Latest / The SME Stream / Bruce Cotterill Leaders Getting Coffee - Episode 23 - Dr Michael Bassett

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Bruce Cotterill Leaders Getting Coffee - Episode 23 - Dr Michael Bassett · The SME Stream

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Bruce Cottrell here and it's great to
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: welcome you back to Leaders Getting Coffee.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: As you might know, we've had.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: A break for a couple of weeks, but it's good
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to be back in New Zealand and back with episode
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: twenty three of the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast. I've just
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: spent a couple of weeks in the US, primarily in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the Southern States Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana. I was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: there during the presidential debate and much of the fallout
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that followed that, and it's fascinating talking to Americans about
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: their politics, especially in that part of the country. They're animated, opinionated,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and largely unhappy with the current Democratic led government. So
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: if you go there, especially in the next few months,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you'll probably get a pretty clear view that Trump will
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: be the next president, which is kind of interesting in itself,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and after seeing that all play out in person, the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: aftermath of the Trump shooting has been most interesting. One
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of the things that President Biden got right in the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: aftermath of that incident was when he spoke about the
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: need for Americans to lower the temperature in their politics.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: He went on to say that we may disagree, but
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: we're not enemies. And that message rang a bell for me,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: not just because of what I saw and heard in
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the US, but also because I believe that we could
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: do with hearing that message here in New Zealand too.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: In my most recent New Zealand Herald column, I suggested
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that the weaponization of language that has been a feature
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in the behavior of both our Green Party anti party
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Mary could be rained in a bit because if we don't,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure where that stops, and we're sure as
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: heck don't want to end up in the state that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the US is in. I'm not going to dwell on
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that any further here. You can read more in my
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: column in the New Zealand Herald Online. The headline reads
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump assassination attempt and the rising temperature in our politics.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Go to NZ Herald dot co dot nz, or you
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: can check check it out under published articles on my
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: website dubdubdub dot Bruce Catturle dot com. Those of us
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: old enough to remember, we'll know that it's forty years
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: forty years four zero, that is, folks, since the arrival
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of the very transformative Fourth Labor Government under the leadership
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of that wonderful orator David Longi today's guest on leaders
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Getting Coffee served in the inner circle of that government,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and we'll be back in a moment with that person.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Leaders getting Coffee.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: This week's guest reached.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Out to me after an article I wrote a year
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: or so ago. I'd never met him, although I definitely
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: knew who he was.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But we met over.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Lunch and I found his knowledge of our political history
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and his views on the present absolutely fascinating. And every
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: time I start thinking that I've had a busy life,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: someone like doctor Michael Bassett turns up and puts us
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: all to shame.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: He was born in Auckland.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: There as an Aucklander through and through, and like many
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of our guests, his career takes some time to work through.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: He has bachelor's and master's degrees from Auckland University.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: He won the James B.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Duke Fellowship to attend Duke University in the United States
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, where he completed a PhD in
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: American history. He returned as a lecturer at the University
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of Auckland and was elected to the Auckland City Council
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: on nineteen seventy one and to New Zealand's Parliament a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: year later in nineteen seventy two. He was a backbeach
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: MP in the Labour governments of Prime Ministers Norman Kirk
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and Bill Rowling, and then he sat in opposition for
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: nine years and watched the Rob Muldoon government in action.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: But it was as a key member of David Longy's team,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the so called Kitchen Cabinet, alongside Longey, Douglas and Mike Moore, that.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: He made his name.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: He was Minister of Health and Local Government from nineteen
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: eighty four to nineteen eighty seven, Minister of Internal Affairs,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Local Government, Civil Defense and Arts and Culture in the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: following term. He retired from politics in nineteen ninety after
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: eighteen years as an MP, and became chairman of the
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: New Zealand Lottery Grants Board and of the nineteen ninety
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: commission that commemorated one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: signing of the Treaty of White Tangy. Later, he spent
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: ten years on the Whiteitangy Tribunal as a member of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the Tribunal, and in two thousand and two. He was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a full Bright Professor of New Zealand Studies at Georgetown
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: University in Washington, d C. Between two thousand and nine
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: two thy thirteen, he was a board member at the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: New Zealand at the Museum of New Zealand at Tipapa
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: in Wellington. Most notably, Michael Bassett is New Zealand's best
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: non political historian. He's the author of fifteen books, mainly
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: mainly with a political or a business theme. His specialty
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: is political biography and he's written books on former Prime
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: minister's Peter Fraser, the Labour leader from the nineteen forties,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Gordon Coates, prime minister in the twenties nineteen twenties that
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: is one hundred or so years ago, and Sir Joseph Ward,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: who served twice as our Prime Minister in the early
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds and again in the late twenties. He also
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: wrote the biography of David Longee, his former colleague. His
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: business biographies include subjects such as Roderick Dean, the Babbage
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: family of wine making fame, and the Meyers family of
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: ber famg there's a theme there, isn't it. And he's
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a regular columnist, of course. He runs the Bassett, Brash
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: and Hyde website alongside a couple of other former politicians
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you might have heard of, and in the New Year's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Honors in twenty eighteen, Dr Bassett was appointed a Companion
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to history. He's married to Judith, herself formally active in
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: local government. They have two grown up children, Emma and Sam.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: One's a lawyer, one's an accountant, so he's got all
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that covered and that's a great pleasure therefore to welcome
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: doctor Michael Bassett to leaders getting coffee.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Goodo, Michael, Morning Bruce. That was quite an introduction. I'm
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: not sure it is time that I rolled over and
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: shoveled off.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, don't do that, You've it's only a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: big introduction because you've been a busy fellow and that last.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But I see, I see. You were a Minister of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Health and your wife was the chair of the Auckland
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Area Health Board. So I bet that made some for
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: some interesting dinner table conversations, did it.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Well, we weren't to Actually, she wasn't chair while I
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: was Minister of Health. She was deputy chair and by
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: the time by the time she became the chair, I
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: was no longer Minister of Health, but of course we
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: had plenty of to chat about, and for me as minister,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: it was enormously useful to know what precisely was going
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: on at the board level, and Auckland was the biggest
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: board by far in those days. Subsequently they changed the
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: boundaries and so on. Yes, of course it was useful.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: You're in Auckland, are born and bred.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: As I said, where did you go to high school?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: I went to well two really. First of all, after
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: my father died when I was very young, I went
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: to do With school and I was there for the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: third form and fourth forms, and then I went to
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Mount Albert Grammar, which was just down the road from home,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: and so I went through until going on to university.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So your high school years were the nineteen fifties. What
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: was school like then? Do you have any memories of
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: school in those days?
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Not? They were not quite as big as today. I
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: was involved in twenty twenty two in the centennial activities
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: at Mount Albert Grammar and was stunned at the size
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: of the place. That's because they now have girls as
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: well as boys, and it's got a I think about
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: three one hundred students. Well, we were pushing about nine
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: hundred to one thousand in my day. It's a very
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: cramped site now compared with what it was in those days,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: but an interesting place with a rather distinguished both academic
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: and sporting background.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Of course, what were you like at school? Were you
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a history geek? Then ordered the history? The interest in
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: history come later.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: I was always interested in history. I'm not quite sure why,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: but I've got a good memory, and at least I
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: used to have. Now it plays the occasional trick on me.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: But I enjoyed, particularly reading newspapers when I was due
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: with school. I used to skip out immediately after breakfast
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: and into the newspaper the library and read the newspaper
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: ahead of the rest of the guys, and with a
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: reasonably good memory, I had a handle on what was
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: going on.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Well, those were the days when newspapers was the only
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: access to what was going on. And hasn't the world
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: changed since then?
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Sure has not for the better, I don't think, either
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: at the newspaper level, or for that matter, of the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: radio level. Television, of course is news since those days.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, sure, of course you went to Auckland University, and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: then something that would have been most unusual for those
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: times in the early nineteen sixties, a scholarship at Duke
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: University in the USA.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: How did that come about?
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I knew I wanted to study. I wanted to
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: go overseas. Like most kids in those days, I wanted
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: to study some more, and I really had my mind
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: set on teaching, and not at school level, but I
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: really wanted to teach at the university level. Well, there
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: weren't all that many opportunities to go overseas, at least
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: in ones that would pay for me to study. And
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I got admission to a couple of places, Stanford and
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: to London School of Economics. But Duke gave me a bursary,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: all fees paid, and three thousand dollars a year American
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: and that was a princess ransom in those days. Yeah.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, So had you been overseas before?
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: No, I hadn't even been to Australia. I mean that's
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I remember boarding the ship on my way to the
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: United States and thinking as we went out past Waheki Island,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: this is as far as I've been from New Zealand.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Wow, one an adventure for a young man. What are
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: your lasting lasting memories from that time at Duke University.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I was there for the almost the entire Kennedy years, right,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: and he'd been a president for about five months when
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I arrived, and I was there through his assassination and burial,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and then I headed off to Europe and home. My
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: most abiding memories of the US in those days were
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: really the fact that I was in the border south
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: North Carolina and it was completely wrapped up, as indeed
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: much of the country was, but particularly the South with
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: the racial tensions and the NAACP, the National ad Association
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: for the Advancement of Colored People, had been through North
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Carolina just before I arrived, and there were all sorts
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: of demonstrations going on, and I was sorely tempted to
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: get involved in some of them. But the big argument
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: that the defenders of segregation advanced was that it was
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: only outsiders who wanted to change things. Well, you, if
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: you looked around and saw the New Zealanders, you had
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: the perfect outsider would So I had to be pretty
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: careful that I was there in spirit.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Sure, So so that period, you know, the American university system,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I guess was became quite activist during the nineteen sixties
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that were, as you say, the matters of race, but
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: also of course the Vietnam War, and that all culminated
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: in the tragedy at Kent State a few years after
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you wrapped up there. Had so the activism had clearly
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: started while you were there, did it. Were you ever
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in a position where it was getting out of control?
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Not really. It was almost completely associated with race and
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: with an end to segregation in my time. But it's
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four that really Vietnam starts to ramp up
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: and Lyndon Johnson sent I forget what his name was,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: he'd been these or for Massachusetts, and he was off
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: to round up more flags to fly with Americas in Vietnam,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: and he came to New Zealand and we under the
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Holy Government made the decision to send a contribution to Vietnam,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: not a very big one, twenty three people to start with,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: and that decision was made in May of nineteen sixty five,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: by which time I was back home and I was
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: the involved with the anti Vietnam agitation. From me, it
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: just I knew enough about Asia and American foreign policy
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: to realize that the Americans were getting themselves involved in
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: what amounted to a civil war, and you never get
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: involved in other people's civil wars if you're serious about winning.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: So I was strongly opposed to us getting involved and
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: thought the Americans were fool hardy to have done so too.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: So, after being forced to sit on the sidelines in America,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: you were probably sort of championing at the bit to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: get involved when you got back home.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Were you?
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I was really years. I was pretty keen, and I
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: it was my first year of marriage and my first
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: year teaching at the university in nineteen sixty four, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: so I was pretty busy, but I somehow or other
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: managed to make time. I don't know, looking back on it,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: how I managed it right?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Was there a temptation to stay in the US? You know,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: you came home to teach history at the university.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I know, but.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: You know, for a young man, those sort of experiences
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: are life changing.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Were you tempted to stay?
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: No, I wanted to go home. By then, I was
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: pretty clear that I wanted to have a go at politics, right.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: I had while I was a student in the US
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: and dealing with American politics. I would read the New
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: York times religiously every day. I spent an hour on
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: it every day, just making I sure that I understood
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: how the American system worked. And then I wrote about
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: American politics, and so I was keen to get involved
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: in our politics, which by that time I was quite
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: keen about.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So then you came back and you straight into the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Auckland Council a few years later after lecturing at the university,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and then a year later into government politics where with
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: doctor Michael Bassett, and we'll be back shortly talking about
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: central government, back with doctor Michael Bassett. As I said
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one, you went into the Auckland Council,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: but you weren't there for long because central government beckoned
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and you didn't just go into government.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: You went into the time that the.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Party you were representing became the party of government. And
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that of course was under Norman Kirk, the Prime Minister
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: who became Prime Minister in nineteen seventy two. And Norman
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Kirk was something of a beacon of hope to the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: working man, wasn't he. And we had television in those days,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: but nowhere near the insight that today's media gives us.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: What can you tell us about the man known as
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Big Norm.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Well, he was well known as Big Normal. He was
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: a huge fellow. When you shook his hand, it was
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: like shaking a lamb roast or something or other. He
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: was almost big fist, and he had a booming voice
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: which he could alternate. He could bring the rafters down,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: or he had a stentorian whisper, if that isn't an oxymoron.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: And he was a remarkable individual, wonderful, wonderfully gifted phrases,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: many of which were too crude for the program. And
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: he was very insightful into people, very clever at managing
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: his caucus. Not blessed with a very good cabinet, unfortunately
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: he had. Most of his ministers were people who had
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: been in Parliament for almost too long and they were
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: past their prime. And Norm was aware of the fact
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: that he had some reasonably talented people on the back benches,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and he was starting to play around with ways in
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: which he could restructure his government when he suddenly got ill, Well,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: he didn't suddenly got to get ill. He foolishly decided
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: that he would go into hospital and have his varicus
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: veins operated on, and he would do not one leg
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: at a time, but both of them at once, and
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: he a blood clot started to move around his body
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: and he never really fully recovered, and eventually the blood
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: clot killed him about five months later.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: So he was our last prime minister to die in office,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: as I recall it. He was replaced by Bill Rolt
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Bill Rowling, who was nowhere near the personality was he?
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: No? No, Bill was a nice guy and quite an
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: able fellow. He had an economics degree, but he was
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: not not really an economist as today's economists would understand it. Yeah,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: but he had some difficulty putting his cabinet together too.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: And again really, by the time Muldoon was in full flight,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: the rolling cabinet just wasn't up to fighting.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, sure, well, Norm Kirk, I think he's also the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: last prime minister there was ever a song about.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: There was a song called Big Norm. You might recall back.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: In those days, so I can't recall. I couldn't sing
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: it for you, But.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: No neither good eye you then, as you've just touched on,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: you then sat on the sidelines in opposition for nine years.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: While I was out of parliament seventy you were sorry, Yes,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I lost lost my seat of White matter, and I
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: then came back as the NP four Tiatatu, which was
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: a blessing because it was about a fraction the size
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: of the old White Matter. I could drive from one
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: end to the other in seven minutes, whereas it was
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: an hour and a half from one end to the
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: other in the old White Matter.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think you could drive anywhere in Auckland in
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: seven minutes nowadays, but anyway, but you did have the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: unique opportunity to observe the Rob Muldoon prime ministership. He
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: presided over the country and its finances from seventy five
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to eighty four. What are your recollections of that period?
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Not very pleasurable, most of them I found. And I
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: always thought him a pretty poisonous individual, and I didn't
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: think that he really understood not that I was very good,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: and I don't hold myself out to be an economist,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: but I don't think Muldoon had much economic skill either.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: But he was both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: which was a combination that we've never had since, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: we suffered badly as a result of it. And I
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: don't think there's a minister from that period of time.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: And I know quite a few of them who would
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: say other than that it was an appalling combination of
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: the two together. The result was that we drifted into
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: over expenditure, into an inflationary situation and a gross overspending
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: on the think big projects, and eventually we ended up
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: with the wage price freeze in nineteen eighty two, which
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: was a crazy system really where wages were clamped tight.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Prices were theoretically clamped, but the clamp wasn't total. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: how did you get out of it? Eventually you have
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: to get back to a more free flowing economy. And
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: neither Muldoon nor We've had a bright idea until really
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Roger took advice from the best, Roger Douglas, from the
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: best economists in Treasury, and we finally got out of
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: the wage price freeze.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Well, you're sort of jumping the gun on Mere but Michael,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: because you're absolutely right. After that long period opposition, and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: as I said in the introdut forty years ago, which
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is actually what prompted me to when I realized it
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: was forty years was what prompted me to call you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. And Muldoon called the early election.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Of course, some would say that he'd had had a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: couple of shandies that evening before he did so, And.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think it was any doubt about that.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It was either and Labour won the Treasury benches back
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: under the under the leadership of David LONGI what what's
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: your what's your recollection of that night the election was called.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Of the night the election was called, I was down
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: in the basement actually working on reading some old newspapers
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: for the biography of Sir Joseph Ward, and I came
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I came back up into the house about nine thirty five,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: and the buzz was going around. Muldoon has called a
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: caucus of his members as soon as the house rises.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: What could this mean? And there was a suspicion that
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: he might be going to try and have an early election.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: And David Longey said to us, all, I want you
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: all in my study immediately the house rises, So all
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: of the caucus members on our side went there, while
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the National Party's caucus was being told by Muldoon that
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: he was going up to Government House to seek a
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: dissolution and for an early election. On the fourteenth of July,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Well Longee made a brief attempt to contact the governor
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: generals saying that we would have a go at forming
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: a government. Remember, the numbers were very very tight, I
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: think yes, at an overall majority of two, and we
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: thought maybe he might agree to that, but he'd already
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: granted the dissolution by the time we got through, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: so it was all on. And the decision was made
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: immediately that we would go crazy over the weekend and
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: rolling people because we knew the time frame was very short.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: And secondly, policy had to be dreamed up as best possible,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: and I was put in charge of some of that,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Jeffrey Palmer and I, and it was one hectic month
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: which LONGI really increasingly came to dominate. Muldoon was not
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: only not looking very well, I don't think he was
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: very very well. And I think Barry Gerstaffson says that
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: in his biography.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Of Yes, Yeah, Yeah, I remember the time.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I was only a young fellow.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: But it was a news flash moment on the black
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and white TV late one evening, and.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden we were going to the polls
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: in four or.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Five weeks, and that of course heralded the David Longe era,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: which you were an integral part of was LONGI the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: tortured genius that he seemed.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: He became so as his health deteriorated. At his best,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: he was just amazing, the fastest mind I think I've
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: ever even today forty years on, the fastest mind I've
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: ever had anything to do with. He could anticipate what
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: people were going to say, and you would start to
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: talk to him and his mind disappeared on racing past
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: you and he would guess what it was you were
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: saying about to say. And of course he was gifted
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: with his extraordinary voice and a capacity for language. He's
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: just a cousin of mine and his father brought me
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: into the world. He was a medical practitioner and o
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: to who in Auckland, and he had a wonderful gift
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: of the gab. Uncle Roy I remember him well. And
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: David was a chip off the old block.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So as you've touched on, the country was an economic
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: turmoil really at the time you're that government that you
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: were part of became probably one of the most transformative
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: governments we've had in our history. Roger Douglas was the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: financial architect of all of that. Did you know what
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: you were in for when you opened the books.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Not fully, and that's one of the reasons why we
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: opened them first time. It had really been done in
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the scale to which it was. I think sitting behind
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: me on a shelf is one of the key books,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: and it really just told the state of the economy.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: We knew things would be pretty bad. We had to
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: appreciate what we were in for because of the run
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: on the dollar. I mean, on the Friday before the election,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: one point eight million I think flowed out of the
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: country and one point seven billion had flowed out in
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: the month before election day. And the Reserve Bank had
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: asked Muldoon on the Friday, the day before the election,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: could they close the foreign exchange market. He said so.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: The next day is election day, and on the Sunday morning,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: the head of the Prime Minister's Department, the Governor of
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: the Reserve Bank, and the head of Treasury got together
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: and said, look, we cannot allow the foreign markets to
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: stay open until the value of the dollar has been settled.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: And Muldoon wouldn't take the phone call. He had his
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: phone off.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: So the decision was taken late in the day on
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the Sunday to close the foreign exchange markets. By the
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: officials with the concurrence of the incoming government. And on
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: the Monday, long and Muldoon debated on television whether or
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: not devaluation had to take place. Muldoon had a crazy
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: notion that it could be prevented, and Longee ticked him off,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: And the next day we chose the new cabinet, and
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: on the Wednesday, the new cabinet of which I was
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a member, met with the officials and we decided that
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: we wanted a twenty percent devaluation. We were going to
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: accept their recommendation. Muldoon meantime had been holding out, but
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: he was told by Jim McLay, who was his deputy,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: that Sir David Beatty had informed him that if Muldoon
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: would not implement what the incoming government told him to do,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: then he, the Governor General, would fire him. And Muldoon thought,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: that's an ignominious end to my career and decided with
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: a very bad grace to implement the devaluation. And so
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: on the Wednesday morning, around about midday, I think the
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: foreign exchange markets opened with the dollar devalued by twenty percent.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: One of the most telling aspects of that story, all
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: these years later. Is of course that you had an
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: election on the Saturday and you were in business and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: operating on the Monday. That doesn't happen anymore in an
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: MMP world. But it sounds like it's just as well
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: we were able to act so quickly in those days.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Well, yes, but we didn't really come into office until
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: the twenty sixth of July. The election was the fourteenth
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: and we didn't take office till the twenty sixth. It
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: was all a bit ad hoc and it had to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: be because of the foreign exchange crisis. Yes, and somebody
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: had to call the shots. And since the Prime Minister
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: wasn't the existing Prime Minister Muldrn wasn't prepared to call
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: the shots, he had to be told to do so,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: and a little bit of encouragement from the Governor General
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: was necessary.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: What a remarkable time you were the Health Minister in
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that new government, and I'm guessing, without wanting to put
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: words in your mouth, I imagine it was probably not
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: dissimilar to the challenges that our current government has a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: lot of things needing to be done and no money
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to do it.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Is that what you're up against.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely right, but more than that there was a
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: new factor, and that new factor was that if we
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: were to squeeze inflation out of the country, there had
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: to be a clamp down on government spending. It meant
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: that every department was obliged to restrain new expenditure. We'll
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: tell that to a Minister of health. I mean, health
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: is always going to be needing more money, and it
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: does today, it did then, but I was on short
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: pay in rations and so new hospital buildings, for instance,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: had to be restrained. We got some planning done for
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: the Starship Hospital, which we were able to start under me,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: but several other buildings were restrained. The dates for construction
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: were put back, and I said that there should be
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: no major, new expensive things like I mean, it sounds
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: crazy now, but we had no MRI scans in those days,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: and I said we won't have any for a while,
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: and nor did and I would we have heart transplants.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Well then some bugget tried to bust that by trying
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: to conduct a heart transplant in Wellington despite the Wellington
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Hospital having told him not to, and that was a
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: great kerfuffle. But eventually we did have heart transplants, but
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: they weren't very successful.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: It's remarkable, isn't it.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: All these things we take for granted nowadays, whether it's
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: moving foreign exchange around, or heart transplants or anything anything else.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: You governed through a period where none of that stuff
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: could be taken for granted. It must be remarkable to
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: look back on those times with the knowledge and information
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: you have today.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, But I keep chuckling and smiling to myself,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: of course, and thinking back and thinking, ho, gie, how
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: would I have handled that one?
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Well, even the concept of a foreign foreign exchange crisis
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: because of one point eight million dollars. You know, nowadays
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: one point eight million dollars doesn't even buy your house
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: in the middle of town.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: There was one point seven billion had escaped though during
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: the election campaign. During the campaign, and I was going
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: to obviously pick up because there was a new government
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: which everybody suspected would devalue the currency. And you could
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: just see key we sort of shipping their money off
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: overseas and then wanted to bring it back once the
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: devaluation had taken place. It was a real crisis.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Understandably.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: One of the legacies of that government, Michael, was the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: nuclear free legislation.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Of course, what brought it about.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: It had become a sort of a labor policy that
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: we wanted neither nuclear armed vessels nor nuclear powered vessels
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: in New Zealand. And what eventually triggered the problem was
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: the decision by the Americans to seek to send to
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: New Zealand a ship called the USS Buchanan I think
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: it was. And when we investigated it, Longie was pretty
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: certain that it was neither nuclear armed nor nuclear powered.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: It belched smoke, which was a pretty good indicator that
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: it was all right. However, the party had gotten very excited,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: and it was really just the question of having an
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: American vessel in the country that from a country that
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: specialized in nuclear power and nuclear arms, and Longye buckled
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: it was pretty clear, as I say, that it was
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: neither nuclear powered nor nuclear armed. But because of the
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: protests that started when it became clear that the boat
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: was coming, he said, well, okay, it won't come, and
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: that began That led on to the crisis, and it's
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: played very well with the Oxford Union debate, which is
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: ready accepted an invitation to and so he became his
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: name became synonymous really with the anti nuclear legislation.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Given that given that nuclear energy in particular has proven
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: to be a reasonably safer option than perhaps we wondered
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: in those days. Do you think our nuclear position is
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: still relevant?
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Probably the nuclear arms, yes, but the nuclear power. I mean,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I've never my mother drove her car around would say
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: no to nuclear power on the back of it for years,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: But I never really sort of thought there was much in.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: The opposition to nuclear power, And as time has moved
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: on since then, I'm absolutely sure that nuclear power has
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: got a future.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: You and Roger Douglas both left the Labor Party after
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: after you left government in nineteen ninety. What was it
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: that drove the two of you away?
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Funnily enough, what drove me away was the fact that
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: they didn't renew my membership automatically, and that was what
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I'd been used to. But I was cooling on the
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: thrust of Helen Clark's opposition to the big changes of
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: the eighties. It was not a total opposition, to be
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: fair to Helen. She was critical of many aspects of
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Roger's legislation, but she'd been involved herself in quite a
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: bit of it because she was a minister eighty seven
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: to ninety. But I really became interested. The push was
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: what was happening in the Labor Party. The pull was
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: the attraction of the new Act, the Association of Consumers
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: and Taxpayers. Yes, that Roger was forming. Roger was a
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: close friend and has been for a better part of
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: sixty years, and had lunch with him just the other day.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: He's in good shape. But I mean I was quite
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: willing to contemplate more changes in the direction that Act
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: wanted to go economically, and it was pretty clear that
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Labor wasn't.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Interesting stuff.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: That government, of course, as I say, one of the
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: most transformative in our history. And it all wrapped up
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety after the resignation of David Longi and
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: he was replaced by Jeffrey Palmer.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I think it was am I correct, just before the election.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: No, it was little. It was really about in August
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: eighty nine, David retired and Jeffrey Palmer had a year
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: as be but he was then ringbarked by Mike Moore
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: and I was actually out of the country at that time.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: I was on my way to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: conference in Zimbabwe, and Mike Moore overthrew Palmer in effect
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: and was there for I think fifty nine days as
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Prime Minister, then being defeated in the election at the
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: end of October nineteen nineteen.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety I'm always always amazed with people like you,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: how you how you refer to dates. We'll be back
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: in a moment with doctor Michael Bassett and we'll talk
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: about a couple of other Labor governments that he wasn't
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: part of. Back on leaders getting coffee with doctor Michael Bassett.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Michael, since since you.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Walked away from the seats of Parliament or the houses
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: of Parliament, of course, we've seen another couple of Labor governments,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: the Helen Clark led government and most recently just Sindra
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Adourns and to his small extent at the end there
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Chris Hopkins leadership in twenty and seventeen to twenty twenty three.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: What are your recollections of each of those governments and
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: how do you rate them?
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I reached Helen Clark's government fairly high. I mean, she is,
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: in my view, next to Peter Fraser in Labour's pantheon
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: of leaders, very able. If you have if you have
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: a discussion with Helen Clark, you'll be reeling by the
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: end of it, she's just She's a very powerful force
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: and wonderfully knowledgeable of the world around her. Most of
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the things that her government did were sensible, and we've
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: got to remember that key we Saber was left behind
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: by that government. Her stunning achievement rarely and then must
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: be important to large numbers of New Zealand. She also
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: got the foreshare and seabed right, which sadly was undone
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: in twenty and eleven, and I see the National government
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: is finally gained to return us to something akin to
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: what the foreshore and Seabed legislation had been in two
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: thousand and four, and quite a few other things she
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: did that were reasonably important at the time. But Cullen
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: was quite a good Minister of Finance.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Except he bought the railways a week before he got
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: tossed out of parliament. Ha ha, yes.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: Is the railways, the dreaded Railways. The next government, that is,
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: the durn Hipkins government, was a rather pitiful affair. It
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: came to office with no policy and had about two
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: hundred committees set up to give it a policy, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: it was really all just flim flam and feel good
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: stuff and be nice and be kind and so on,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: all of which if you have no guts, is unkind. Yes,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: And the worst thing you can do to poor people
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: is actually to tell them that if they have more children,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: then particularly if they're out of jobs and they're on benefits,
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: if they have more children they will be better off,
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: which is what Carmel Sebaloni did, meaning of course that
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: the total number of poor children rose rapidly. The incentives
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: were to have more children, yes, and that does nothing
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: to solve poverty and nothing to help those poor children,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: and so on. I mean, most of the things. The
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: restructuring of the health system at the time of the
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: pandemic was mind bogglingly stupid. I still, as a former
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Minister of Health sort of think back on it and
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: think what a crazy thing to do. But they did it.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: And of course all the failure to recognize the special
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: problems that mariy have and thinking that somehow or other,
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: just by setting up a Mari Health Authority that you
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: were going to solve their problems. In fact, something much
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: more strict and stern is needed than that to solve
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: the manifold problems in Mari health.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and now we're paying the Price. I mean, your
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: government had to come in and fix a lot of stuff.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Do you see similarities between then and what Christopher Luxen's
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: government is now having to deal with.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: Yes. Unfortunately I don't see a Roger Douglas in the
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: system anywhere, which is a bit of a pity. And
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: David Seymour, in my view, is far and away the
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: most able of the politicians, but he's just one of three.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: And I think the government, the new government is sort
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: of scratching along in the right direction. But one of
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: the things that I learned out of politics was that
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: with three year cycles for government, you've got to move quickly. Yes,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: and there are quite a lot of things which are
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: going not to be germinating properly by the time of
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: the next election because this government is dawdling along.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: They're not going fast enough.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Michael. One of your books is called New Zealand's Prime
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Ministers From Dick Seddon to John Key. You're kind enough
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to givet me a copy and I have flipped through
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: some of the chapters, but I couldn't possibly say I've
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: read at all.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: Who do you.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Think is our greatest prime minister? Do you have a
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: view on who Our greatest prime minister is.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Peter Fraser. Peter Fraser, wartime Prime minister nineteen forty to
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: forty nine, an extraordinary individual, manifold problems he dealt with,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: and there really were only about two or three ministers
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: in his government, Peter Fraser, Walter Nash, and or two
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: or three others are Arnold Nordmeyer in the later stages,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: the only two or three who were really able, and
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Fraser carried this enormous load. The next most important after him,
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: I think would be Sadden, the first one. Sidden is
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: still our longest serving prime minister thirteen and a half
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: thirteen year is in one month, followed very closely by
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: William Ferguson Massey and brunt Off too twenty five whose
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: thirteen years exactly. But I would I would rate Fraser one,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Sadden too, possibly Helen Clark three. There you go.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, we've been talking history, folks. We're going to come
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: back shortly and talk about the current state of the
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: world where with doctor Michael Bassett, political historian, former Labor
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Party cabinet minister. We'll be back in a moment, back
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: with doctor Michael Bassett. Michael, as I met in the introduction.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: You were on the White Tanni Tribunal for ten years.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of I guess there's always plenty of chat
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: around the Wite Tanny Tribunal, but some of the chatter
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: at the moment is whether it's serving its purpose in
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: today's environment.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Do you have thoughts on that.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: I do. It's going way beyond its brief It is
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: acting like it thinks it is a judicial organization. It
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: is not. It's only got a couple of lawyers anywhere
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: near it, and.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: It's really outrun its usefulness.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: It was originally principally just to try and make sure
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: that the principles undefined, which was a big pity that
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: they were undefined in nineteen seventy five. The principles of
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: the treaty are adhered to, but it became very much
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: involved in the hearings and decision making and advice over
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: grievances dating back to eighteen forty and that was the
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: part that I was involved with it. During my decade.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I sat on a number of cases. Well, the historical
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: cases ceased in two thousand and eight.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I want to just talk briefly if I can, about
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the state of the world.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting old time.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: We've already touched on the US presidential elections, the Palestinian conflict,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the Ukraine, massive immigration crisis in Europe in particular, and
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: we're seeing some reaction to that at the moment, and
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: not all of that is positive, and of course the
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: surge of right wing parties in Europe, which is probably
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: in response to that. What's your assessment of that very
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: sort of convoluted and mixed up state of the world.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Well, the world's not a happy place. There's no doubt
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: about that. There is a rogue element at work that
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: is more the cause of problems than anything else, and
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: that's Russia, a declining power now the eleventh biggest economy
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: in the world, and going downwards and running out of
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: eventually running out of oil, but determined to try to
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: act like it was at the end of the Second
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: World War before it lost all its Eastern europe satellites,
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: and that is causing difficulties in Europe. It's behind much
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: of the trouble, not just Ukraine, but the unease in
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: the Baltic republics, in Poland and elsewhere, Belaru and in
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: the other Russian x Russian places. Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan and
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: all the rest of it. The other major change that
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: is taking place that the world needs to get its
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: head around is the rise of China. I mean, it
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: is now the second biggest economy in the world, albeit
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: struggling a bit at present and uneasy and trying to
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: throw its weight around rather more than is comfortable for people.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: If I was a Taiwanese, I would be terribly worried
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: about China. It's pretty clear they intend to invade China.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Why I'm blessed of I know. I can only assume
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: it's because they can't live with one China two systems.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: They've got to bring Taiwan under Jijingpeng and the Communist Party,
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Whereas it's perfectly clear that Taiwan operates rather efficiently and
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: effectively and in a popular sense with its people with
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: the structure that it's got. But so China is a
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: real problem we've got to deal with. And then the
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: state of democracy in the so called democracies is a problem.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Thank god for Britain it's behaving as normal, and Canada
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: and Australia and New Zealand and most of Europe, but
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: they're all struggling a bit with the far right, but
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: America has really got a major problem on its hands.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: The surplus people in the world are one of the
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: biggest problems. Yes, I mean, I think if the world
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: had two billion fewer people, the climate would be better,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: climate change problems would be better, and we'd have less
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: problems at the American border. We'd have less problems of
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: people trying to cross the English Channel, we'd have less
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: problems of people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, and
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: so on. I mean, surplus people are a real problem
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: in today's world. And I am one of those who
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: thinks that population control needs to be given a great
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: deal more airing than it is given. I think there
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: need to be incentives for people to have no more
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: than two children. And I'm sorry if that offends some religions, but.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Probably off probably offends a lot of people. But but
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: to a degree, the societies you've mentioned have self selected.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: You know, the great majority of people in this country
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: or Australia probably do only have two or three children.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: But but.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: There's an element of self selection in some countries. But
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: in other countries that doesn't seem to be the case.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in your view of the outlook for our
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: political parties. You know, we've been we're still sort of
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: scrambling along with an m MP system that doesn't.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Quite work, but but is what we've got.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: We've we've got an interesting situation at the moment where
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: particularly the political left Labor, Labor, the Greens and Tiparty
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Maria look it appears certainly sort of fighting for a
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: small part of the vote. You've got a Labor party
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: that's been in government, that hasn't made a heck of
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of changes to its leadership since losing an
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: election quite badly eight months ago. What's your view of
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: the outlook for political parties and probably in particular your
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: old party, the Labor Party.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Well, my view.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: Is that they really are not any signs of being
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: serious about getting back into office. One of the silliest
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: speeches I think Hipkins has ever given was given yesterday
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: where books to Whui and it's all couched in pro
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: MARII stuff. And I think what Labor is trying to
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: do is to claw or back the Mari vote. But
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: the Mari vote only constitutes about nineteen percent yes with
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: a fair win behind it, probably seventeen percent if you
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: can get them out to vote, and Maria are poorer
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: voters than Paka by large, why he would be spending
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: doing time doing that and losing all the non Maori
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: vote as he about it just biggest imagination. I mean,
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: one of the big lessons of the twenty twenty three
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: election was that New New Zealanders are really very very
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: irt at mari crime and Maria are so disproportionately associated
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: with crime in the country that it is as serious issue.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: And I mean those seats that flicked over to National
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: New Linn it had been Labor since a by election
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty six for Pete's sake, and it goes
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: to National, Rascal goes to National Takaninni mung A Kiirkire.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know they just simply got bold and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: what are they doing. They're chasing after the same policies
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: has got them booted out. Yeah, crazy stuff. So I
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: until I think the Labor Party comes to its censors
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: and it requires new leadership clearly. But from where I'm
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: completely unaware of anybody in the Labor Party who has
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: a David Longie, Norman Kirk, Helen Clark, look about them,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: just not or even a tenth of them.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: Yes, the National Party. It's the National Party that's been
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: around all my life life. It likes to administer the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: status quo. It's happier doing that, and it is quite
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: good administering the status quo, to be fair, but it's
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: not adventuresome. And in Christopher Luckson's case, suffers from somebody
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: who is so new to politics that he's being obliged
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: to learn at you know, the speed of sound, speed
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: of light, really, and it's it's tricky for him. Yes,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: I just wish this is going back to what we
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: said earlier.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: I just wish they could get on with things a
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: little bit more rapidly than they than they are. The
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: Greens are a weird assemblage. I mean, not to put
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: too fine a point on it, it seems to have
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: become a party for funny women. I mean you've had
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Elizabeth Kerry Kerry and Goldritz Garaman and Darlen Tana and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: oh there's at least one or two others who are strange.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: Julianne Jenner. I mean, and this business over whether to
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: use the walker jumping legislation, I mean, that's just bizarre.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: By any measure. Somebody who is elected to Parliament on
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: a list to go along with that list's policies, who
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: then either leaves or is thrown out of the party,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: is no longer used to the party who's list thereon,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: And since we've got a proportional representational system, that person's
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: got to go. H It should be pretty straightforward, shouldn't
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: it quite straightforward?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: If you're writing the political history of New Zealand and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: twenty forty, what would you like to be.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Saying that.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: We've got a big fight to stay afloat, and that
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: we will not stay afloat if we give special privileges
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: to anybody, any segment of the population, on the basis
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: of race or color, or religion or anything, and that
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: we all are in the boat together, and we it's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: Article three of the treaty is the vital article.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: All the.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: Rights, privileges and responsibilities are to be shared by everybody.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Be great if we could get to that point in
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: sixteen years years.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: And yet that will be, of course, the two centuries
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: on from the treaty, and a very good time to
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: reassess the meaning of the treaty, which people are increasingly forgetting.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: I mean neither Labor nor the Greens, and particularly the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: Mari Party seem to have any respect for the wording
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: of the treaty at all. I mean, I saw an
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: interview on Jack Thames interview with Debi ma Riwapaka, where
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: she said Mary didn't see sovereignty. Well I'm done if
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: I know which article of the treaty he was reading.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, the treaty is absolutely seed sovereignty forever, yes.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Queen, and well, at least that's what we all thought.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Michael.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I've only I've only got a couple of questions for you,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and one of them is the one I ask everybody.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: If you could be the prime minister for a day,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: and you've been closer to it than most, but if
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: you could be the prime minister for a day, what's
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: the one thing you'd like to do.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: Turn it into a second day. I think you never
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: achieved very much in one day. As I discovered in politics,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: politics is for the long haul, and it's more particularly
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: for the long haul under MMP. Probably if I was
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Prime Minister for the day, getting rid of MMP would
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: be what I would do. I don't think first past
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: the posts an absolutely wonderful system isn't a perfect system
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: for democracy anywhere in the world. But I'll tell you
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: what first. The post is better than MMP because it
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: makes it possible for governments to do things more easily
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: than mm MMP is a break on reform, and it
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: is no accident that under MMP, New Zealand seems to
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: be going downhill.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: Very interesting words. What are you doing now, Michael?
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: You you should have retired a hundred times by now,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: But I notice you're still writing, and you're and you're
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: still researching. And I guess you can take the boy
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: out of the university, but you can't take the university
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: out of the boy. What are you doing with your
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: life today? Oh?
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: I write a blog, I read a lot. I'm catching
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: up on stuff that I should have read years ago,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: and listening to music. We didn't touch on it, but
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: it's been one of the passions of my life. Music.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: I came from a very musical family. My father was
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: a very good pianist and an organ player, and my
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: mother and family were singers, and I was a singer
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: and as a kid and I was part of the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: Do With School quartet that won the quartet section of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: the Auckland competitions in nineteen fifty one and we sang
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: around the city. And so I've always been interested in music.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: I have twelve hundred CDs many I'm staring up above here.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: You can't see it, but I've got a large number
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: of them on the shelf above you right now. Not
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: crash them on to you. So music is good fun,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: reading is good fun. And taking an interest in my family.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: I've got three quenchuldren. One is currently traveling in the
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Baltic States. She's the qualified, fully qualified nurse right off
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: at the age of twenty six to on her first oe.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: And I've got a seventeen year old at Autin Grammar
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: a boy, and a fifteen year old at Parnell College
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: ACG a boy. And you know, keeping an interest in
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: them and doing little bits to help them is a
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: part of my life too.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: It's been a busy life, it's been an effective life.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: And you deserve to go and spend some time with
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: your grandchildren. Doctor Michael Bassett, I knew we'd be over time.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: We are over time. Thank you for joining on leaders
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: getting coffee. I feel we could keep going. There's all
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: sorts of things we could talk about, but I do
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: appreciate you taking time out of those grandfatherly duties and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: the music and the reading to join us to share your.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Story with us.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: But most importantly, I'd like to thank you for the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: contribution you have made and continue to make to this
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: little country. So doctor Michael Bassett, thanks for joining us
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: on leaders Getting Coffee.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Bruce so pleasure.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Finally, folks, my leadership tip of the week. Given the
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: topic today, I couldn't resist this one. It's short and sweet.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: If we don't learn from history, we will become history.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: If we don't learn from history, we will become history.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: And of course we've been with one of the country's
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: best known historians for the last hour or so. That's
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: it from us for a couple another couple of weeks.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on leaders Getting Coffee, episode number
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: twenty three with our guest, doctor Michael Bassett. If you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: have any feedback, please get in touch at info at
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: leaders Getting Coffee dot com. Remember that our favorite our
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: charity is Bike for Blokes dot co dot NZ.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: And we'll see you.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Soon with another New Zealander and another leadership story. Until then,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: have a great couple of weeks and we'll catch up soon.