Bob Jones (New Zealand)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Robert 'Bob' Jones (born 1939) is a property tycoon, author and former politician in New Zealand. Growing up in working class Naenae, Wellington, he attended Victoria University of Wellington and contributed to a boxing column in the university's newspaper Salient (magazine).
Jones earned his wealth through investments in commercial property via his company Robt. Jones Holdings Ltd, and is currently worth $200 million according to the 2007 NBR rich list.
He formed the short-lived neo-liberal New Zealand Party in 1983, just before Robert Muldoon's snap 1984 election. When the election was over, Jones disbanded the party. In 1985, Jones was reached while out fishing in a remote valley in Taupo by reporters in a helicopter, which included TVNZ journalist, Rod Vaughan. Upon seeing them, he infamously punched Vaughan in the nose.
He attempted to remove the Fijian Embassy from one of his properties during the time of the 1987 Fijian coup.
Jones is alleged to shun recent technology; he reportedly hand-writes all of his books by choice, and has been cited in the Sunday Star-Times as refusing to own a mobile phone. The Sunday Star-Times published a subsequent report on 22 October 2006, however, in which he denied elements of the previous week's report and said that he had no aversion to modern technology.
He is the older brother of prizewinning author Lloyd Jones.
