Garrick Tremain: By Way of Explanation

A recent column published here brought much positive comment. Some readers approached me for clarification of my reasons for assessing the merits of the eleven Prime Ministers I served under in 35 years of daily cartooning. I had stated that in my opinion Muldoon, Key and Ardern left the most damage in their wake. I am happy to add my reasons.

Possibly Muldoon’s worst mistake was scrapping Douglas’s Superannuation scheme, a faux pas for which we will forever pay dearly. He also played the sad spectacle that was the 1981 Springbok Tour for own his political advantage, some of the wounds of which will take another generation or so to heal. And he did the country no favours when stripping his caucus of the bright independent thinkers (Waring, Quigley, Minogue etc ) preferring to replace them with a strongly religious line-up, raised to pay blind loyalty to dubious ideas, without engaging reason.

John Key’s time in office saw all economic and social indicators decline. His most disastrous folly was slipping Sharples away to the UN to sign us up to the UN Charter on Indigenous Rights. This proved an invaluable aid to Ardern in implementing her Marxist and racist agendas. As I said earlier, in trying to determine the worst of the three we can only note that neither Muldoon nor Key became so detested by New Zealanders that they no longer felt safe dwelling within our borders.

I also nominated Kirk as possibly the best, but I felt he could not be judged by such a short tenure. For that reason, Luxon still has another year of inactivity before being included with the first three.

Garrick Tremain is one of New Zealand's best known artists and political cartoonists. With a background in farming and advertising, he has a wonderful ability to capture in images exactly what people are thinking in a way that makes us laugh. You can see his more of his work on his website HERE.