Our European Correspondent (see “ Reporter at Brentry & Brexit says Ted Heath was the Genuine Article”) touched upon a statesman he considered genuine. We asked him to look through the tunnel of time, and distance, and identify some authentic New Zealand counterparts.
John A Lee: The “A” was always obligatory. He was the last active living member of the original Labour Party to survive into recent times, and to still remain a force in them. He lost a forearm in the First World War and is widely credited with being the politician behind implementing State Houses. When I met him in the 1970s he was still running his Vista bookshop in Upper Symonds Street in Auckland. From time to time he would visit Wellington and he would proclaim each visit to the capital as definitely “my last”. The point everyone still misses about Lee was that when he resigned from Parliament on a matter of principal, he had no pensions to fall back on. He resigned because he believed he had to in spite of his being responsible for quite a large family. He now earned his living from his bookshop and from his writings which, in his early books especially, demonstrate a sparseness of style still to be emulated to this day.
Keith Holyoake: Leadership like charm remains impossible to define. Someone has it or they do not. Popular history has not been kind to Keith Holyoake tending to dismiss him as a relic of bygone times. Yet in my view he possessed that deft touch with people that adds up to leadership. Here is an example. He was due to deliver an address to the party faithful on his home turf in Dannevirke. There was a threat of disruption by a cadre known as the Progressive Youth Movement. I was assigned to cover it. He saw me loitering in the vestibule. “Hold this, will you?” He said thrusting a modernistic (for those days) slimline briefcase toward my chest. I held onto it while Holyoake rummaged inside for something. Anxious to fill the void I piped up that there was likely to be a big disturbance that night. Holyoake carried on rummaging and I thought my observation had gone unheard, or was unworthy of a response. Holyoake now found whatever it was that he was looking for, and across the briefcase now looked me straight in the eye. A prime ministerial eyebrow raised quizzically. “In Dannevirke?” he boomed.
Norman Kirk: Norman Kirk felt every New Zealanders’ pain. Even if they were not on his side. He was the last working class prime Minister. One of the reasons for his early death was his refusal to single himself out for the specialist treatment that was his due. He refused to pull rank and jump the medical queue. I bumped into him at the top of the elevator in the days when the only venue big enough for major international business gatherings in Wellington was the Overseas Terminal. The occasion was for the Pacific Basin Economic Council. “I’m surprised to see you here, Mr Kirk,” I ventured, looking out on the truly big-time collection of US, Australian and Japanese ironmasters. “I feel like a mouse at the cats’ dinner,” responded Kirk.
Mike Moore: His extraordinary ascent from boy labourer in Northland to become for one brief shining moment prime minister and then the head for rather longer of the World Trade Organisation is an achievement that still goes unrecognised. Especially in a nation in which seemingly mandated by law rations unqualified public recognition only to those deemed to possess rapidly acquired wealth, or to have demonstrated prowess in some sporting endeavour. How did Mike do it? To use a French saying, he always hid his Marshal’s baton under his private soldier’s tunic. He never let his ambition show. Or his ability to apply it. He doggedly kept his feet to the fire. The eternal underdog who always knew that he would be top dog. Another clue. He never made an unnecessary enemy, always managing to leave most of us smiling.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - Monday 29 August 2016