He was first elected to Parliament in the Pahiatua by-election of 1977, and retained his seat until he retired at the 1996 elections.
He held a number of ministerial posts, first in the government of Robert Muldoon and then in the government of Jim Bolger.
He had been ill for several weeks after undergoing surgery in Wellington Hospital for a brain tumour and died at his home in Bideford, near Masterton, New Zealand.