Former National cabinet minister Philip Burdon has been kept busy campaigning for the restoration of Christchurch Cathedral, which was all but destroyed in the 2011 earthquake.
Burdon is co-chairman of the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust, a community initiative founded to push for the cathedral’s repair. The trust was ultimately successful in September 2017 when the Anglican church agreed to restore the cathedral as part of a $104 million package.
Mr Burdon said there have been “appalling delays” on getting the work started, though in late June the government said it had reached agreement in principle terms for the joint-venture company, Christchurch Cathedral Reinstatement Ltd and appointed Justin Murray as an independent chairman. Site clearance and decontamination work was getting under way, with final design and budget due to be completed within six months.
The Burdon family owns Meadow Mushrooms, which the 79-year-old says “has a dominant role in the horticultural sector.” It is undergoing a $50 million expansion to add more capacity, which should be completed at the end of next year, and employs 550 people. Turnover for the private company is not disclosed.
Mr Burdon and friend Roger Giles started mushroom farming in the late 1960s in caves on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. That business lasted until the 1974 Turk occupation of the northern third of the island and the pair then focused on their Kiwi business set up in 1970 in Prebbleton, Christchurch.
Mr Burdon’s daughter, Miranda Burdon, chief executive of Global Women, is chairman of Meadow Mushrooms while Philip remains a director.
The family also owns a $2 million farm in south Canterbury, which is being converted to dairy, and other property interests include a $1.1 million flat in Auckland’s exclusive suburb of Herne Bay and one in the exclusive Christchurch suburb of Merivale.
Inducted into the Business Hall of Fame in 2016 for service to food production, business, leadership and public policy, Burdon resigned last year as honorary adviser to the Asia New Zealand Foundation, which he founded with Sir Don McKinnon in 1994. He’s also planning to retire later this year from the Brierley Holdings board, one of the last remnants of the Sir Ron Brierley-founded empire.
Along with collecting rare and first edition books, Burdon is keen on a round or two of golf but said, tongue in cheek, he spends most of his time “helping Ros around the house.”
He is married to Ros Burdon, the daughter of the late Sir Bernard Waley-Cohen, former lord mayor of London.
The former lawyer was first elected to Parliament in 1981 as the MP for Fendalton and was minister of state-owned enterprises before retiring from politics in 1996.
Photo: Louis Terise/New Zealand Listener