Legend of the Day

Sir Bob Jones, one of New Zealand’s most colourful and successful business figures, has died at his home in Wellington. He was aged 85.

Since forming a property company 64 years ago, Robert Edward Jones amassed a $2 billion portfolio of commercial buildings in Auckland, Wellington, and Glasgow, Scotland.

Jones was born and raised in a state house in the Hutt Valley suburb of Naenae, and died in a grand home in 20ha grounds overlooking Wellington Harbour and Lower Hutt, with a glorious garden tended by full-time gardeners.

In 1983, he formed the New Zealand Party before Robert Muldoon’s snap election, splitting the National vote and helping the David Lange-led Labour Party to win the 1984 election.

He was a lifelong boxing fan and something of an expert, commentating and writing columns on the sport, and earning a university blue in boxing at Victoria University.

One of Jones’ most famous incidents involved footage showing blood pouring down reporter Rod Vaughan’s face after an enraged Jones collected him with a left hook in Tūrangi in 1985.

Vaughan and cameraman Peter Mayo had choppered into a tranquil spot where Jones was fly fishing in the Tongariro River near his holiday home.

NZ Herald