David Lange

Lange in 1980

Lange succeeded Rowling as parliamentary leader of the Labour Party and as Leader of the Opposition on 3 February 1983. Significant debate emerged within the Labour Party on the party's economic direction, following a paper by Roger Douglas to the party's policy council. Eventually a compromise was drafted by Geoffrey Palmer, which Lange described as "A manifesto which appealed to the right, the left, the centre and the totally bewildered. It was, in fact, anodyne."[30]

Muldoon unexpectedly called a snap election in 1984, as a result of Marilyn Waring voting for a member's bill introduced by Richard Prebble to introduce a nuclear-free zone.[31] The timing of the election prevented Labour from creating a proper election platform, instead using the Palmer draft. Lange commented that the party went into the election with an unfinished argument for an economic policy.[32]

Lange led Labour to a landslide victory, helped by vote splitting between the National Party and the New Zealand Party.[33] However, before Lange was sworn in as Prime Minister a foreign exchange crisis arose, which led to a constitutional crisis. The New Zealand dollar was overvalued and following the announcement of the snap election in June, traders started selling off the New Zealand dollar on the assumption that Labour would win the election and devalue the currency.[34]

Muldoon refused to follow Lange's instruction to devalue the currency, making the dollar's situation more untenable. Eventually on 19 July Muldoon relented, after his position as leader of the National party was threatened by members of his caucus.[34]

During his first term of office as Prime Minister, Lange also held the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs.[35]

The currency crisis and devaluation of the New Zealand dollar spurred on the reform drive of Roger Douglas, who Lange made Minister of Finance in the new government.[36] These reforms were soon dubbed 'Rogernomics', in a similar vein to Reaganomics.[37]

Upon coming to office, Lange's government was confronted by a severe balance of payments crisis, as a result of the deficits fueled by Muldoon's imposition of a two-year freeze on wages and prices, and stubborn maintenance of an unsustainable exchange rate.[38] Such economic conditions prompted Lange to remark: "We ended up being run very similarly to a Polish shipyard".[39][40] Their first move was to hold an Economic Summit on 14 September 1984, similar to the one held in Australia by Bob Hawke the previous year, to create a feeling of consensus and to lay out the underlying problems in New Zealand's economy.[41] The summit however was dominated by advocacy of radical economic reforms similar to what had been proposed by the Treasury Department,[42] foreshadowing the Lange government's propensity to approach issues from a fundamentally economic standpoint.[43] Margaret Wilson, the Labour Party's president, was deliberately not invited to the summit,[44] a sign of the speed and intolerant approach to opposition that would characterise Rogernomics. Douglas himself saw the summit as a theatrical preparation for his first budget.[42]

Lange and Douglas engaged in a rapid program of deregulation and the removal of tariffs and subsidies. The first sector affected was New Zealand's agricultural community, a traditionally National-supporting community. The loss of subsidies hit some farmers hard.[45] Other changes brought criticism from many people in Labour's traditional supporter base. The Labour Party also lost support from many elderly people by introducing a superannuation surcharge after having promised not to reduce superannuation.

Douglas also deregulated the finance markets, removing restrictions on interest rates, lending and foreign exchange. In March 1985, with Lange's blessing, the New Zealand dollar was floated.[46] From 1 April 1987, several government departments were corporatised into state-owned enterprises, with massive loss of jobs.[47]

On the role of Government Lange said "It is there to be the securer of its citizens' welfare. Where the market works well, it should be given its head. Where the market results in manifest inequity, or poor economic performance, the Government must get involved."[48]

Lange addresses the Foreign Policy Association in New York City, 1984. His stand against nuclear weapons attracted international attention.

Lange made his name on the international stage with his steadfast leadership in the anti-nuclear weapons movement.[49] His government refused to allow nuclear-capable ships into New Zealand's territorial waters, a policy the country continues to this day. In February 1985, Lange famously rejected the arrival of the USS Buchanan, supported by a recommendation from the acting prime minister Geoffrey Palmer.[50][51] The ship was not armed with nuclear weapons but was capable of carrying them. This displeased the United States; in response, all intelligence flow to New Zealand was stopped and joint military exercises were cancelled. In 1985, there were 22 programmed exercises canceled or restructured, resulting in approximately 6,000 man-days of training being taken away.[52]

External audio
Oxford Union debate on nuclear weapons (David Lange at the Oxford Union debate, 1 March 1985), from NZHistory[53]

During a televised Oxford Union debate in March 1985, Lange gained an extraordinary international reputation. Lange argued for the proposition that "Nuclear weapons are morally indefensible",[54] in opposition to the American televangelist Jerry Falwell.[54] Lange regarded his appearance at the Oxford Union as the high point of his career in politics.[55] His speech included the memorable statement:

"There is no humanity in the logic which holds that my country must be obliged to play host to nuclear weapons because others in the West are playing host to nuclear weapons. That is the logic which refuses to admit that there is any alternative to nuclear weapons, when plainly there is. It is self defeating logic, just as the weapons themselves are self defeating, to compel an ally to accept nuclear weapons against the wishes of that ally is to take the moral position of totalitarianism which allows for no self determination."[52]

His speech also included an often-quoted statement made in response to a question posed by another debater:[53]

"...I'm going to give it to you if you hold your breath just for a moment ... I can smell the uranium on it as you lean towards me!"

In 1987, Lange's government passed the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.[56] This Act effectively declared New Zealand a nuclear-free zone and banned all nuclear-capable ships from entering New Zealand waters. The United States regarded this legislation as a breach of treaty obligations under ANZUS and announced that it would suspend its treaty obligations to New Zealand until the re-admission of U.S. Navy ships to New Zealand ports, characterising New Zealand as "a friend, but not an ally".[57]

Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, 1985

Relations with France became strained when French agents of the DGSE bombed and sank the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985 while it lay moored in Auckland Harbour, killing photographer Fernando Pereira. In June 1986 Lange obtained a political deal with France over the Rainbow Warrior affair, presided over by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. France agreed to pay compensation of NZ$13 million (US$6.5 million) to New Zealand and also to apologise. In return, Lange agreed that French authorities could detain the convicted French agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur at the French military base on Hao Atoll for three years. However, both spies were freed by May 1988, less than two years later, in violation of the agreement.[58]

During Lange's first term in office, the Lange government implemented many social reforms. On 8 August 1986, the Lange government enacted the Homosexual Law Reform Act which legalised consensual sex of males 16 years and older and allowed them to enter into sexual relationships with one another without the fear of being prosecuted.[59] On 1 August 1987, the Māori Language Act 1987 was enacted making te reo Māori an official language of New Zealand.[60]

Lange's government was re-elected at the August 1987 general election, the first time a Labour government had won a second term since 1938. The government increased its share of the popular vote, although this may have been due to less vote splitting. Lange toured the country throughout the campaign and faced, for the first time, protests against his government, especially in provincial areas.[61] Unusually, Labour did not produce a manifesto for the election, primarily due to disagreement between Douglas and Lange over the direction the government would take if re-elected. Lange sought to focus on social services in the second term,[62] and declared in his victory speech, "I'm proud that we are now, in the next three years, going to seal those [economic] gains, in health and education and social welfare progress."[63]

On the night, Labour's candidate Judith Tizard came within 406 votes of winning the traditionally National-held seat of Remuera; she had been forecast as the winner by initial vote counting.[64] Tizard's near-win fueled Lange's misgivings about the direction his government was taking. He commented, "That election night was a great revelation for me. That was an apprehension on my part that we had actually abandoned our constituency. And it set me to think what on earth have we done that we come within 400 votes of winning the true-blue [National] seat of Remuera. And that struck me as being a dangerous flirtation, and an act of treachery to the people we were born to represent."[65][66]

Following the 1987 election, Lange made himself Minister of Education. He stated that he gave himself the portfolio to "draw a line in the sand" against the influence of the "Treasury troika"[67] (Douglas, Prebble and David Caygill), and in accordance with his wishes to emphasise social policy in his second term.[68]

Lange was criticised for his reaction to the coups d'état in Fiji in May and September 1987.[69] Later, in his autobiography, Lange stated:

There was never any question that New Zealand might use force to restore the democratically elected government, since we were not asked to intervene by its representatives and had we been, we did not have the military resources. I did however ask our military leaders to ready themselves to come to the assistance of any New Zealand citizens who might be endangered, and I met with considerable obstruction.[70]

The stock market crash of 19/20 October 1987 damaged confidence in the New Zealand economy, which went into a prolonged recession from December of that year, and remained so until June 1991.[71] During that time unemployment skyrocketed 170%, the unemployment rate rose from 4.2% in the September 1987 quarter to 7.5% in the June 1989 quarter.[71] Lange noted with bitterness that Douglas took advantage of the crash to "rubbish" his stated ambitions to have the government focus on social policy, and push for more economic reforms.[72]

As Minister of Education, Lange pushed the introduction of Tomorrow's Schools, a radical restructure of New Zealand's primary and secondary school education system.[73] The Department of Education was downsized to become the Ministry of Education and have a supervisory role, education boards were abolished and parents at each school elected their own boards of trustees.[74]

The reforms were criticised for the influence of New Right ideas and their effect of introducing market mechanisms and notions of competition in the education system.[62] Lange's appointment of businessman Brian Picot to head a task force into educational reform was taken as a sign of the government giving too much priority to economic and competitive concerns over the social aspect of education.[75]

The Governor-General's letter accepting Lange's resignation

In 1988 consensus on economic policy amongst the Labour leadership finally broke down, with Douglas resigning after Lange overruled his radical flat income-tax and universal basic income proposal. Douglas continued his campaign against Lange through public statements, the unauthorised release of cabinet papers and on 21 December 1988 an unsuccessful challenge against Lange's leadership in the Labour caucus. To date it is the only instance when a sitting Prime Minister has been challenged for leadership.[76]

The radical economic reforms had alienated much of the Labour Party, and it fractured; in April 1989 Jim Anderton, a backbench MP, formed a breakaway NewLabour Party, taking approximately one third of Labour's membership.[77]

However, the caucus re-elected Douglas to the Cabinet on 3 August 1989, and Lange interpreted this as a vote of no-confidence in his leadership. He tendered his resignation five days later on 8 August 1989.[78] Lange became the first elected Labour Prime Minister who neither died in office nor was voted out in an election.

Lange's leadership abilities were mixed and at times contradictory.[79] As one of the most media-capable New Zealand prime ministers, he was a quick-witted orator and able to speak inspirationally to topics, yet was sensitive to criticism and averse to conflict.[79][80] He often became caught up in how he was seen to perform and would often avoid confronting angry ministers by using a rear entrance.[79][81] Despite being media-savvy, Lange's political skills were judged to be poor by political scientist Stephen Levine.[82]

Geoffrey Palmer succeeded Lange as Labour party leader and Prime Minister in 1989, Lange became Attorney-General, Minister in Charge of the Serious Fraud Office and a Minister of State. Palmer was then replaced by Mike Moore as Prime Minister shortly before the 1990 general election in November, which Labour lost by a landslide. Lange was re-elected at this election (and again in 1993) as the member for Mangere.

Lange with Jim Bolger, Sir Robert Muldoon and Mike Moore, at the 1992 valedictory dinner, Wellington Club

After the government was defeated in 1990, he was appointed Shadow Attorney-General by Moore.[85] After Moore led Labour to narrow loss in the 1993 general election, Lange backed deputy leader Helen Clark for the leadership against Moore. Clark replaced Moore as Labour leader and made Lange Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs and Shadow Minister of Racing.[86] In 1991 and 1992 he wrote a Monday column in The Dominion, published alternately with Simon Upton who, Lange commented, "writes erudite obfuscation tempered by occasional attempts to explain the arcana of the health reforms."[87]

Lange was a supporter of changing New Zealand's flag, and wrote in 1994: "[a] stranger who saw the Australian flag and the New Zealand flag outside adjacent buildings would assume that some British hotel chain was advertising deluxe and standard rooms".[88] Lange also expressed support for a New Zealand republic, stating: "Do such things matter? They certainly do. We suffer in this country from a lack of emotional focus... New Zealand will become a republic just as Britain will be blurred into Europe".[88]

In failing health, Lange retired from Parliament before the 1996 general election. In his valedictory speech, he reflected on the pain caused by his government's economic reforms: "I want to thank those people whose lives were wrecked by us. They had been taught for years they had the right to an endless treadmill of prosperity and assurance, and we did them. People over 60 hate me. They hate me because I was the symbol of what caused that assurance of support and security to be shattered. That is something that has always been part of my burden."[89] His Labour Party colleague Taito Phillip Field succeeded him as the member for the Mangere electorate.

Lange was a New Zealand Rugby League board member and served as the organisation's Vice-President.[90]

In an interview[91] with The New Zealand Herald (published on 3 July 2004) the reporter asked Lange:

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?

Lange replied:

"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...."

"[I was] plunged into this extraordinary awareness of a crisis in foreign exchange and reserves and having to take 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 an extraordinarily good performance of carrying on and saying I was introducing scorched earth policy. By the time Muldoon had finish[ed] a couple of television appearances, the general public was completely satisfied we were in a mess...."

In 1996 Lange sued the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over an alleged defamation that it broadcast about him. The ABC used the defence that there exists in the Australian Constitution an implied right to freedom of speech on political matters, but the High Court of Australia found against them, reversing the then existing law (see Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation). The case was later settled on terms favourable to Lange.[92]

In a key New Zealand defamation case (Lange v Atkinson [2000] 3 NZLR 385), Lange sued political scientist Joe Atkinson for representing him in the magazine North & South as a lazy prime minister. In a 1998 judgment, and on appeal in 2000, the courts affirmed a new qualified privilege for the media to discuss politicians when expressing the criticisms as the "honest belief" of the author.[93]

In January 2006, Archives New Zealand released to the Sunday Star-Times newspaper a box of David Lange's previously classified documents. They revealed New Zealand's ongoing involvement in Western alliance espionage, and a threat by the United States to spy on New Zealand if it did not back down from its ban on nuclear ships.[94] Archives New Zealand chief executive Dianne Macaskill said the paper did not have the authority to access or print the report, and wrote to the paper revoking permission to publish it. In response, the Sunday Star Times said the information had already been released into the public arena and hence could not be retracted.[95] The release of the document prompted a high-level inquiry to investigate how the top-secret report ended up in Lange's personal papers, in breach of security protocol.[96] A secret diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks in 2010 covers the accidental release of the document.[97]

A caricature sculpture of Lange highlighting his weight

Lange suffered all his life from obesity and the health problems it caused. By 1982 he weighed about 175 kilograms (27.6 st; 386 lb), and had surgery to staple his stomach in order to lose weight.[104][105]

In the 1990s Lange's health declined, with diabetes and kidney disorders. In 2002, doctors diagnosed Lange as having amyloidosis, a rare and incurable blood plasma disorder. He underwent extensive medical treatment for this condition. Although initially told he had only four months to live, Lange defied his doctors' expectations, and remained "optimistic" about his health. He entered hospital in Auckland in mid-July 2005 to undergo nightly peritoneal dialysis in his battle with end-stage kidney failure. On 2 August, he had his lower right leg amputated without a general anaesthetic, as a result of diabetes complications.[106]

Lange's declining health resulted in the bringing-forward of the publication of his memoir My Life to 8 August 2005. TV3 broadcast on Campbell Live on the same day an interview;[107] John Campbell had interviewed him just before he went into hospital. In his last interview, given to the Herald on Sunday from his hospital bed, he made a potent intervention in New Zealand's 2005 election campaign by saying he "wanted to get out of bed and get a wheel-chair to Wellington" to stop any relaxation of his ban on nuclear ships.[108]

Lange died of complications associated with his renal failure and blood disease in Middlemore Hospital in Auckland on 13 August 2005, just five days after the publication and interview, and nine days after his 63rd birthday.[109] He is buried at Waikaraka Cemetery and the headstone has the simple inscription "David Lange 1942 ~ 2005".[110] The David Lange Memorial Trust erected a memorial sculpture by Virginia King in Ōtāhuhu, which was unveiled by the governor general Sir Anand Satyanand in 2008.[109][111]