Richard Shaw: Coalition leadership is hard. Luxon’s ‘nuclear option’ of electoral reform is not the answer

Much to everyone’s surprise – including, it seems, his National Party colleagues – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has committed to offering voters the chance to revisit their electoral system. Again.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised – National has form when it comes to constitutional change.

Professor Richard Shaw: 40 years on from its 1984 victory, the Fourth Labour Government still defines NZ

A nation reinvented: 40 years on from its 1984 victory, the Fourth Labour Government still defines NZ

It’s easy to look back at the bad haircuts, beige clothes and brown Beehive carpets and chuckle. But whatever one’s views on its aesthetics, the Fourth Labour Government – elected 40 years ago on July 14 – was no laughing matter.

After nine years of economic nationalism and social conservatism under National prime minister Robert Muldoon, David Lange’s new broom left no corner unswept. In the space of a few short years, fuelled by a high-octane blend of neoliberal theory and neoclassical state minimalism, it reinvented the nation.

Geoff Parker: Crown – Maori Partnership?

Some in New Zealand’s society today believe there is a Crown / Maori Partnership.

Lets go back to the time Te Tiriti was signed by the chiefs and Governor Hobson who was acting for the Queen of England.

Point of Order: Jackson and the Treaty

It seems he has forgotten what Lange said about partnership and why Clark wouldn’t sign UN declaration

Let’s hear it for Labour’s Willie Jackson, a minister of this, that and the other in the Hipkins government and a fellow with a curious grasp of what happened in the days of David Lange and Helen Clark.

In Parliament yesterday, Jackson said ACT leader has a lot to answer for:

Chris Trotter: A Real Revolution?

Suppose they made a revolution, and nobody noticed. Suppose the “Cabinet Office” ordered the nation’s public servants to implement an unmandated revolutionary transformation of New Zealand, and they complied. Suppose one of the leading authorities on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Dame Claudia Orange, confirmed that this revolution was, in fact, a done deal.

This is what Dame Claudia told the NZ Herald’s Audrey Young:

Chris Trotter: The Facts Don’t Always Tell The Truth.

What would you think of a man who offered himself for high political office with the following credentials? He was raised in humble circumstances, fought his way out of poverty and, at 44, is a twice-decorated war hero. He does not eat meat or drink alcohol, loves animals and has an easy rapport with children.
Worth a go?

Not when you hear his name. Not when you discover that the man seeking your support is Adolf Hitler.

And yet, all the attributes listed above are completely factual. Adolf Hitler was all of those things. But, simply listing facts, especially when they are stripped of context, is not the same as telling the truth. To grasp the truth of Adolf Hitler’s contribution to world history requires more than mere facts, it requires understanding, interpretation and judgement.

Mike Hosking: The rise of the lazy politician is detestable

The great tragedy, or sadness, for me out of the Nanaia Mahuta revelation is that we are being let down so badly by hopeless people.

Forget politics and your personal view of the world, surely what you want in the leadership of your country is enquiring minds, experience, and institutional knowledge. You want people, who even though you may not agree with, at least you can see what they are trying to do and why.

One of the great privileges of this job has been to meet everyone who has run this place for the past 40 years, basically from David Lange on.

Maurice Newman: Land of the long white lie

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, was born in 1980 and claims because of the poverty around her, by the age of 17, she was drawn to the Labour party.

One wonders which Labour party that was? The only Labour government she would have known was the one led by David Lange which stood out as a beacon for free markets and smaller government the world over.

Perhaps she confused Sir Robert Muldoon’s National party for Labour? He was prime minister when Ms Ardern was born and was a big government demagogue. His ‘New Zealand – The Way You Want It’ hubris, along with his statist ‘Think Big’ heavy industry programmes and compulsory superannuation scheme, left the country crippled with debt, a balance of payments crisis, high interest rates and rampant inflation.

Muldoon’s passion for control no doubt appealed to the young Ms Ardern. But the Labour party of her youth was the antithesis of the government she leads today. Indeed, she has been described as ‘Rob Muldoon with slogans and kindness’.

The Labour party she says she was drawn to was about deregulation. Prime minister David Lange and his finance minister Roger Douglas, corporatised several government departments and sold privatised state assets. They used monetarist measures to control inflation, floated the dollar and allowed markets to set interest rates. They slashed subsidies and trade tariffs and turned a moribund economy into one that was internationally competitive. New Zealand shifted from being one of the world’s most regulated economies to one of the freest.

Did she once support that?

Graham Adams: Jacinda Ardern and the Ghost of David Lange

The Prime Minister is increasingly looking like a political hostage as Nanaia Mahuta presses on with the Three Waters reforms. Graham Adams sees history rhyming as her powerful Maori caucus flexes its muscles.

David Lange is one of the most tragic figures of our modern political history. Highly articulate and entertaining, he was ushered into power in a landslide in 1984 during an economic and financial crisis. Feted as the youngest Prime Minister of the 20th century, he dazzled the nation with his wit and intellect.

By the time he resigned in 1989, however, he was seen as a weak and malleable leader who had backed policies he would later regret supporting. Furthermore, the fact that his party did not advertise its radical economic agenda before the 1984 election has tainted the legacy of the Fourth Labour government ever since.

Karl du Fresne: The Lange legacy: a stream of borrowed one-liners, but not much else

Is it time for a reassessment of the David Lange legacy? I ask that question for a couple of reasons. The first was a speech that Sir Gerald Hensley gave late last year.

Hensley was head of the Prime Minister’s Department under Lange and thus uniquely positioned to observe him. The picture he painted of Lange’s behaviour during the showdown with the United States over nuclear warships was not flattering.