David Lange

The Right Honourable David Russell Lange (pronounced Long-ee), CH, ONZ (4 August 1942 Thames, New Zealand – 13 August, 2005 Auckland, New Zealand), served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. He headed New Zealand's fourth Labour Government, one of the most reforming administrations in his country's history. He was renowned for a cutting wit and eloquence. His government implemented far-reaching free market reforms, some of which he later came to oppose and regret. Perhaps his most lasting legacy is New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation, which for many symbolised a pacifist identity for New Zealand.

Quote

In an interview with the NZ Herald published on 3 July 2004) David Lange was asked:

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NZ Herald - 3 July - 2004

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Do you think if the election of 1984 had not been a snap election, there would have been time for the opposing forces within the party to have successfully blocked the reforms or to have severely limited them?

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Lange replied:

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"You have to talk about why things happened the way they did. You can't actually explain my political life except by a series of situations rather than by some carefully constructed, rigidly progressed ascendancy. You could not imagine two more unlike rides to the top as I had and Helen Clark had: hers the principled, extremely hard-working, fearless really persistence in the face of all sorts of adversities and personal assaults. Whereas mine was some sort of divine roulette. Even entering into Parliament was not one of your created, structured planned-for episodes. I mean one minute I was a clapped-out two guinea legal-aid lawyer and the next minute I was in Parliament. The by-election of 77 saw to that ... I got there in terms of the Labour Party for all the wrong reasons, for all the reasons which weren't part of its tradition. I'd never been a tract writer; I'd never been a philosopher; I'd never taken part in extraordinary industrial dispute activism; I'd not been in any of that background but I was able to mix it in what had become, conceived to be, the new front line of politics - the ability on television to convey confidence and assurance without saying anything. And that is very important ... plunged into this extraordinary awareness of a crisis in foreign exchange and reserves and having to takes steps that were the absolute antithesis of anything that I would ever have expected the week before. If the people of New Zealand thought it was a bit odd, for me it was absolutely staggering ... I had thought of getting the agencies like the IMF, the World Bank to come in and do a de facto receivership. In fact I said so more or less publicly - let us get some external analysis of where we are rather than one which is tainted by my self-interest and by Muldoon's clear self-interest. But it was rendered unnecessary. He put on such a extraordinarily good performance of carrying on and saying I was introducing scorched earth policy. By the time Muldoon had finish a couple of television appearances, the general public was completely satisfied we were in a mess ..."

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