Our Dave

19th August 2005

.................................THE BIG MAN

I spent most of this week wallowing in the memory of David Lange. Given the level of some of the coverage, both in volume and quality, many of you are probably over it. But I feel I have to talk about it even if it is just to offer overseas readers some of the best bits from the stuff I have read/heard/seen from all sorts of media. Besides, I just really want to. I really loved that big guy, I hadn’t realised how much until it became clear he was on his way out. So forgive me if this post is not as funny as it sometimes is but my sense of humour is at half-mast, out of respect don’t-ya-know.
Mr Lange, as he did in life, can provide some humour of his own:
Best offhand one liner (one worder actually)-
Journalist to Lange in fast moving ministerial scrum
“Prime Minister can we have a brief word?”
“Wombat”
The value to him, of the humour and the joy of defeating an opponent with his frightening brain cannot be underestimated. A witty interjection at a raucous union meeting provided the moment he decided to enter politics. Similarly his first nomination to the Mangere seat was assisted by a joke. Lange was the last of 16 nominees to speak. Unless they were all amazing speakers it would have been an ordeal for the crowd, so, by the time he reached the stage the audience were bored. Lange was a huge man at this time. Richard Prebble has said in the past week that he was the biggest man he (or most people) had ever seen. 28 stones of socially compassionate Methodist lawyer, or this many sacks of spuds. .....

Anyway, when he got up to speak he was introduced as “ the person who has had the longest wait of the evening”
Lange replied “With respect Sir. I think the greatest weight too”.
Lange was nominated and the rest, as they say, is history.

I question the quality of some of the press coverage this week because while it has been largely affectionate and while it would be unfair to say they have resorted too easily to ‘glib platitudes’ (see what I have done there? Slagged them and defended them at the same time) there have been certain clichés that I find hard to accept. It's like people hear these things so many times they become fact. Or that journalists resort to them because they haven’t got any ideas of their own. David Lange the “loner”, for instance. If he was such a loner how come he seems to have so many friggin friends? And I simply don’t buy this attempt to portray Lange as a sort tragic King Lear figure, shuffling lonely and misunderstood through the corridors of power, still basically the fat boy who using humour to survive. I’ve read the book and I think he’s more fun than that. As far as Shakespeare characters go I would think of him more as Falstaff than Lear. He liked having fun. He enjoyed the debates, the stouches and delighted in the line well delivered. You can see on the footage of the Oxford debate when he delivers the famous “uranium” line that he knows it's a good one and is relishing the moment.
There was something of the boy in him too. He loved the opportunity to do some motor-racing and when he was asked what he would miss about being Prime Minister he said “The helicopter rides”.
I don’t think he was joking.
The most oft repeated cliché though is that he was “Flawed”.
Who isn’t? Look at his contemporaries –Thatcher, Bob Hawke… hello. He’s the most normal person among them. If you want to find a truly "flawed" character look no further than Lange's predecessor, Sir Robert Muldoon.

David Lange wouldn’t have existed in the way he did without Muldoon. He was a gift to Lange. And there is a sense of karma and irony in the fact that Muldoon's extremely nasty attack on the previous member for Mangere, Colin Moyle led to Lange coming into Parliament. The whole period leading to the election of the fourth Labour government is one of high drama and it’s worth going through it because it leads to handing Rodger Douglas so much leeway and to our hero’s eventual demise in 1989.

It unfolded as follows:
Marilyn Waring crosses the house to vote against the government on the Nuclear Free Bill. Later on, Muldoon retires to his room for, oh I don’t know, maybe 40 whiskies to emerge florid faced, wild eyed, mono-dimpled and unsteady on his feet to make the famous announcement that he cannot govern and will dissolve the government.......probably with his own breath.
In an act which can be described as a massive, ego driven tantrum he has literally “thrown his dummy out of the cot” big time.
In his book Lange describes it “There was never a night like it in all the time I was in politics. The air was electric. I could hardly believe it. Muldoon had thrown away his government”.
More drama was to follow. On the Sunday six days before the election Lange and Muldoon appeared on television in a head-to-head debate. Muldoon had for years dominated and bullied both opponents and journalists but now he had met his match. The debate did not go that well for Muldoon and near the end of the debate Lange cheekily told him “don’t worry we’ll find something for you to do after the election”. Muldoon's bizarre, slowly drawled reply “I love you Mr Lange”.
Fantastic! Can you imagine anything like that happening now? I – don’t – think – so. The most dynamic character in current debate is the worm.
If Muldoon and National had any chance it was gone with that performance. Legend has it Muldoon went back to Vogel House after the debate and ripped out his favourite lillies because he knew he was done.
Labour won the election but Muldoon’s childish behaviour had not finished. His next trick was to refuse to hand over financial power in a move resembling that old standby for the petulant 10 year old – “If I can’t be captain you can't use my ball”.
On the night of the election win Muldoon rang Lange and said “Congratulations Mr Lange...(followed by) ...I’ve got some bad news in the morning”. Click.
The economy was on the brink of ruin. We were about to become a third world economy, like Albania but with less albinos. They even rang diplomats in foreign embassies to ask how much money they could book up on their credit cards to keep them going. But instead of helping the new govenment Muldoon stalled in handing over the reigns.
When he did, what Langes government received from Muldoon was a something of a hospital pass. This meant that radical measures were called for just to survive. Step forward Sir Roger Douglas. If the country had not been in such poor shape, I don’t believe Douglas would have been allowed to go so far, which of course led ultimately to Lange’s political downfall and resignation.
The following from his valedictory speech:
"Winston Peters can't be with us today. He was unavoidably detained by a full length mirror"

Lange says in his book the highlight of his political career was the Oxford debate and that will of course provide his most lasting legacy.
I read it online and a more compelling and well argued stand advocating an end to the Nuclear Madness I would like to see. (It can now be heard here thanks to Hard News) But the stuff in the book I most liked were the things in between the major incidents that fill in the gaps to show the person he really was. His love of India. His “what a wonderful world” epiphany floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The stuff about growing up in Otahuhu and South Auckland. He was so grounded in the place, born there, raised there, he retired to Mangere Bridge and died in Middlemore Hospital less than a Kilometre from the family home where he grew up.

Finally, getting back to the journalists' coverage, that I would never call shallow and lazy. The most troubling line written about David Lange this week comes from John Armstrong in The New Zealand Herald who said
“He was variously admired and detested. He was never really loved“.
Oh really John, that would be why so many tears have been shed this week by so many New Zealanders.
And while much has been made this week of his mistakes, the debate, his wit and his weight. I think outweighing all those things and overshadowing his gargantuan intellect was the massive size of the guy's heart.

Goodbye good boy.

PS - The saddest thing about David Lange is how he was wasted in public life in his later years and the idea he struggled to make a living. It’s crazy. So go out and buy the bloody book. It’s a great read and presumably the money will go to bring up his little girl Edith who is only 9.
(No, you can't borrow my copy)