[1] He stepped down as ACT leader in April 2011 after a leadership challenge from Don Brash and retired from Parliament at the general election later that year.

In 1960, due to sickness, Philip Hide sold the small farm and moved to Rangiora, continuing to drive trucks until his retirement.

Rodney Hide attended Rangiora High School, before gaining a degree in zoology and botany from the University of Canterbury.

He completed his master's degree in economics from Montana State University with a thesis on New Zealand's transferable fishing quotas.

Later, Hide also met Roger Douglas, a former Minister of Finance whose radical economic reforms Rogernomics had made a considerable impression on him.

When Douglas established the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (which later formed the ACT party), Hide had close involvement as the organisation's first chairman and president.

He then went on to win the Epsom electorate from sitting National Party MP Richard Worth in 2005 with the campaign message "ACT is back".

[7] Hide still however claims to have developed a substantial reputation for finding and exposing "scandals", whether they relate to MPs' perks or to other governmental matters.

At a party conference, Douglas condemned MPs "who run any fickle line capable of grabbing short-term votes and attention", a comment allegedly directed at Hide or at his supporters.

Hide acknowledges the criticism, but defends himself on the grounds that a focus on pure economic theory will not attract interest: "the problem is that the so-called stunts are particularly well-reported and my work explaining free market ideas disappears without trace."

Prebble, however, appeared unenthusiastic about the prospect of Hide succeeding him, and in a speech praising each of the new leadership contenders, pointedly dwelled on the others.

[citation needed] Hide campaigned against Stephen Franks, Ken Shirley, and Muriel Newman for the ACT party parliamentary leadership.

His campaign against alleged abuse of schoolchildren by Labour Party minister David Benson-Pope, which was verified by the now grown children involved, continued to make headlines in late 2005.

[citation needed] In 2006, Hide appeared as a contestant in the celebrity-based Dancing with the Stars television series, in which he, paired with professional dancer Krystal Stuart, competing against other celebrities.

In November 2009, a special ACT-party caucus meeting was held to discuss the Hide's position as party leader, where he was chosen to be retained.

[25] As ACT leader, Hide criticised Labour's emissions trading scheme in September 2008. stating "the entire climate change – global warming hypothesis is a hoax... the data and the hypothesis do not hold together... Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue, and... the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and swindle".

He also accused the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research of being involved in a scandal with its temperature data and claimed that its scientific credibility was shredded.

[29] In 2012, Hide continued to write opinion articles in the press questioning climate science and emissions trading schemes.

In the National Business Review, Hide claimed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 was 'infamously wrong' and contained schoolboy errors and had been written by people who had to 'believe the human-induced global warming nonsense before they start'.

[31] In December 2011 Hide was granted the right to retain the title of The Honourable[32] in recognition of his term as a Member of the Executive Council of New Zealand.

Hide also criticised the ACT party's support for the Government's lockdown and vaccine mandates, citing his belief in "human freedoms.