Death of Norman Kirk

During his time as Prime Minister, Kirk kept up an intense schedule, refusing to reduce his workload by any significant degree and rarely taking time off (the Chatham Islands was his favourite retreat). Kirk ignored advice from several doctors and from Bob Tizard and Warren Freer to "take care of himself" and to reduce his heavy consumption of Coca-Cola and alcohol (beer, plus later whisky or gin), saying he would have a "short but happy life".[4][5] Though a non-smoker, he had dysentery and exhibited symptoms of undiagnosed diabetes.[6][4]

By 1974 he had difficulty in breathing, eating and sleeping. In April Kirk had an operation to remove varicose veins from both legs at once despite advice to have two operations. Doctors and colleagues were urging him to take time off; on 26 August Social Credit leader Bruce Beetham advised him to take a couple of months off to recover. His final public appearance was on 18 August to open St Peter's Catholic College in Palmerston North, when he stood in the rain for the whole ceremony, and he missed a proposed debate with Robert Muldoon before interviewer David Frost.[7]

On 15 August 1974 he decided to take two days off, and on 26 August he decided to have six weeks of complete rest. He had been checked over by many doctors, and an examination by Professor Tom O’Donnell on 27 August confirmed that he had an enlarged heart gravely weakened by embolisms, and which was not pumping regularly enough to get sufficient oxygen into his bloodstream; one lung was two-thirds incapacitated by the clot; and his stomach was very sore as his liver was swollen with retained fluid. He went into the Home of Compassion Hospital, Island Bay, Wellington on 28 August. He was photographed going in the boilerhouse door to avoid the media at the front. He rang and reminisced with close colleagues, and his bed was covered with official papers. On Saturday 31 August he told his wife Ruth, who had been told of his serious situation and came to Wellington, "I am dying .. please don't tell anyone". Soon after 9 pm, while watching a police drama on television (Softly, Softly: Taskforce with Stratford Johns on NZBC TV), he slowly slid from a sitting position. He died of a pulmonary embolism when a blood clot released from a vein into his heart cut off the blood flow and stopped the heart. O'Donnell signed his death certificate.[7]

Kirk's death shocked the nation. Biographer Michael Bassett states, "There followed an outpouring of grief paralleled only by that which had followed [Prime Minister] M. J. Savage's death in 1940".[6] Bill Rowling succeeded Kirk as Prime Minister.[8] His son, John Kirk, won the resulting Sydenham by-election in November 1974.[9]

While colleagues had been urging him to take some time off, none were aware of the seriousness of his last illness.[10] Bob Harvey, the Labour Party president, said that Kirk was "a robust man" with the "constitution of a horse". He proposed a Royal Commission to investigate rumours that he had been killed, perhaps with contact poison, by the CIA. This story returned during the 1999 visit of American President Bill Clinton to New Zealand.[11]

After a lying-in-state in Parliament House from 2 to 4 September, there was a large official funeral (or tangi[3]) in Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, on Wednesday 4 September attended by Prince Charles, Cook Islands Premier Albert Henry, and Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam; then on 5 September another service, also inter-denominational, in the Christchurch Town Hall followed by a simple burial service in his hometown Waimate. He was buried near his mother's grave; the burial service was delayed as the RNZAF Hercules could not land at Waimate and the procession hurried by road to meet the daylight requirement for burials. Memorial services were held around New Zealand, and on 26 September in Westminster Abbey, London.[12]

Many international politicians reacted to Kirk's death. Harold Wilson, Gough Whitlam, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger and Pierre Trudeau all paid tribute to the loss of Kirk. Queen Elizabeth II sent a letter of condolence to his widow.

Harold Wilson, a close friend of Kirk's in private life as well as diplomatically, was known to be deeply shocked and saddened by the death. He paid tribute to Kirk as a "friend and colleague". Ford referred to Kirk as an "eminent leader" who would be remembered for "his sense of justice, and zeal in the pursuit of peace."

Despite him and Kirk infamously disliking one another, Gough Whitlam said in a heartfelt address that Kirk's death was "a tragic loss for Australia, the Pacific and Southeast Asia" and that "the cause of democratic socialism throughout the world has lost a source of inspiration".[13]

Politician and historian Michael Bassett has described Kirk as 'Labour’s last passionate believer in big government, someone whose commanding presence and extravagant rhetoric introduced a new idealism to political debate in New Zealand'.[14]

• Freer, Warren (2004). A Lifetime in Politics: the memoirs of Warren Freer. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ISBN 0-86473-478-6.
• Grant, David (2014). The Mighty Totara: The life and times of Norman Kirk. Auckland: Random House. ISBN 9781775535799.
• Phillips, Hazel (2014). Wild Westie: the incredible life of Bob Harvey. Auckland: Penguin. ISBN 9781743486764.