Brian Talboys

He died in 2012 at the age of 90 at his rest home in Invercargill, just a few days short of his 91st birthday. He was survived by his wife and their two children. Patricia, Lady Talboys, died in 2019.

Talboys retired from Parliament at the 1981 election, a year after the abortive leadership challenge. He went on to hold a number of positions in the business world, and served as the first chairman of the Pacific Democratic Union from 1984 to 1985.

In 1980, unhappiness was growing in the National Party about the leadership style of Robert Muldoon, who was seen as increasingly confrontational and dictatorial. This dissatisfaction culminated in the so-called "Colonels' Coup", an attempt by certain members of the party to depose Muldoon and install Talboys as leader instead. The dissidents were led by the three most prominent of Muldoon's younger ministers: Jim McLay, Jim Bolger, and Derek Quigley. A number of people were considered as possible replacements, including George Gair and the three "colonels" themselves, but it was eventually decided that Talboys was the only credible challenger, each of the others having been deemed unacceptable by at least one faction of the party. Talboys had been performing well as Acting Prime Minister during Muldoon's absence overseas, and was seen (unlike Muldoon) to be likable and diplomatic.

In 1977, Talboys was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal, and in 1990 he received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour after he stepped down as deputy prime minister in 1981, an Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia, for service to Australia/New Zealand relations, in the 1982 Australia Day Honours, and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, for public services, in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours.

When National won the 1975 election, Talboys became Deputy Prime Minister. He also became Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Overseas Trade and Minister of National Development.

In 1974, Talboys was elected deputy leader of the National Party following Robert Muldoon's challenge to Jack Marshall. Talboys replaced Muldoon who had been deputy leader. While National was in opposition he was also Shadow Minister of National Development.

In 1962, Talboys was elevated to Cabinet, becoming Minister of Agriculture following the death of Thomas Hayman. At the end of 1963, he gained the additional role of Minister of Science. In 1969, he dropped the agriculture portfolio, and became Minister of Education instead. For most of 1972, he was Minister of Industries and Commerce, and Minister of Overseas Trade. He was also briefly Minister of Trade and Industry (which replaced the Industries and Commerce portfolio) towards the end of 1972, but National's loss of the 1972 election ended all his ministerial roles and put him into Opposition.

At the formation of the Second National Government Talboys was appointed as an under-secretary to the Minister of Industries and Commerce. In 1961 he was one of ten National MPs to vote with the Opposition and remove capital punishment for murder from the Crimes Bill that the National government had introduced.

In the 1957 election, Talboys contested the Wallace electorate as the National Party candidate. He was successful, defeating a Labour Party challenger to succeed retiring National MP Tom Macdonald. He held the Wallace electorate for his entire parliamentary career, usually gaining an outright majority. Talboys made a good impression early on as an opposition MP with National's deputy leader Jack Marshall and Labour Prime Minister Walter Nash thinking of him as a future Prime Minister.

Sir Brian Edward Talboys CH KCB AC PC (7 June 1921 – 3 June 2012) was a New Zealand politician who served as the seventh deputy prime minister of New Zealand for the first two terms of Robert Muldoon's premiership. If the abortive "Colonels' Coup" against Muldoon had been successful, Talboys would have become Prime Minister himself.

Talboys was born in Wanganui on 7 June 1921. He attended primary school in Wanganui and Wanganui Collegiate School, but then travelled to Canada to study at the University of Manitoba. He later returned to New Zealand and studied at Victoria University of Wellington, gaining a BA. For the next few years, he worked for a stock and station agents' company, and then gained a position as assistant editor of a farming newspaper. In World War II, Talboys served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. After the war, Talboys settled in Southland as a farmer.