and National Development portfolios when he announced his shadow cabinet in July 1984. He then was one of four ex-ministers who challenged Muldoon for the leadership of the party which resulted in Jim McLay becoming leader. McLay promoted Birch to replace Muldoon in the finance portfolio and third rank in the party caucus. McLay later dumped Birch as finance spokesman in an attempt to "rejuvenate" the party and instead allocated him the job of spokesperson for Labour and Employment and the twelfth rank. This motivated Birch to support a successful challenge to McLay a month later. Under new leader Jim Bolger, Birch returned to his position as third-ranked in caucus and retained the Labour and Employment portfolios. In the second opposition term, from 1987 to 1990, he was additionally the spokesperson for immigration and state services.
Fourth National Government, 1990–1996
After National regained power in the 1990 election, Birch re-entered cabinet as part of the fourth National government. Over the next three years, he was to hold a number of ministerial roles, including Minister of Labour, Minister of Immigration, Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, Minister of Employment, Minister of Health, Minister of State Services, and Minister responsible for the ACC.
The first term of the National government was often fraught, and Birch clashed a number of times with the controversial Minister of Finance, Ruth Richardson. The Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, had never been a supporter of Richardson's strong laissez-faire policies, and preferred the more conservative Birch for the Finance portfolio.
National had foreshadowed labour market reform in the 1990 manifesto, though it was vague on details. Birch drew on advice from the Business Roundtable and Employers Federation to help draft a new industrial relations statute that would diminish the power of the New Zealand union movement. Richardson interfered in his Labour portfolio by submitting her own draft before Birch, as she did not believe the draft went far enough. Birch eventually prevailed.
The Employment Contracts Act became law despite nationwide protests to "kill the bill". It radically reshaped New Zealand’s industrial relations system, going far beyond anything attempted in any Western country at the time. Industrial awards were abolished and replaced by individual and collective employment contracts. Unions were reduced to the status of "bargaining agents", making organising extremely difficult. Award minimums, such as overtime and penalty rates of pay, had no statutory basis. Unions were also forced to re-register as incorporated societies, as the Act did not afford them any legal recognition. Birch later described the legislation as "balanced", a view not shared by labour market experts at the time or by the International Labour Organization.
In 1992, Birch was made a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, an honour formerly reserved for senior New Zealand politicians.
In early 1993, Bolger appointed Bill Birch Minister of Health to manage a deeply unpopular series of health reforms championed by his predecessor Simon Upton. One of his first acts in this portfolio was to abolish the $50 overnight hospital charges introduced in the 1991 budget, which had caused an uproar.