David Lange
David Lange
David Russell Lange ONZ CHserved as the 32nd 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, but one which did not always conform to traditional expectations of a social-democrat party. He had a reputation for cutting witand eloquence. His government implemented far-reaching free-market reforms. Helen Clark described New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation as his legacy...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth4 August 1942
New Zealand's nuclear free movement is a broad-based and popular movement. Our nuclear free status is a challenge to much that is accepted as orthodox in international relations. It was formally adopted in the cold war era as a form of resistance to the dismal doctrines of nuclear deterrence. It is still a rebuke to the unprincipled exercise of economic power and military might.
We cannot by ourselves reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, but we are doing what has to be done all over the world if those weapons are one day to be eliminated. We will not contemplate any circumstance in which their possession or threatened use is justified. We reject the secrecy and hypocrisy which surrounds the continuing refinement of the technology.
I think more than anything, that's when I decided politics was on.
Death is very, very terminal.
They couldn't, in the National Party, run a bath and if either the deputy leader or the leader tried to, Sir Robert would run away with the plug.
An itinerant masseur, massaging the politically erogenous zones.
After that, whenever I drove past Mangakahia, I would empty my ashtray - and I was a heavy smoker in those days - on the road outside the hall.
Lange was hosting a reception at Vogel House for the Chinese politician Hu Yao Bang when the lights went out. Lange immediately asked all the guests to raise their hands because "many hands make light work." The audience complied, and to their amazement the lights immediately came back on. Lange was invited to visit China.
On a trip to Germany, Lange and his entourage were climbing the tower of an ancient castle when they stopped to catch their breath. "How old is this ruin?" someone asked a guide. "Forty-two years," said Lange.
Will the United States pull the rug on New Zealand? The answer is no. They might polish the lino a bit harder and hope that I execute a rather unseemly glide across it.
I've got two shirts still missing from the Bahamas. I'm sure they are part of a youth camping programme somewhere in Tanzania by now.
Our nuclear free status is a statement of our belief that we and our fellow human beings can build the institutions which will one day allow us all to renounce the weapons of mass destruction. We are a small country and what we can do is limited. But in this as in every other great issue, we have to start somewhere.
They can fish for catfish for all I care, as long as they fill up our hotels.
Today's Schools are not Tomorrows Schools. That's a fundamental misconception.