July 31, 2024 • 70 mins
Forty years ago one of the most transformational governments in New Zealand history was sworn in. That government, led by the larger than life David Lange, who was accompanied by financial architect Roger Douglas, had the task of overhauling the country’s fragile economy.
Sitting in the inner sanctum of that government was Dr Michael Bassett, who became the Minister in charge of a run-down health service during an economic downturn. Sound familiar?
Dr Bassett has a unique perspective on the fourth labour government and the Muldoon led National government that preceded them. Those days saw rapid inflation, a wage and price freeze and a run on the currency immediately before the 1984 election. Rogernomics was the new Labour government’s fiscal response, as critical a part of their legacy as their introduction of our nuclear free legislation.
Since his political retirement Dr Basset has gone on to become one of our most important historians, with fifteen books to his credit, including multiple political biographies. And in 2018 he was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for his services to history.
There is no one better placed to reflect on New Zealand’s greatest Prime Ministers.
And he has plenty to say about our recent governments, and some advice for the current coalition.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi, everyone, it's Bruce Cottrell here and it's great to
welcome you back to Leaders Getting Coffee. As you might know,
we've had a break for a couple of weeks, but
it's good to be back in New Zealand and back
with episode twenty three of the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast.
I've just spent a couple of weeks in the US,
primarily in the Southern States Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana.
(00:38):
I was there during the presidential debate and much of
the fallout that followed that, and it's fascinating talking to
Americans about their politics, especially in that part of the country.
They're animated, opinionated, and largely unhappy with the current Democratic
led government. So if you go there, especially in the
next few months, you'll probably get a pretty clear view
(01:01):
that Trump will be the next president, which is kind
of interesting in itself, and after seeing that all play
out in person, the aftermath of the Trump shooting has
been most interesting. One of the things that President Biden
got right in the aftermath of that incident was when
he spoke about the need for Americans to lower the
temperature in their politics. He went on to say that
(01:22):
we may disagree, but we're not enemies. And that message
rang a bell for me, not just because of what
I saw and heard in the US, but also because
I believe that we could do with hearing that message
here in New Zealand too. In my most recent New
Zealand Herald column, I suggested that the weaponization of language
that has been a feature in the behavior of both
(01:44):
our Green Party anti party Mary could be rained in
a bit because if we don't, I'm not sure where
that stops, and we're sure as heck don't want to
end up in the state that the US is in.
I'm not going to dwell on that any further here.
You can read more in my column in the New
Zealand Herald Online. The headline reads Donald Trump assassination attempt
(02:07):
and the rising temperature in our politics. Go to NZ
Herald dot co dot nz, or you can check check
it out under published articles on my website dubdubdub dot
Bruce Catturle dot com. Those of us old enough to remember,
we'll know that it's forty years forty years four zero,
that is, folks, since the arrival of the very transformative
(02:31):
Fourth Labor Government under the leadership of that wonderful orator
David Longi today's guest on leaders Getting Coffee served in
the inner circle of that government, and we'll be back
in a moment with that person. Welcome back to Leaders
(02:57):
getting Coffee. This week's guest reached out to me after
an article I wrote a year or so ago. I'd
never met him, although I definitely knew who he was.
But we met over lunch and I found his knowledge
of our political history and his views on the present
absolutely fascinating. And every time I start thinking that I've
had a busy life, someone like doctor Michael Bassett turns
(03:19):
up and puts us all to shame. He was born
in Auckland. There as an Aucklander through and through, and
like many of our guests, his career takes some time
to work through. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from
Auckland University. He won the James B. Duke Fellowship to
attend Duke University in the United States in the nineteen sixties,
where he completed a PhD in American history. He returned
(03:42):
as a lecturer at the University of Auckland and was
elected to the Auckland City Council on nineteen seventy one
and to New Zealand's Parliament a year later in nineteen
seventy two. He was a backbeach MP in the Labour
governments of Prime Ministers Norman Kirk and Bill Rowling, and
then He's He sat in opposition for nine years and
watched the Rob Muldoon government in action, but it was
(04:07):
as a key member of David Longy's team, the so
called Kitchen Cabinet, alongside Longey, Douglas and Mike Moore, that
he made his name. He was Minister of Health and
Local Government from nineteen eighty four to nineteen eighty seven,
Minister of Internal Affairs, Local Government, Civil Defense and Arts
and Culture in the following term. He retired from politics
in nineteen ninety after eighteen years as an MP, and
(04:29):
became chairman of the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board and
of the nineteen ninety commission that commemorated one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of White Tangy. Later,
he spent ten years on the Whiteitangy Tribunal as a
member of the Tribunal, and in two thousand and two.
He was a full Bright Professor of New Zealand Studies
at Georgetown University in Washington, d C. Between two thousand
(04:52):
and nine two thy thirteen he was a board member
at the New Zealand at the Museum of New Zealand
at Tipapa in Wellington. Most notably, Michael Bassett is New
Zealand's best non political historian. He's the author of fifteen books,
mainly mainly with a political or a business theme. His
specialty is political biography and he's written books on former
(05:15):
Prime minister's Peter Fraser, the Labour leader from the nineteen forties,
Gordon Coates, prime minister in the twenties nineteen twenties that
is one hundred or so years ago, and Sir Joseph Ward,
who served twice as our Prime Minister in the early
nineteen hundreds and again in the late twenties. He also
wrote the biography of David Longe, his former colleague. His
(05:35):
business biographies include subjects such as Roderick Dean, the Babbage
family of wine making fame, and the Meyers family of
b famg there's a theme there, isn't there. And he's
a regular columnist of course, he runs the Bassett, Brash
and Hyde website alongside a couple of other former politicians
you might have heard of, and in the New Year's
Honors in twenty eighteen, Dr Bassett was appointed a Companion
(05:58):
of the New Zealand Order of Men for his services
to history. He's married to Judith, herself formally active in
local government. They have two grown up children, Emma and Sam.
One's a lawyer, one's an accountant, so he's got all
that covered and that's a great pleasure therefore to welcome
doctor Michael Bassett to leaders getting coffee, getdo Michael.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Morning, Bruce. That was quite an introduction. I'm not sure
it is time that I rolled over and shoveled off.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
No, no, no, don't do that. You've it's only a
big introduction because you've been a busy fellow and that last.
But I see, I see. You were a Minister of
Health and your wife was the chair of the Auckland
Area Health Board. So I bet that made some for
some interesting dinner table conversations, did it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, we weren't to Actually she wasn't chair while I
was Minister of Health. She was deputy chair and by
the time By the time she became the chair, I
was no longer Minister of Health, but of course we
had plenty of to chat about, and for me as Minister,
it was enormously useful to know what precisely was going
(07:05):
on at the board level, and Auckland was the biggest
board by far in those days. Subsequently they changed the
boundaries and so on.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yes, of course it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Was useful.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
You're in Auckland, are born and bred. As I said,
where did you go to high school?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I went to well two really. First of all, after
my father died when I was very young, I went
to do With school and I was there for the
third form and fourth forms, and then I went to
Mount Albert Grammar, which was just down the road from home,
and so I went through until going on to university.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So your high school years were the nineteen fifties. What
was school like then? Do you have any memories of
school in those days?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Not? They were not quite as big as today. I
was involved in twenty twenty two in the centennial activities
at Mount Albert Grammar and was stunned at the size
of the place. That's because they now have girls as
well as boys, and it's got a. I think about
(08:20):
three one hundred students. Well, we were pushing about nine
hundred to one thousand in my day. It's a very
cramped site now compared with what it was in those days,
but an interesting place with a rather distinguished both academic
(08:41):
and sporting background.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Of course, what were you like at school? Were you
a history geek? Then ordered the history? The interest in
history come later. I was always interested in history. I'm
not quite sure why, but I've got a good memory,
and at least I used to have. Now it plays
the occasional trick on me. But I enjoyed, particularly reading
(09:11):
newspapers when I was dull with school.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I used to skip out immediately after breakfast and into
the newspaper the library and read the newspaper ahead of
the rest of the guys, and with a reasonably good memory,
I had a handle on what was going on.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, those were the days when newspapers was the only
access to what was going on. And hasn't the world
changed since then?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Sure has not for the better, I don't think, either
at the newspaper level, or for that matter, of the
radio level. Television, of course is news since those days.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yes, sure, of course you went to Auckland University, and
then something that would have been most unusual for those
times in the early nineteen sixties, a scholarship at Duke
University in the USA. How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, I knew I wanted to study. I wanted to
go overseas. Like most kids in those days, I wanted
to study some more, and I really had my mindset
on teaching, and not at school level, but I really
wanted to teach at the university level. Well, there weren't
(10:23):
all that many opportunities to go overseas, at least in
ones that would pay for me to study. And I
got admission to a couple of places, Stanford and to
London School of Economics. But Duke gave me a bursary,
(10:43):
all fees paid, and three thousand dollars a year American
and that was a princess ransom in those days. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Absolutely, So had you been overseas before?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, I hadn't even been to Australia. I mean that's
I remember boarding the ship on my way to the
United States and thinking as we went out past Waheki Island,
this is as far as I've been from New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Wow, one an adventure for a young man. What are
your lasting lasting memories from that time at Duke University.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, I was there for the almost the entire Kennedy years, right,
and he'd been a president for about five months when
I arrived, and I was there through his assassination and burial,
and then I headed off to Europe and home. My
(11:50):
most abiding memories of the US in those days were
really the fact that I was in the border south
North Carolina and it was completely wrapped up, as indeed
much of the country was, but particularly the South with
the racial tensions and the NAACP, the National ad Association
(12:19):
for the Advancement of Colored People, had been through North
Carolina just before I arrived, and there were all sorts
of demonstrations going on, and I was sorely tempted to
get involved in some of them. But the big argument
that the defenders of segregation advanced was that it was
(12:43):
only outsiders who wanted to change things. Well, you, if
you looked around and saw the New Zealanders, you had
the perfect outsider would So I had to be pretty
careful that I was there in spirit.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Sure, So so that period, you know, the American university system,
I guess was became quite activist during the nineteen sixties.
That were, as you say, the matters of race, but
also of course the Vietnam War, and that all culminated
in the tragedy at Kent State a few years after
(13:23):
you wrapped up there. Had so the activism had clearly
started while you were there, did it. Were you ever
in a position where it was getting out of control?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Not really. It was almost completely associated with race and
with an end to segregation in my time. But it's
nineteen sixty four that really Vietnam starts to ramp up
and Lyndon Johnson sent I forget what his name was.
(13:59):
He'd been these for Massachusetts and he was off to
round up more flags to fly with Americas in Vietnam,
and he came to New Zealand and we under the
Holy Government made the decision to send a contribution to Vietnam,
(14:21):
not a very big one, twenty three people to start with,
and that decision was made in May of nineteen sixty five,
by which time I was back home and I was
the involved with the anti Vietnam agitation. From me, it
(14:42):
just I knew enough about Asia and American foreign policy
to realize that the Americans were getting themselves involved in
what amounted to a civil war, and you never yet
involved in other people's civil wars if you're serious about winning.
So I was strongly opposed to us getting involved and
(15:07):
thought the Americans were fool hardy to have done so too.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So, after being forced to sit on the sidelines in America,
you were probably sort of championing at the bit to
get involved when you got back home. Were you?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I was really years. I was pretty keen, and I
it was my first year of marriage and my first
year teaching at the university in nineteen sixty four, and
so I was pretty busy. But I somehow or other
managed to make time. I don't know, looking back on it,
(15:42):
how I managed it right?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Was there a temptation to stay in the US? You know,
you came home to teach history at the university. I know,
but you know, for a young man, those sort of
experiences are life changing. Were you tempted to stay?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
No, I wanted to come home. By then, I was
pretty clear that I wanted to have a go at politics, right.
I had while I was a student in the US
and dealing with American politics. I would read the New
York times religiously every day. I spent an hour on
it every day, just making I sure that I understood
(16:23):
how the American system worked. And then I wrote about
American politics, and so I was keen to get involved
in our politics, which by that time I was quite
keen about.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So then you came back and you straight into the
Auckland Council a few years later after lecturing at the university,
and then a year later into government politics where with
doctor Michael Bassett, and we'll be back shortly talking about
central government, back with doctor Michael Bassett. As I said
(17:12):
in nineteen seventy one, you went into the Auckland Council,
but you weren't there for long because central government beckoned
and you didn't just go into government. You went into
the time that the party you were representing became the
party of government. And that of course was under Norman Kirk,
the Prime Minister who became Prime Minister in nineteen seventy two.
(17:34):
And Norman Kirk was something of a beacon of hope
to the working man, wasn't he. And we had television
in those days, but nowhere near the insight that today's
media gives us. What can you tell us about the
man known as Big Norm.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Well, he was well known as Big Normal. He was
a huge fellow. When you shook his hand, it was
like shaking a lamb roast or something or other. He
was almost big fist, and he had a booming voice
which he could alternate. He could bring the rafters down,
(18:13):
or he had a stentorian whisper, if that isn't an oxymoron.
And he was a remarkable individual, wonderful, wonderfully gifted phrases,
many of which were too crude for the program. And
(18:33):
he was very insightful into people, very clever at managing
his caucus. Not blessed with a very good cabinet, unfortunately
he had. Most of his ministers were people who had
(18:54):
been in Parliament for almost too long and they were
past their prime. And Norm was aware of the fact
that he had some reasonably talented people on the back benches,
and he was starting to play around with ways in
(19:14):
which he could restructure his government when he suddenly got ill, Well,
he didn't suddenly got to get ill. He foolishly decided
that he would go into hospital and have his varicus
veins operated on, and he would do not one leg
at a time, but both of them at once, and
(19:37):
he a blood clot started to move around his body
and he never really fully recovered, and eventually the blood
clot killed him about five months later.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
So he was our last prime minister to die in office,
as I recall it. He was replaced by Bill Rolt
Bill Rowling, who was nowhere near the personality was he?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
No? No, Bill was a nice guy and quite an
able fellow. He had an economics degree, but he was
not not really an economist as today's economists would understand it. Yeah,
but he had some difficulty putting his cabinet together too.
(20:29):
And again really, by the time Muldoon was in full flight,
the rolling cabinet just wasn't up to fighting.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yes, sure, well, Norm Kirk, I think he's also the
last prime minister there was ever a song about. There
was a song called Big Norm. You might recall back in.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Those days, so I can't recall. I couldn't sing it
for you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But no neither good eye you then, as you've just
touched on, you then sat on the sidelines in opposition
for nine.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Years while I was out of parliament seventy you were sorry, Yes,
I lost lost my seat of White matter, and I
then came back as the MP four Tiata to which
was a blessing because it was about a fraction the
size of the old White Matter. I could drive from
(21:25):
one end to the other in seven minutes, whereas it
was an hour and a half from one end to
the other in the old White Matter.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I don't think you could drive anywhere in Auckland in
seven minutes nowadays, but anyway, but you did have the
unique opportunity to observe the Rob Muldoon prime ministership. He
presided over the country and its finances from seventy five
to eighty four. What are your recollections of that period?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Not very pleasurable, most of them I found. And I
always thought him a pretty poisonous individual, and I didn't
think that he really understood not that I was very good,
and I don't hold myself out to be an economist,
but I don't think Muldoon had much economic skill either.
(22:19):
But he was both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance,
which was a combination that we've never had since, and
we suffered badly as a result of it. And I
don't think there's a minister from that period of time.
And I know quite a few of them who would
(22:40):
say other than that it was an appalling combination of
the two together. The result was that we drifted into
over expenditure, into an inflationary situation and a gross overspending
on the think big projects, and eventually we ended up
(23:02):
with the wage price freeze in nineteen eighty two, which
was a crazy system really where wages were clamped tight.
Prices were theoretically clamped, but the clamp wasn't total. And
how did you get out of it? Eventually you have
(23:25):
to get back to a more free flowing economy. And
neither Muldoon nor We've had a bright idea until really
Roger took advice from the best, Roger Douglas, from the
best economists in Treasury, and we finally got out of
(23:47):
the wage price freeze.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Well, you're sort of jumping the gun on mere but Michael,
because you're absolutely right. After that long period opposition, and
as I said in the introduct forty years ago, which
is actually what prompted me to when I realized it
was forty years was what prompted me to call you
a few weeks ago, and Muldoon called the early election.
(24:10):
Of course, some would say that he'd had had a
couple of shandies that evening before he did so.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I don't think it was any doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It was either and Labour won the Treasury benches back
under the under the leadership of David LONGI what's your
what's your recollection of that night the election was called.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Of the night the election was called, I was down
in the basement actually working on reading some old newspapers
for the biography of Sir Joseph Ward, and I came
I came back up into the house about nine thirty five,
and the buzz was going around. Muldoon has called a
(25:00):
caucus of his members as soon as the house rises.
What could this mean? And there was a suspicion that
he might be going to try and have an early election.
And David Longey said to us, all, I want you
all in my study immediately the house rises, So all
(25:21):
of the caucus members on our side went there, while
the National Party's caucus was being told by Muldoon that
he was going up to Government House to seek a
dissolution and for an early election. On the fourteenth of July,
Well Longee made a brief attempt to contact the governor
(25:48):
generals saying that we would have a go at forming
a government. Remember, the numbers were very very tight, I
think yes, at an overall majority of two, and we
thought maybe he might agree to that, but he'd already
granted the dissolution by the time we got through, and
(26:12):
so it was all on. And the decision was made
immediately that we would go crazy over the weekend and
rolling people because we knew the time frame was very short.
And secondly, policy had to be dreamed up as best possible,
(26:34):
and I was put in charge of some of that,
Jeffrey Palmer and I, and it was one hectic month
which LONGI really increasingly came to dominate. Muldoon was not
(26:55):
only not looking very well, I don't think he was
very well, and I think Barry Gerstaffson says that in
his biography.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Of Yes, Yeah, Yeah, I remember the time. I was
only a young fellow. But it was a news flash
moment on the black and white TV late one evening,
and all of a sudden we were going to the
polls in four or five weeks, and that of course
heralded the David Longe era, which you were an integral
(27:26):
part of. Was LONGI the tortured genius that he seemed.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
He became so as his health deteriorated. At his best,
he was just amazing, the fastest mind I think I've
ever even today forty years on, the fastest mind I've
ever had anything to do with. He could anticipate what
(27:55):
people were going to say, and you would start to
talk to him and his mind disappeared on racing past
you and he would guess what it was you were
saying about to say. And of course he was gifted
with his extraordinary voice and a capacity for language. He's
(28:19):
just a cousin of mine and his father brought me
into the world. He was a medical practitioner and o
to who in Auckland, and he had a wonderful gift
of the gab. Uncle Roy I remember him well, And
David was a chip off the old block.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
So as you've touched on, the country was an economic
turmoil really at the time you're That government that you
were part of became probably one of the most transformative
governments we've had in our history. Roger Douglas was the
financial architect of all of that. Did you know what
(29:05):
you were in for when you opened the books?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Not fully, and that's one of the reasons why we
opened them first time. It had really been done in
the scale to which it was. I think sitting behind
me on a shelf is one of the key books,
and it really just told the state of the economy.
(29:34):
We knew things would be pretty bad. We had to
appreciate what we were in for because of the run
on the dollar. I mean, on the Friday before the election,
one point eight million I think flowed out of the
(29:57):
country and one point seven billion had flowed out in
the month before election day. And the Reserve Bank had
asked Muldoon on the Friday, the day before the election,
could they close the foreign exchange market. He said, so
(30:22):
the next day is election day, and on the Sunday morning,
the head of the Prime Minister's Department, the governor of
the Reserve Bank, and the head of Treasury got together
and said, look, we cannot allow the foreign markets to
(30:45):
stay open until the value of the dollar has been settled.
And Muldoon wouldn't take the phone call. He had his
phone off.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
So the decision was taken late in the day on
the Sunday to close the foreign exchange markets by the
officials with the concurrence of the incoming government, and on
the Monday, long and Muldoon debated on television whether or
(31:20):
not devaluation had to take place. Muldoon had a crazy
notion that it could be prevented, and Longee ticked him off.
And the next day we chose the new cabinet. And
on the Wednesday, the new cabinet of which I was
(31:42):
a member, met with the officials and we decided that
we wanted a twenty percent devaluation. We were going to
accept their recommendation. Muldoon, meantime, had been holding out, but
he was told by Jim McLay, who was his deputy,
(32:04):
that Sir David Beatty had informed him that if Muldoon
would not implement what the incoming government told him to do,
then he, the Governor General, would fire him. And Muldoon thought,
that's an ignominious end to my career and decided with
(32:24):
a very bad grace to implement the devaluation. And so
on the Wednesday morning, around about midday, I think, the
foreign exchange markets opened with the dollar devalued by twenty percent.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
One of the most telling aspects of that story, all
these years later is of course that you had an
election on the Saturday and you were in business and
operating on the Monday. That doesn't happen anymore in an
MMP world. But it sounds like it's just as well
we were able to act so quickly in those days. Well, yes,
(33:02):
but we didn't really come into office until the twenty
sixth of July. The election was the fourteenth, and we
didn't take office till the twenty sixth. It was all
a bit ad hoc, and it had to be because
of the foreign exchange crisis. Yes, and somebody had to
call the shots. And since the Prime Minister wasn't the
(33:25):
existing Prime Minister, Muldern wasn't prepared to call the shots,
he had to be told to do so, and a
little bit of encouragement from the Governor General was necessary.
What a remarkable time you were the Health Minister in
that new government. And I'm guessing, without wanting to put
words in your mouth, I imagine it was probably not
(33:46):
dissimilar to the challenges that our current government has a
lot of things needing to be done and no money
to do it. Is that what you're up against.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
That's absolutely right. But more than that, there was a
new factor, and that new factor was that if we
were to squeeze inflation out of the country, there had
to be a clamp down on government spending. It meant
that every department was obliged to restrain new expenditure. We'll
(34:16):
tell that to a Minister of health. I mean, health
is always going to be needing more money, and it
does today, it did then, but I was on short
pay in rations and so new hospital buildings, for instance,
had to be restrained. We got some planning done for
(34:39):
the Starship Hospital, which we were able to start under me,
but several other buildings were restrained. The dates for construction
were put back, and I said that there should be
(34:59):
no major, new expensive things like I mean, it sounds
crazy now, but we had no MRI scans in those days,
and I said we won't have any for a while,
and nor did and I would we have heart transplants.
(35:23):
Well then some bugget tried to bust that by trying
to conduct a heart transplant in Wellington despite the Wellington
Hospital having told him not to, and that was a
great kerfuffle. But eventually we did have heart transplants, but
(35:46):
they weren't very successful.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
It's remarkable isn't it All these things we take for
granted nowadays, whether it's moving foreign exchange around, or heart
transplants or anything anything else. You governed through a period
where none of that stuff could be taken for granted.
It must be remarkable to look back on those times
with the knowledge and information you have today.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Oh absolutely, But I keep chuckling and smiling to myself,
of course, and thinking back and thinking, ho, gie, how
would I have handled that one?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah? Well, even the concept of a foreign foreign exchange
crisis because of one point eight million dollars you know,
nowadays one point eight million dollars doesn't even buy your
house in the middle of town.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
There was one point seven billion had escaped though during
the election campaign. During the campaign, and I was going
to obviously pick up because there was a new government
which everybody suspected would devalue the currency. And you could
just see key we sort of shipping their money off
overseas and then wanted to bring it back once the
(36:54):
devaluation had taken place. It was a real crisis.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Understandably. One of the legacies of that government, Michael, was
the nuclear free legislation. Of course, what brought it about?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
It had become a sort of a labor policy that
we wanted neither nuclear armed vessels nor nuclear powered vessels
in New Zealand. And what eventually triggered the problem was
the decision by the Americans to seek to send to
(37:35):
New Zealand a ship called the USS Buchanan I think
it was. And when we investigated it, Longie was pretty
certain that it was neither nuclear armed nor nuclear powered.
It belched smoke, which was a pretty good indicator that
(37:57):
it was all right. However, the party had gotten very excited,
and it was really just the question of having an
American vessel in the country that from a country that
specialized in nuclear power and nuclear arms, and LONGI buckled
(38:22):
it was pretty clear, as I say, that it was
neither nuclear powered nor nuclear armed. But because of the
protests that started when it became clear that the boat
was coming, he said, well, okay, it won't come, and
that began that led on to the crisis, and it's
(38:47):
played very well with the Oxford Union debate, which is
ready accepted an invitation to and so he became his
name became synonymous really with the anti nuclear legislation, given
(39:09):
that given.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
That nuclear energy in particular has proven to be a
reasonably safer option than perhaps we wondered in those days.
Do you think our nuclear position is still relevant?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Probably the nuclear arms, yes, but the nuclear power. I mean,
I've never my mother drove her car around would say
no to nuclear power on the back of it for years,
but I never really sort of thought there was much
in the opposition to nuclear power. And as time has
(39:46):
moved on since then, I'm absolutely sure that nuclear power
has got a future.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
You and Roger Douglas both left the Labor Party after
after you left government in nineteen ninety What was it
that drove the two of you away?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Funnily enough, what drove me away was the fact that
they didn't renew my membership automatically, and that was what
I'd been used to. But I was cooling on the
thrust of Helen Clark's opposition to the big changes of
(40:34):
the eighties. It was not a total opposition, to be
fair to Helen. She was critical of many aspects of
Roger's legislation, but she'd been involved herself in quite a
bit of it because she was a minister eighty seven
to ninety. But I really became interested. The push was
(41:02):
what was happening in the Labor Party. The pull was
the attraction of the new Act, the Association of Consumers
and Taxpayers. Yes, that Roger was forming. Roger was a
close friend and has been for a better part of
sixty years, and had lunch with him just the other day.
(41:27):
He's in good shape. But I mean I was quite
willing to contemplate more changes in the direction that Act
wanted to go economically, and it was pretty clear that
Labor wasn't.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Well.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
That government, of course, as I say, one of the
most transformative in our history. And it all wrapped up
in nineteen ninety after the resignation of David Longi and
he was replaced by Jeffrey Palmer. I think it was
am I correct, just before the election.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
No, it was little. It was really about in August
eighty nine David retired and Jeffrey Palmer had a year
as be but he was then ringbarked by Mike Moore
and I was actually out of the country at that time.
(42:30):
I was on my way to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
conference in Zimbabwe, and Mike Moore overthrew Palmer in effect
and was there for I think fifty nine days as
Prime Minister, then being defeated in the election at the
(42:52):
end of October nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
In nineteen ninety I'm always always amazed with people like you,
how you how you refer to dates. We'll be back
in a moment with doctor Michael Bassett and we'll talk
about a couple of other Labor governments that he wasn't
part of. Back on leaders getting coffee with doctor Michael Bassett. Michael,
(43:26):
since since you walked away from the seats of Parliament
or the houses of Parliament, of course, we've seen another
couple of Labor governments, the Helen Clark led government and
most recently just Sindra Adourns and to his small extent
at the end there Chris Hopkins leadership in two thousand
and seventeen to twenty twenty three. What are your recollections
(43:49):
of each of those governments and how do you rate them?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I reached Helen Clark's government fairly high. I mean, she is,
in my view, next to Peter Fraser in Labour's pantheon
of leaders, very able. If you have if you have
a discussion with Helen Clark, you'll be reeling by the
(44:16):
end of it. She's just she's a very powerful force
and wonderfully knowledgeable of the world around her. Most of
the things that her government did were sensible, and we've
got to remember that key we Saber was left behind
by that government. Her stunning achievement rarely and must be
(44:40):
important to large numbers of New Zealand. She also got
the foreshore and Seabed right, which sadly was undone in
twenty and eleven, and I see the National government is
finally gained to return us to something akin to what
(45:02):
the Foreshore and Seabed legislation had been in two thousand
and four, and quite a few other things she did
that were reasonably important at the time. But Cullen was
quite a good Minister of Finance.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Except he bought the railways a week before he got
tossed out of parliament.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Ha ha, yes, is the railways the dreaded railways. The
next government, that is, the durn Hipkins government, was a
rather pitiful affair. It came to office with no policy
(45:43):
and had about two hundred committees set up to give
it a policy, and it was really all just flim
flam and feel good stuff and be nice and be.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Kind and so on, all of which if you have
no guts is unkind Yes, And the worst thing you
can do to poor people is actually to tell them
that if they have more children, then particularly if they're
(46:21):
out of jobs and they're on benefits, if they have
more children they will be better off, which is what
Carmel Sebaloni did, meaning of course that the total number
of poor children rose rapidly.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
The incentives were to have more children, yes, and that
does nothing to solve poverty and nothing to help those
poor children, and so on. I mean, most of the things.
The restructuring of the health system at the time of
(46:58):
the pandemic was mind bogglingly stupid. I still, as a
former Minister of Health sort of think back on it
and think what a crazy thing to do. But they
did it. And of course all the failure to recognize
(47:20):
the special problems that mariy have and thinking that somehow
or other, just by setting up a Mari Health Authority
that you were going to solve their problems. In fact,
something much more strict and stern is needed than that
(47:41):
to solve the manifold problems in Mari health.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Absolutely, and now we're paying the price. I mean, your
government had to come in and fix a lot of stuff.
Do you see similarities between then and what Christopher Luxen's
government is now having to deal with.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yes. Unfortunately I don't see a Roger Douglas in the
system anywhere, which is a bit of a pity. And
David Seymour, in my view, is far and away the
most able of the politicians, but he's just one of three.
And I think the government, the new government is sort
(48:21):
of scratching along in the right direction. But one of
the things that I learned out of politics was that
with three year cycles for government, you've got to move quickly. Yes,
and there are quite a lot of things which are
going not to be germinating properly by the time of
(48:44):
the next election because this government is dawdling along.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
They're not going fast enough. Michael. One of your books
is called New Zealand's Prime Ministers From Dick Seddon to
John Key. You're kind enough to givet me a copy
and I have flipped through some of the chapters, but
I couldn't possibly say I've read at all. Who do
you think is our greatest prime Minister? Do you have
a view on who our greatest prime minister is.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Peter Fraser. Peter Fraser, wartime Prime minister nineteen forty to
forty nine, an extraordinary individual, manifold problems he dealt with,
and there really were only about two or three ministers
in his government, Peter Fraser, Walter Nash, and or two
(49:36):
or three others are Arnold Nordmeyer in the later stages,
the only two or three who were really able, and
Fraser carried this enormous load. The next most important after him,
I think would be Sadden. The first one. Sidden is
still our longest serving prime minister, thirteen and a half
(49:59):
thirteen year is in one month, followed very closely by
William Ferguson, Massey and front Off too were twenty five
whose thirteen years exactly. But I would I would rate
(50:20):
Fraser one, Sadden too, possibly Helen Clark. Three.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
There you go. Okay, we've been talking history, folks. We're
going to come back shortly and talk about the current
state of the world where with doctor Michael Bassett, political historian,
former Labor Party cabinet minister. We'll be back in a moment,
(50:55):
back with doctor Michael Bassett. Michael, as I mentioned, and
the introduction, you were on the White Tanni Tribunal for
ten years. There's plenty of I guess there's always plenty
of chat around the White Tanny Tribunal, but some of
the chatter at the moment is whether it's serving its
purpose in today's environment. Do you have thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
I do. It's going way beyond its brief It is
acting like it thinks it is a judicial organization. It
is not. It's only got a couple of lawyers anywhere
near it, and it's really outrun its usefulness. It was
(51:42):
originally principally just to try and make sure that the
principles undefined, which was a big pity that they were
undefined in nineteen seventy five. The principles of the treaty
are adhered to, but it became very much involved in
(52:02):
the hearings and decision making and advice over grievances dating
back to eighteen forty and that was the part that
I was involved with it. During my decade. I sat
on a number of cases. Well, the historical cases ceased
in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
I want to just talk briefly if I can, about
the state of the world. It's an interesting old time
We've already touched on the US presidential elections, the Palestinian conflict,
the Ukraine, massive immigration crisis in Europe in particular, and
we're seeing some reaction to that at the moment, and
(52:43):
not all of that is positive, and of course the
surge of right wing parties in Europe, which is probably
in response to that. What's your assessment of that very
sort of convoluted and mixed up state of the world.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Well, the world's not a happy place. There's no doubt
about that. There is a rogue element at work that
is more the cause of problems than anything else, and
that's Russia, a declining power now the eleventh biggest economy
(53:20):
in the world, and going downwards and running out of
eventually running out of oil, but determined to try to
act like it was at the end of the Second
World War before it lost all its Eastern europe satellites,
(53:42):
and that is causing difficulties in Europe. It's behind much
of the trouble, not just Ukraine, but the unease in
the Baltic republics, in Poland and elsewhere, Belarus, and in
(54:02):
the other Russian x Russian places Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan and
all the rest of it. The other major change that
is taking place that the world needs to get its
head around is the rise of China. I mean, it
is now the second biggest economy in the world, albeit
(54:26):
struggling a bit at present and uneasy and trying to
throw its weight around rather more than is comfortable for people.
If I was a Taiwanese, I would be terribly worried
about China. It's pretty clear they intend to invade China.
(54:49):
Why I'm blessed of I know. I can only assume
it's because they can't live with one China two systems.
They've got to bring Taiwan under Jijingpeng and the Communist Party,
Whereas it's perfectly clear that Taiwan operates rather efficiently and
(55:10):
effectively and in a popular sense with its people with
the structure that it's got. But so China is a
real problem we've got to deal with. And then the
state of democracy in the so called democracies is a problem.
(55:34):
Thank god for Britain it's behaving as normal, and Canada
and Australia and New Zealand and most of Europe, but
they're all struggling a bit with the far right, but
America has really got a major problem on its hands.
(55:57):
The surplus people in the world are one of the
biggest problems. Yes, I mean, I think if the world
had two billion fewer people, the climate would be better,
(56:20):
climate change problems would be better, and we'd have less
problems at the American border. We'd have less problems of
people trying to cross the English Channel, we'd have less
problems of people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, and
so on. I mean, surplus people are a real problem
(56:45):
in today's world, and I am one of those who
thinks that population control needs to be given a great
deal more airing than it is given. I think there
need to be incentives for people to have no more
than two children. And I'm sorry if that offends some religions, but.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
Probably off probably offends a lot of people. But but
to a degree, the societies you've mentioned have self selected.
You know, the great majority of people in this country
or Australia probably do only have two or three children.
But but there's an element of self selection in some countries,
(57:35):
but in other countries that doesn't seem to be the case.
I'm interested in your view of the outlook for our
political parties. You know, we've been we're still sort of
scrambling along with an m MP system that doesn't quite work,
but but is what we've got. We've we've got an
(57:58):
interesting situation at the moment where particularly the political left Labor, Labor,
the Greens and Tipati Mario are it. Look it appears
certainly sort of fighting for a small part of the vote.
You've got a Labor party that's been in government, that
hasn't made a heck of a lot of changes to
(58:19):
its leadership since losing an election quite badly eight months ago.
What's your view of the outlook for political parties and
probably in particular your old party, the Labor Party.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Well, my view is that they really are any signs
of being serious about getting back into office. One of
the silliest speeches I think Hipkins has ever given was
given yesterday where books to Whui and it's all couched
(58:52):
in pro MARII stuff. And I think what Labor is
trying to do is to claw or back the Mari vote.
But the Mari vote only constitutes about nineteen percent yes,
with a fair win behind it, probably seventeen percent. If
(59:15):
you can get them out to vote and Maria are
poorer voters than Paka by large. Why he would be
spending doing time doing that and losing all the non
Maori vote as he about it just biggest imagination. I mean,
(59:38):
one of the big lessons of the twenty twenty three
election was that New New Zealanders are really very very
irt at mari crime and Maria are so disproportionately associated
with crime in the country that it is as serious issue.
(01:00:02):
And I mean those seats that flicked over to National
new Linn it had been Labor since a by election
in nineteen twenty six for Pete's sake, and it goes
to National, Rascal goes to National Takaninni mung A Kiirkire.
(01:00:23):
I mean, you know they just simply got bold and
what are they doing. They're chasing after the same policies.
It's got them booted out. Yeah, crazy stuff. So I
until I think the Labor Party comes to its sensors
and it requires new leadership, clearly. But from where I'm
(01:00:50):
completely unaware of anybody in the Labor Party who has
a David Longie, Norman Kirk, Helen Clark look about them,
just not or even a tenth of them. Yes, the
National Party. It's the National Party that's been around all
(01:01:15):
my life life. It likes to administer the status quo.
It's happier doing that, and it is quite good administering
the status quo, to be fair, but it's not adventuresome,
and in Christopher Luckson's case, suffers from somebody who is
(01:01:36):
so new to politics that he's being obliged to learn
at you know, the speed of sound, speed of light, really,
and it's tricky for him. Yes, I just wish this
is going back to what we said earlier. I just
wish they could get on with things a little bit
(01:01:58):
more rapidly than they than they are. The Greens are
a weird assemblage. I mean, not to put too fine
a point on it, it seems to have become a
party for funny women. I mean you've had Elizabeth Kerry
Kerry and Goldritz Garaman and Darlen Tana and oh there's
(01:02:22):
at least one or two others who are strange. Julianne Jenna.
I mean, and this business over whether to use the
walker jumping legislation, I mean, that's just bizarre by any measure.
(01:02:44):
Somebody who is elected to Parliament on a list to
go along with that list's policies. Who then either leaves
or is thrown out of the party is no longer
used to the party who's list thereon, And since we've
(01:03:08):
got a proportional representational system, that person's got to go. Yeah,
it should be pretty straightforward, shouldn't it Quite straightforward?
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
If you're writing the political history of New Zealand and
twenty forty, what would you like to be saying that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
We've got a big fight to stay afloat, and that
we will not stay afloat if we give special privileges
to anybody, any segment of the population, on the basis
of race or color, or religion or anything, and that
(01:03:51):
we all are in the boat together, and we it's
Article three of the treaty is vital. Article All the rights,
privileges and responsibilities are to be shared by everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Be great if we could get to that point in
sixteen years years.
Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
And yet that will be, of course, the two centuries
on from the treaty, and a very good time to
reassess the meaning of the treaty, which people are increasingly forgetting.
I mean, neither Labor nor the Greens and particularly the
(01:04:42):
Mari Party, seem to have any respect for the wording
of the treaty at all. I mean, I saw an
interview on Jack Thames interview with Debi ma Riwapaka where
she said Marie didn't see sovereignty. Well I'm done if
I know which article of the treaty he was reading.
I mean, the treaty is absolutely seed sovereignty forever.
Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yes, well, at least that's what we all thought. Michael.
I've only I've only got a couple of questions for you,
and one of them is the one I ask everybody.
If you could be the prime minister for a day,
and you've been closer to it than most, But if
you could be the prime minister for a day, what's
the one thing you'd like to do?
Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Turn it into a second day. I think you never
achieved very much in one day. As I discovered in politics,
politics is for the long haul, and it's more particularly
for the long haul under MMP. Probably if I was
Prime Minister for the day, getting rid of MMP would
(01:05:53):
be what I would do. I don't think first past
the posts an absolutely wonderful system. Isn't a perfect system
for democracy anywhere in the world. But I'll tell you
what first. The post is better than MMP because it
makes it possible for governments to do things more easily
(01:06:17):
than mm MMP is a break on reform, and it
is no accident that under MMP, New Zealand seems to
be going downhill.
Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Very interesting words. What are you doing now, Michael? You
you should have retired a hundred times by now, But
I notice you're still writing, and you're and you're still researching.
And I guess you can take the boy out of
the university, but you can't take the university out of
the boy. What are you doing with your life today? Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
I write a blog, I read a lot. I'm catching
up on stuff that I should have read years ago,
and listening to music. We didn't touch on it, but
it's been one of the passions of my life. Music.
I came from a very musical family. My father was
(01:07:12):
a very good pianist and an organ player, and my
mother and family were singers, and I was a singer
and as a kid, and I was part of the
Do With School quartet that won the quartet section of
(01:07:36):
the Auckland Competitions in nineteen fifty one, and we sang
around the city, and so I've always been interested in music.
I have twelve hundred CDs. Many I'm staring up above here.
You can't see it, but I've got a large number
(01:07:56):
of them on the shelf above you right now. Not
crash them on to you. So music is good fun,
reading is good fun. And taking an interest in my family.
I've got three quenchldren. One is currently traveling in the
Baltic States. She's the qualified, fully qualified nurse right off
(01:08:21):
at the age of twenty six to on her first oe.
And I've got a seventeen year old at Autin Grammar
a boy, and a fifteen year old at Parnell College
ACG a boy. And you know, keeping an interest in
them and doing little bits to help them is a
(01:08:44):
part of my life too.
Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Well. It's been a busy life, it's been an effective life,
and you deserve to go and spend some time with
your grandchildren. Doctor Michael Bassett, I knew we'd be over time.
We are over time. Thank you for joining us on
leaders getting coffee. I feel we could keep going. There's
all sorts of things we could talk about, but I
do appreciate you taking time out of those grandfatherly duties
(01:09:09):
and the music and the reading to join us, to
share your story with us. But most importantly, I'd like
to thank you for the contribution you have made and
continue to make to this little country. So doctor Michael Bassett,
thanks for joining us on leaders Getting Coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Thank you, Bruce so pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Finally, folks, my leadership tip of the week. Given the
topic today, I couldn't resist this one. It's short and sweet.
If we don't learn from history, we will become history.
If we don't learn from history, we will become history.
And of course we've been with one of the country's
best known historians for the last hour or so. That's
it from us for a couple another couple of weeks.
(01:09:48):
Thanks for joining us on leaders Getting Coffee, episode number
twenty three with our guest, doctor Michael Bassett. If you
have any feedback, please get in touch at info at
leaders Getting Coffee dot com. Remember that our favorite charity
is Bike for Blokes dot co dot Nz. And we'll
see you soon with another New Zealander and another leadership story.
Until then, have a great couple of weeks and we'll
(01:10:09):
catch up soon.
Hi, everyone, it's Bruce Cottrell here and it's great to
welcome you back to Leaders Getting Coffee. As you might know,
we've had a break for a couple of weeks, but
it's good to be back in New Zealand and back
with episode twenty three of the Leaders Getting Coffee podcast.
I've just spent a couple of weeks in the US,
primarily in the Southern States Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana.
(00:38):
I was there during the presidential debate and much of
the fallout that followed that, and it's fascinating talking to
Americans about their politics, especially in that part of the country.
They're animated, opinionated, and largely unhappy with the current Democratic
led government. So if you go there, especially in the
next few months, you'll probably get a pretty clear view
(01:01):
that Trump will be the next president, which is kind
of interesting in itself, and after seeing that all play
out in person, the aftermath of the Trump shooting has
been most interesting. One of the things that President Biden
got right in the aftermath of that incident was when
he spoke about the need for Americans to lower the
temperature in their politics. He went on to say that
(01:22):
we may disagree, but we're not enemies. And that message
rang a bell for me, not just because of what
I saw and heard in the US, but also because
I believe that we could do with hearing that message
here in New Zealand too. In my most recent New
Zealand Herald column, I suggested that the weaponization of language
that has been a feature in the behavior of both
(01:44):
our Green Party anti party Mary could be rained in
a bit because if we don't, I'm not sure where
that stops, and we're sure as heck don't want to
end up in the state that the US is in.
I'm not going to dwell on that any further here.
You can read more in my column in the New
Zealand Herald Online. The headline reads Donald Trump assassination attempt
(02:07):
and the rising temperature in our politics. Go to NZ
Herald dot co dot nz, or you can check check
it out under published articles on my website dubdubdub dot
Bruce Catturle dot com. Those of us old enough to remember,
we'll know that it's forty years forty years four zero,
that is, folks, since the arrival of the very transformative
(02:31):
Fourth Labor Government under the leadership of that wonderful orator
David Longi today's guest on leaders Getting Coffee served in
the inner circle of that government, and we'll be back
in a moment with that person. Welcome back to Leaders
(02:57):
getting Coffee. This week's guest reached out to me after
an article I wrote a year or so ago. I'd
never met him, although I definitely knew who he was.
But we met over lunch and I found his knowledge
of our political history and his views on the present
absolutely fascinating. And every time I start thinking that I've
had a busy life, someone like doctor Michael Bassett turns
(03:19):
up and puts us all to shame. He was born
in Auckland. There as an Aucklander through and through, and
like many of our guests, his career takes some time
to work through. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from
Auckland University. He won the James B. Duke Fellowship to
attend Duke University in the United States in the nineteen sixties,
where he completed a PhD in American history. He returned
(03:42):
as a lecturer at the University of Auckland and was
elected to the Auckland City Council on nineteen seventy one
and to New Zealand's Parliament a year later in nineteen
seventy two. He was a backbeach MP in the Labour
governments of Prime Ministers Norman Kirk and Bill Rowling, and
then He's He sat in opposition for nine years and
watched the Rob Muldoon government in action, but it was
(04:07):
as a key member of David Longy's team, the so
called Kitchen Cabinet, alongside Longey, Douglas and Mike Moore, that
he made his name. He was Minister of Health and
Local Government from nineteen eighty four to nineteen eighty seven,
Minister of Internal Affairs, Local Government, Civil Defense and Arts
and Culture in the following term. He retired from politics
in nineteen ninety after eighteen years as an MP, and
(04:29):
became chairman of the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board and
of the nineteen ninety commission that commemorated one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of White Tangy. Later,
he spent ten years on the Whiteitangy Tribunal as a
member of the Tribunal, and in two thousand and two.
He was a full Bright Professor of New Zealand Studies
at Georgetown University in Washington, d C. Between two thousand
(04:52):
and nine two thy thirteen he was a board member
at the New Zealand at the Museum of New Zealand
at Tipapa in Wellington. Most notably, Michael Bassett is New
Zealand's best non political historian. He's the author of fifteen books,
mainly mainly with a political or a business theme. His
specialty is political biography and he's written books on former
(05:15):
Prime minister's Peter Fraser, the Labour leader from the nineteen forties,
Gordon Coates, prime minister in the twenties nineteen twenties that
is one hundred or so years ago, and Sir Joseph Ward,
who served twice as our Prime Minister in the early
nineteen hundreds and again in the late twenties. He also
wrote the biography of David Longe, his former colleague. His
(05:35):
business biographies include subjects such as Roderick Dean, the Babbage
family of wine making fame, and the Meyers family of
b famg there's a theme there, isn't there. And he's
a regular columnist of course, he runs the Bassett, Brash
and Hyde website alongside a couple of other former politicians
you might have heard of, and in the New Year's
Honors in twenty eighteen, Dr Bassett was appointed a Companion
(05:58):
of the New Zealand Order of Men for his services
to history. He's married to Judith, herself formally active in
local government. They have two grown up children, Emma and Sam.
One's a lawyer, one's an accountant, so he's got all
that covered and that's a great pleasure therefore to welcome
doctor Michael Bassett to leaders getting coffee, getdo Michael.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Morning, Bruce. That was quite an introduction. I'm not sure
it is time that I rolled over and shoveled off.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
No, no, no, don't do that. You've it's only a
big introduction because you've been a busy fellow and that last.
But I see, I see. You were a Minister of
Health and your wife was the chair of the Auckland
Area Health Board. So I bet that made some for
some interesting dinner table conversations, did it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, we weren't to Actually she wasn't chair while I
was Minister of Health. She was deputy chair and by
the time By the time she became the chair, I
was no longer Minister of Health, but of course we
had plenty of to chat about, and for me as Minister,
it was enormously useful to know what precisely was going
(07:05):
on at the board level, and Auckland was the biggest
board by far in those days. Subsequently they changed the
boundaries and so on.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yes, of course it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Was useful.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
You're in Auckland, are born and bred. As I said,
where did you go to high school?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I went to well two really. First of all, after
my father died when I was very young, I went
to do With school and I was there for the
third form and fourth forms, and then I went to
Mount Albert Grammar, which was just down the road from home,
and so I went through until going on to university.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So your high school years were the nineteen fifties. What
was school like then? Do you have any memories of
school in those days?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Not? They were not quite as big as today. I
was involved in twenty twenty two in the centennial activities
at Mount Albert Grammar and was stunned at the size
of the place. That's because they now have girls as
well as boys, and it's got a. I think about
(08:20):
three one hundred students. Well, we were pushing about nine
hundred to one thousand in my day. It's a very
cramped site now compared with what it was in those days,
but an interesting place with a rather distinguished both academic
(08:41):
and sporting background.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Of course, what were you like at school? Were you
a history geek? Then ordered the history? The interest in
history come later. I was always interested in history. I'm
not quite sure why, but I've got a good memory,
and at least I used to have. Now it plays
the occasional trick on me. But I enjoyed, particularly reading
(09:11):
newspapers when I was dull with school.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I used to skip out immediately after breakfast and into
the newspaper the library and read the newspaper ahead of
the rest of the guys, and with a reasonably good memory,
I had a handle on what was going on.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Well, those were the days when newspapers was the only
access to what was going on. And hasn't the world
changed since then?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Sure has not for the better, I don't think, either
at the newspaper level, or for that matter, of the
radio level. Television, of course is news since those days.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yes, sure, of course you went to Auckland University, and
then something that would have been most unusual for those
times in the early nineteen sixties, a scholarship at Duke
University in the USA. How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, I knew I wanted to study. I wanted to
go overseas. Like most kids in those days, I wanted
to study some more, and I really had my mindset
on teaching, and not at school level, but I really
wanted to teach at the university level. Well, there weren't
(10:23):
all that many opportunities to go overseas, at least in
ones that would pay for me to study. And I
got admission to a couple of places, Stanford and to
London School of Economics. But Duke gave me a bursary,
(10:43):
all fees paid, and three thousand dollars a year American
and that was a princess ransom in those days. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Absolutely, So had you been overseas before?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, I hadn't even been to Australia. I mean that's
I remember boarding the ship on my way to the
United States and thinking as we went out past Waheki Island,
this is as far as I've been from New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Wow, one an adventure for a young man. What are
your lasting lasting memories from that time at Duke University.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, I was there for the almost the entire Kennedy years, right,
and he'd been a president for about five months when
I arrived, and I was there through his assassination and burial,
and then I headed off to Europe and home. My
(11:50):
most abiding memories of the US in those days were
really the fact that I was in the border south
North Carolina and it was completely wrapped up, as indeed
much of the country was, but particularly the South with
the racial tensions and the NAACP, the National ad Association
(12:19):
for the Advancement of Colored People, had been through North
Carolina just before I arrived, and there were all sorts
of demonstrations going on, and I was sorely tempted to
get involved in some of them. But the big argument
that the defenders of segregation advanced was that it was
(12:43):
only outsiders who wanted to change things. Well, you, if
you looked around and saw the New Zealanders, you had
the perfect outsider would So I had to be pretty
careful that I was there in spirit.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Sure, So so that period, you know, the American university system,
I guess was became quite activist during the nineteen sixties.
That were, as you say, the matters of race, but
also of course the Vietnam War, and that all culminated
in the tragedy at Kent State a few years after
(13:23):
you wrapped up there. Had so the activism had clearly
started while you were there, did it. Were you ever
in a position where it was getting out of control?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Not really. It was almost completely associated with race and
with an end to segregation in my time. But it's
nineteen sixty four that really Vietnam starts to ramp up
and Lyndon Johnson sent I forget what his name was.
(13:59):
He'd been these for Massachusetts and he was off to
round up more flags to fly with Americas in Vietnam,
and he came to New Zealand and we under the
Holy Government made the decision to send a contribution to Vietnam,
(14:21):
not a very big one, twenty three people to start with,
and that decision was made in May of nineteen sixty five,
by which time I was back home and I was
the involved with the anti Vietnam agitation. From me, it
(14:42):
just I knew enough about Asia and American foreign policy
to realize that the Americans were getting themselves involved in
what amounted to a civil war, and you never yet
involved in other people's civil wars if you're serious about winning.
So I was strongly opposed to us getting involved and
(15:07):
thought the Americans were fool hardy to have done so too.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So, after being forced to sit on the sidelines in America,
you were probably sort of championing at the bit to
get involved when you got back home. Were you?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I was really years. I was pretty keen, and I
it was my first year of marriage and my first
year teaching at the university in nineteen sixty four, and
so I was pretty busy. But I somehow or other
managed to make time. I don't know, looking back on it,
(15:42):
how I managed it right?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Was there a temptation to stay in the US? You know,
you came home to teach history at the university. I know,
but you know, for a young man, those sort of
experiences are life changing. Were you tempted to stay?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
No, I wanted to come home. By then, I was
pretty clear that I wanted to have a go at politics, right.
I had while I was a student in the US
and dealing with American politics. I would read the New
York times religiously every day. I spent an hour on
it every day, just making I sure that I understood
(16:23):
how the American system worked. And then I wrote about
American politics, and so I was keen to get involved
in our politics, which by that time I was quite
keen about.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So then you came back and you straight into the
Auckland Council a few years later after lecturing at the university,
and then a year later into government politics where with
doctor Michael Bassett, and we'll be back shortly talking about
central government, back with doctor Michael Bassett. As I said
(17:12):
in nineteen seventy one, you went into the Auckland Council,
but you weren't there for long because central government beckoned
and you didn't just go into government. You went into
the time that the party you were representing became the
party of government. And that of course was under Norman Kirk,
the Prime Minister who became Prime Minister in nineteen seventy two.
(17:34):
And Norman Kirk was something of a beacon of hope
to the working man, wasn't he. And we had television
in those days, but nowhere near the insight that today's
media gives us. What can you tell us about the
man known as Big Norm.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Well, he was well known as Big Normal. He was
a huge fellow. When you shook his hand, it was
like shaking a lamb roast or something or other. He
was almost big fist, and he had a booming voice
which he could alternate. He could bring the rafters down,
(18:13):
or he had a stentorian whisper, if that isn't an oxymoron.
And he was a remarkable individual, wonderful, wonderfully gifted phrases,
many of which were too crude for the program. And
(18:33):
he was very insightful into people, very clever at managing
his caucus. Not blessed with a very good cabinet, unfortunately
he had. Most of his ministers were people who had
(18:54):
been in Parliament for almost too long and they were
past their prime. And Norm was aware of the fact
that he had some reasonably talented people on the back benches,
and he was starting to play around with ways in
(19:14):
which he could restructure his government when he suddenly got ill, Well,
he didn't suddenly got to get ill. He foolishly decided
that he would go into hospital and have his varicus
veins operated on, and he would do not one leg
at a time, but both of them at once, and
(19:37):
he a blood clot started to move around his body
and he never really fully recovered, and eventually the blood
clot killed him about five months later.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
So he was our last prime minister to die in office,
as I recall it. He was replaced by Bill Rolt
Bill Rowling, who was nowhere near the personality was he?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
No? No, Bill was a nice guy and quite an
able fellow. He had an economics degree, but he was
not not really an economist as today's economists would understand it. Yeah,
but he had some difficulty putting his cabinet together too.
(20:29):
And again really, by the time Muldoon was in full flight,
the rolling cabinet just wasn't up to fighting.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yes, sure, well, Norm Kirk, I think he's also the
last prime minister there was ever a song about. There
was a song called Big Norm. You might recall back in.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Those days, so I can't recall. I couldn't sing it
for you.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But no neither good eye you then, as you've just
touched on, you then sat on the sidelines in opposition
for nine.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Years while I was out of parliament seventy you were sorry, Yes,
I lost lost my seat of White matter, and I
then came back as the MP four Tiata to which
was a blessing because it was about a fraction the
size of the old White Matter. I could drive from
(21:25):
one end to the other in seven minutes, whereas it
was an hour and a half from one end to
the other in the old White Matter.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I don't think you could drive anywhere in Auckland in
seven minutes nowadays, but anyway, but you did have the
unique opportunity to observe the Rob Muldoon prime ministership. He
presided over the country and its finances from seventy five
to eighty four. What are your recollections of that period?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Not very pleasurable, most of them I found. And I
always thought him a pretty poisonous individual, and I didn't
think that he really understood not that I was very good,
and I don't hold myself out to be an economist,
but I don't think Muldoon had much economic skill either.
(22:19):
But he was both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance,
which was a combination that we've never had since, and
we suffered badly as a result of it. And I
don't think there's a minister from that period of time.
And I know quite a few of them who would
(22:40):
say other than that it was an appalling combination of
the two together. The result was that we drifted into
over expenditure, into an inflationary situation and a gross overspending
on the think big projects, and eventually we ended up
(23:02):
with the wage price freeze in nineteen eighty two, which
was a crazy system really where wages were clamped tight.
Prices were theoretically clamped, but the clamp wasn't total. And
how did you get out of it? Eventually you have
(23:25):
to get back to a more free flowing economy. And
neither Muldoon nor We've had a bright idea until really
Roger took advice from the best, Roger Douglas, from the
best economists in Treasury, and we finally got out of
(23:47):
the wage price freeze.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Well, you're sort of jumping the gun on mere but Michael,
because you're absolutely right. After that long period opposition, and
as I said in the introduct forty years ago, which
is actually what prompted me to when I realized it
was forty years was what prompted me to call you
a few weeks ago, and Muldoon called the early election.
(24:10):
Of course, some would say that he'd had had a
couple of shandies that evening before he did so.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I don't think it was any doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It was either and Labour won the Treasury benches back
under the under the leadership of David LONGI what's your
what's your recollection of that night the election was called.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Of the night the election was called, I was down
in the basement actually working on reading some old newspapers
for the biography of Sir Joseph Ward, and I came
I came back up into the house about nine thirty five,
and the buzz was going around. Muldoon has called a
(25:00):
caucus of his members as soon as the house rises.
What could this mean? And there was a suspicion that
he might be going to try and have an early election.
And David Longey said to us, all, I want you
all in my study immediately the house rises, So all
(25:21):
of the caucus members on our side went there, while
the National Party's caucus was being told by Muldoon that
he was going up to Government House to seek a
dissolution and for an early election. On the fourteenth of July,
Well Longee made a brief attempt to contact the governor
(25:48):
generals saying that we would have a go at forming
a government. Remember, the numbers were very very tight, I
think yes, at an overall majority of two, and we
thought maybe he might agree to that, but he'd already
granted the dissolution by the time we got through, and
(26:12):
so it was all on. And the decision was made
immediately that we would go crazy over the weekend and
rolling people because we knew the time frame was very short.
And secondly, policy had to be dreamed up as best possible,
(26:34):
and I was put in charge of some of that,
Jeffrey Palmer and I, and it was one hectic month
which LONGI really increasingly came to dominate. Muldoon was not
(26:55):
only not looking very well, I don't think he was
very well, and I think Barry Gerstaffson says that in
his biography.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Of Yes, Yeah, Yeah, I remember the time. I was
only a young fellow. But it was a news flash
moment on the black and white TV late one evening,
and all of a sudden we were going to the
polls in four or five weeks, and that of course
heralded the David Longe era, which you were an integral
(27:26):
part of. Was LONGI the tortured genius that he seemed.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
He became so as his health deteriorated. At his best,
he was just amazing, the fastest mind I think I've
ever even today forty years on, the fastest mind I've
ever had anything to do with. He could anticipate what
(27:55):
people were going to say, and you would start to
talk to him and his mind disappeared on racing past
you and he would guess what it was you were
saying about to say. And of course he was gifted
with his extraordinary voice and a capacity for language. He's
(28:19):
just a cousin of mine and his father brought me
into the world. He was a medical practitioner and o
to who in Auckland, and he had a wonderful gift
of the gab. Uncle Roy I remember him well, And
David was a chip off the old block.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
So as you've touched on, the country was an economic
turmoil really at the time you're That government that you
were part of became probably one of the most transformative
governments we've had in our history. Roger Douglas was the
financial architect of all of that. Did you know what
(29:05):
you were in for when you opened the books?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Not fully, and that's one of the reasons why we
opened them first time. It had really been done in
the scale to which it was. I think sitting behind
me on a shelf is one of the key books,
and it really just told the state of the economy.
(29:34):
We knew things would be pretty bad. We had to
appreciate what we were in for because of the run
on the dollar. I mean, on the Friday before the election,
one point eight million I think flowed out of the
(29:57):
country and one point seven billion had flowed out in
the month before election day. And the Reserve Bank had
asked Muldoon on the Friday, the day before the election,
could they close the foreign exchange market. He said, so
(30:22):
the next day is election day, and on the Sunday morning,
the head of the Prime Minister's Department, the governor of
the Reserve Bank, and the head of Treasury got together
and said, look, we cannot allow the foreign markets to
(30:45):
stay open until the value of the dollar has been settled.
And Muldoon wouldn't take the phone call. He had his
phone off.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
So the decision was taken late in the day on
the Sunday to close the foreign exchange markets by the
officials with the concurrence of the incoming government, and on
the Monday, long and Muldoon debated on television whether or
(31:20):
not devaluation had to take place. Muldoon had a crazy
notion that it could be prevented, and Longee ticked him off.
And the next day we chose the new cabinet. And
on the Wednesday, the new cabinet of which I was
(31:42):
a member, met with the officials and we decided that
we wanted a twenty percent devaluation. We were going to
accept their recommendation. Muldoon, meantime, had been holding out, but
he was told by Jim McLay, who was his deputy,
(32:04):
that Sir David Beatty had informed him that if Muldoon
would not implement what the incoming government told him to do,
then he, the Governor General, would fire him. And Muldoon thought,
that's an ignominious end to my career and decided with
(32:24):
a very bad grace to implement the devaluation. And so
on the Wednesday morning, around about midday, I think, the
foreign exchange markets opened with the dollar devalued by twenty percent.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
One of the most telling aspects of that story, all
these years later is of course that you had an
election on the Saturday and you were in business and
operating on the Monday. That doesn't happen anymore in an
MMP world. But it sounds like it's just as well
we were able to act so quickly in those days. Well, yes,
(33:02):
but we didn't really come into office until the twenty
sixth of July. The election was the fourteenth, and we
didn't take office till the twenty sixth. It was all
a bit ad hoc, and it had to be because
of the foreign exchange crisis. Yes, and somebody had to
call the shots. And since the Prime Minister wasn't the
(33:25):
existing Prime Minister, Muldern wasn't prepared to call the shots,
he had to be told to do so, and a
little bit of encouragement from the Governor General was necessary.
What a remarkable time you were the Health Minister in
that new government. And I'm guessing, without wanting to put
words in your mouth, I imagine it was probably not
(33:46):
dissimilar to the challenges that our current government has a
lot of things needing to be done and no money
to do it. Is that what you're up against.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
That's absolutely right. But more than that, there was a
new factor, and that new factor was that if we
were to squeeze inflation out of the country, there had
to be a clamp down on government spending. It meant
that every department was obliged to restrain new expenditure. We'll
(34:16):
tell that to a Minister of health. I mean, health
is always going to be needing more money, and it
does today, it did then, but I was on short
pay in rations and so new hospital buildings, for instance,
had to be restrained. We got some planning done for
(34:39):
the Starship Hospital, which we were able to start under me,
but several other buildings were restrained. The dates for construction
were put back, and I said that there should be
(34:59):
no major, new expensive things like I mean, it sounds
crazy now, but we had no MRI scans in those days,
and I said we won't have any for a while,
and nor did and I would we have heart transplants.
(35:23):
Well then some bugget tried to bust that by trying
to conduct a heart transplant in Wellington despite the Wellington
Hospital having told him not to, and that was a
great kerfuffle. But eventually we did have heart transplants, but
(35:46):
they weren't very successful.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
It's remarkable isn't it All these things we take for
granted nowadays, whether it's moving foreign exchange around, or heart
transplants or anything anything else. You governed through a period
where none of that stuff could be taken for granted.
It must be remarkable to look back on those times
with the knowledge and information you have today.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Oh absolutely, But I keep chuckling and smiling to myself,
of course, and thinking back and thinking, ho, gie, how
would I have handled that one?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah? Well, even the concept of a foreign foreign exchange
crisis because of one point eight million dollars you know,
nowadays one point eight million dollars doesn't even buy your
house in the middle of town.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
There was one point seven billion had escaped though during
the election campaign. During the campaign, and I was going
to obviously pick up because there was a new government
which everybody suspected would devalue the currency. And you could
just see key we sort of shipping their money off
overseas and then wanted to bring it back once the
(36:54):
devaluation had taken place. It was a real crisis.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Understandably. One of the legacies of that government, Michael, was
the nuclear free legislation. Of course, what brought it about?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
It had become a sort of a labor policy that
we wanted neither nuclear armed vessels nor nuclear powered vessels
in New Zealand. And what eventually triggered the problem was
the decision by the Americans to seek to send to
(37:35):
New Zealand a ship called the USS Buchanan I think
it was. And when we investigated it, Longie was pretty
certain that it was neither nuclear armed nor nuclear powered.
It belched smoke, which was a pretty good indicator that
(37:57):
it was all right. However, the party had gotten very excited,
and it was really just the question of having an
American vessel in the country that from a country that
specialized in nuclear power and nuclear arms, and LONGI buckled
(38:22):
it was pretty clear, as I say, that it was
neither nuclear powered nor nuclear armed. But because of the
protests that started when it became clear that the boat
was coming, he said, well, okay, it won't come, and
that began that led on to the crisis, and it's
(38:47):
played very well with the Oxford Union debate, which is
ready accepted an invitation to and so he became his
name became synonymous really with the anti nuclear legislation, given
(39:09):
that given.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
That nuclear energy in particular has proven to be a
reasonably safer option than perhaps we wondered in those days.
Do you think our nuclear position is still relevant?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Probably the nuclear arms, yes, but the nuclear power. I mean,
I've never my mother drove her car around would say
no to nuclear power on the back of it for years,
but I never really sort of thought there was much
in the opposition to nuclear power. And as time has
(39:46):
moved on since then, I'm absolutely sure that nuclear power
has got a future.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
You and Roger Douglas both left the Labor Party after
after you left government in nineteen ninety What was it
that drove the two of you away?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Funnily enough, what drove me away was the fact that
they didn't renew my membership automatically, and that was what
I'd been used to. But I was cooling on the
thrust of Helen Clark's opposition to the big changes of
(40:34):
the eighties. It was not a total opposition, to be
fair to Helen. She was critical of many aspects of
Roger's legislation, but she'd been involved herself in quite a
bit of it because she was a minister eighty seven
to ninety. But I really became interested. The push was
(41:02):
what was happening in the Labor Party. The pull was
the attraction of the new Act, the Association of Consumers
and Taxpayers. Yes, that Roger was forming. Roger was a
close friend and has been for a better part of
sixty years, and had lunch with him just the other day.
(41:27):
He's in good shape. But I mean I was quite
willing to contemplate more changes in the direction that Act
wanted to go economically, and it was pretty clear that
Labor wasn't.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Well.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
That government, of course, as I say, one of the
most transformative in our history. And it all wrapped up
in nineteen ninety after the resignation of David Longi and
he was replaced by Jeffrey Palmer. I think it was
am I correct, just before the election.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
No, it was little. It was really about in August
eighty nine David retired and Jeffrey Palmer had a year
as be but he was then ringbarked by Mike Moore
and I was actually out of the country at that time.
(42:30):
I was on my way to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
conference in Zimbabwe, and Mike Moore overthrew Palmer in effect
and was there for I think fifty nine days as
Prime Minister, then being defeated in the election at the
(42:52):
end of October nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
In nineteen ninety I'm always always amazed with people like you,
how you how you refer to dates. We'll be back
in a moment with doctor Michael Bassett and we'll talk
about a couple of other Labor governments that he wasn't
part of. Back on leaders getting coffee with doctor Michael Bassett. Michael,
(43:26):
since since you walked away from the seats of Parliament
or the houses of Parliament, of course, we've seen another
couple of Labor governments, the Helen Clark led government and
most recently just Sindra Adourns and to his small extent
at the end there Chris Hopkins leadership in two thousand
and seventeen to twenty twenty three. What are your recollections
(43:49):
of each of those governments and how do you rate them?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I reached Helen Clark's government fairly high. I mean, she is,
in my view, next to Peter Fraser in Labour's pantheon
of leaders, very able. If you have if you have
a discussion with Helen Clark, you'll be reeling by the
(44:16):
end of it. She's just she's a very powerful force
and wonderfully knowledgeable of the world around her. Most of
the things that her government did were sensible, and we've
got to remember that key we Saber was left behind
by that government. Her stunning achievement rarely and must be
(44:40):
important to large numbers of New Zealand. She also got
the foreshore and Seabed right, which sadly was undone in
twenty and eleven, and I see the National government is
finally gained to return us to something akin to what
(45:02):
the Foreshore and Seabed legislation had been in two thousand
and four, and quite a few other things she did
that were reasonably important at the time. But Cullen was
quite a good Minister of Finance.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Except he bought the railways a week before he got
tossed out of parliament.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Ha ha, yes, is the railways the dreaded railways. The
next government, that is, the durn Hipkins government, was a
rather pitiful affair. It came to office with no policy
(45:43):
and had about two hundred committees set up to give
it a policy, and it was really all just flim
flam and feel good stuff and be nice and be.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Kind and so on, all of which if you have
no guts is unkind Yes, And the worst thing you
can do to poor people is actually to tell them
that if they have more children, then particularly if they're
(46:21):
out of jobs and they're on benefits, if they have
more children they will be better off, which is what
Carmel Sebaloni did, meaning of course that the total number
of poor children rose rapidly.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
The incentives were to have more children, yes, and that
does nothing to solve poverty and nothing to help those
poor children, and so on. I mean, most of the things.
The restructuring of the health system at the time of
(46:58):
the pandemic was mind bogglingly stupid. I still, as a
former Minister of Health sort of think back on it
and think what a crazy thing to do. But they
did it. And of course all the failure to recognize
(47:20):
the special problems that mariy have and thinking that somehow
or other, just by setting up a Mari Health Authority
that you were going to solve their problems. In fact,
something much more strict and stern is needed than that
(47:41):
to solve the manifold problems in Mari health.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Absolutely, and now we're paying the price. I mean, your
government had to come in and fix a lot of stuff.
Do you see similarities between then and what Christopher Luxen's
government is now having to deal with.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yes. Unfortunately I don't see a Roger Douglas in the
system anywhere, which is a bit of a pity. And
David Seymour, in my view, is far and away the
most able of the politicians, but he's just one of three.
And I think the government, the new government is sort
(48:21):
of scratching along in the right direction. But one of
the things that I learned out of politics was that
with three year cycles for government, you've got to move quickly. Yes,
and there are quite a lot of things which are
going not to be germinating properly by the time of
(48:44):
the next election because this government is dawdling along.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
They're not going fast enough. Michael. One of your books
is called New Zealand's Prime Ministers From Dick Seddon to
John Key. You're kind enough to givet me a copy
and I have flipped through some of the chapters, but
I couldn't possibly say I've read at all. Who do
you think is our greatest prime Minister? Do you have
a view on who our greatest prime minister is.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Peter Fraser. Peter Fraser, wartime Prime minister nineteen forty to
forty nine, an extraordinary individual, manifold problems he dealt with,
and there really were only about two or three ministers
in his government, Peter Fraser, Walter Nash, and or two
(49:36):
or three others are Arnold Nordmeyer in the later stages,
the only two or three who were really able, and
Fraser carried this enormous load. The next most important after him,
I think would be Sadden. The first one. Sidden is
still our longest serving prime minister, thirteen and a half
(49:59):
thirteen year is in one month, followed very closely by
William Ferguson, Massey and front Off too were twenty five
whose thirteen years exactly. But I would I would rate
(50:20):
Fraser one, Sadden too, possibly Helen Clark. Three.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
There you go. Okay, we've been talking history, folks. We're
going to come back shortly and talk about the current
state of the world where with doctor Michael Bassett, political historian,
former Labor Party cabinet minister. We'll be back in a moment,
(50:55):
back with doctor Michael Bassett. Michael, as I mentioned, and
the introduction, you were on the White Tanni Tribunal for
ten years. There's plenty of I guess there's always plenty
of chat around the White Tanny Tribunal, but some of
the chatter at the moment is whether it's serving its
purpose in today's environment. Do you have thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
I do. It's going way beyond its brief It is
acting like it thinks it is a judicial organization. It
is not. It's only got a couple of lawyers anywhere
near it, and it's really outrun its usefulness. It was
(51:42):
originally principally just to try and make sure that the
principles undefined, which was a big pity that they were
undefined in nineteen seventy five. The principles of the treaty
are adhered to, but it became very much involved in
(52:02):
the hearings and decision making and advice over grievances dating
back to eighteen forty and that was the part that
I was involved with it. During my decade. I sat
on a number of cases. Well, the historical cases ceased
in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
I want to just talk briefly if I can, about
the state of the world. It's an interesting old time
We've already touched on the US presidential elections, the Palestinian conflict,
the Ukraine, massive immigration crisis in Europe in particular, and
we're seeing some reaction to that at the moment, and
(52:43):
not all of that is positive, and of course the
surge of right wing parties in Europe, which is probably
in response to that. What's your assessment of that very
sort of convoluted and mixed up state of the world.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Well, the world's not a happy place. There's no doubt
about that. There is a rogue element at work that
is more the cause of problems than anything else, and
that's Russia, a declining power now the eleventh biggest economy
(53:20):
in the world, and going downwards and running out of
eventually running out of oil, but determined to try to
act like it was at the end of the Second
World War before it lost all its Eastern europe satellites,
(53:42):
and that is causing difficulties in Europe. It's behind much
of the trouble, not just Ukraine, but the unease in
the Baltic republics, in Poland and elsewhere, Belarus, and in
(54:02):
the other Russian x Russian places Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan and
all the rest of it. The other major change that
is taking place that the world needs to get its
head around is the rise of China. I mean, it
is now the second biggest economy in the world, albeit
(54:26):
struggling a bit at present and uneasy and trying to
throw its weight around rather more than is comfortable for people.
If I was a Taiwanese, I would be terribly worried
about China. It's pretty clear they intend to invade China.
(54:49):
Why I'm blessed of I know. I can only assume
it's because they can't live with one China two systems.
They've got to bring Taiwan under Jijingpeng and the Communist Party,
Whereas it's perfectly clear that Taiwan operates rather efficiently and
(55:10):
effectively and in a popular sense with its people with
the structure that it's got. But so China is a
real problem we've got to deal with. And then the
state of democracy in the so called democracies is a problem.
(55:34):
Thank god for Britain it's behaving as normal, and Canada
and Australia and New Zealand and most of Europe, but
they're all struggling a bit with the far right, but
America has really got a major problem on its hands.
(55:57):
The surplus people in the world are one of the
biggest problems. Yes, I mean, I think if the world
had two billion fewer people, the climate would be better,
(56:20):
climate change problems would be better, and we'd have less
problems at the American border. We'd have less problems of
people trying to cross the English Channel, we'd have less
problems of people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, and
so on. I mean, surplus people are a real problem
(56:45):
in today's world, and I am one of those who
thinks that population control needs to be given a great
deal more airing than it is given. I think there
need to be incentives for people to have no more
than two children. And I'm sorry if that offends some religions, but.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
Probably off probably offends a lot of people. But but
to a degree, the societies you've mentioned have self selected.
You know, the great majority of people in this country
or Australia probably do only have two or three children.
But but there's an element of self selection in some countries,
(57:35):
but in other countries that doesn't seem to be the case.
I'm interested in your view of the outlook for our
political parties. You know, we've been we're still sort of
scrambling along with an m MP system that doesn't quite work,
but but is what we've got. We've we've got an
(57:58):
interesting situation at the moment where particularly the political left Labor, Labor,
the Greens and Tipati Mario are it. Look it appears
certainly sort of fighting for a small part of the vote.
You've got a Labor party that's been in government, that
hasn't made a heck of a lot of changes to
(58:19):
its leadership since losing an election quite badly eight months ago.
What's your view of the outlook for political parties and
probably in particular your old party, the Labor Party.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Well, my view is that they really are any signs
of being serious about getting back into office. One of
the silliest speeches I think Hipkins has ever given was
given yesterday where books to Whui and it's all couched
(58:52):
in pro MARII stuff. And I think what Labor is
trying to do is to claw or back the Mari vote.
But the Mari vote only constitutes about nineteen percent yes,
with a fair win behind it, probably seventeen percent. If
(59:15):
you can get them out to vote and Maria are
poorer voters than Paka by large. Why he would be
spending doing time doing that and losing all the non
Maori vote as he about it just biggest imagination. I mean,
(59:38):
one of the big lessons of the twenty twenty three
election was that New New Zealanders are really very very
irt at mari crime and Maria are so disproportionately associated
with crime in the country that it is as serious issue.
(01:00:02):
And I mean those seats that flicked over to National
new Linn it had been Labor since a by election
in nineteen twenty six for Pete's sake, and it goes
to National, Rascal goes to National Takaninni mung A Kiirkire.
(01:00:23):
I mean, you know they just simply got bold and
what are they doing. They're chasing after the same policies.
It's got them booted out. Yeah, crazy stuff. So I
until I think the Labor Party comes to its sensors
and it requires new leadership, clearly. But from where I'm
(01:00:50):
completely unaware of anybody in the Labor Party who has
a David Longie, Norman Kirk, Helen Clark look about them,
just not or even a tenth of them. Yes, the
National Party. It's the National Party that's been around all
(01:01:15):
my life life. It likes to administer the status quo.
It's happier doing that, and it is quite good administering
the status quo, to be fair, but it's not adventuresome,
and in Christopher Luckson's case, suffers from somebody who is
(01:01:36):
so new to politics that he's being obliged to learn
at you know, the speed of sound, speed of light, really,
and it's tricky for him. Yes, I just wish this
is going back to what we said earlier. I just
wish they could get on with things a little bit
(01:01:58):
more rapidly than they than they are. The Greens are
a weird assemblage. I mean, not to put too fine
a point on it, it seems to have become a
party for funny women. I mean you've had Elizabeth Kerry
Kerry and Goldritz Garaman and Darlen Tana and oh there's
(01:02:22):
at least one or two others who are strange. Julianne Jenna.
I mean, and this business over whether to use the
walker jumping legislation, I mean, that's just bizarre by any measure.
(01:02:44):
Somebody who is elected to Parliament on a list to
go along with that list's policies. Who then either leaves
or is thrown out of the party is no longer
used to the party who's list thereon, And since we've
(01:03:08):
got a proportional representational system, that person's got to go. Yeah,
it should be pretty straightforward, shouldn't it Quite straightforward?
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
If you're writing the political history of New Zealand and
twenty forty, what would you like to be saying that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
We've got a big fight to stay afloat, and that
we will not stay afloat if we give special privileges
to anybody, any segment of the population, on the basis
of race or color, or religion or anything, and that
(01:03:51):
we all are in the boat together, and we it's
Article three of the treaty is vital. Article All the rights,
privileges and responsibilities are to be shared by everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Be great if we could get to that point in
sixteen years years.
Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
And yet that will be, of course, the two centuries
on from the treaty, and a very good time to
reassess the meaning of the treaty, which people are increasingly forgetting.
I mean, neither Labor nor the Greens and particularly the
(01:04:42):
Mari Party, seem to have any respect for the wording
of the treaty at all. I mean, I saw an
interview on Jack Thames interview with Debi ma Riwapaka where
she said Marie didn't see sovereignty. Well I'm done if
I know which article of the treaty he was reading.
I mean, the treaty is absolutely seed sovereignty forever.
Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yes, well, at least that's what we all thought. Michael.
I've only I've only got a couple of questions for you,
and one of them is the one I ask everybody.
If you could be the prime minister for a day,
and you've been closer to it than most, But if
you could be the prime minister for a day, what's
the one thing you'd like to do?
Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Turn it into a second day. I think you never
achieved very much in one day. As I discovered in politics,
politics is for the long haul, and it's more particularly
for the long haul under MMP. Probably if I was
Prime Minister for the day, getting rid of MMP would
(01:05:53):
be what I would do. I don't think first past
the posts an absolutely wonderful system. Isn't a perfect system
for democracy anywhere in the world. But I'll tell you
what first. The post is better than MMP because it
makes it possible for governments to do things more easily
(01:06:17):
than mm MMP is a break on reform, and it
is no accident that under MMP, New Zealand seems to
be going downhill.
Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Very interesting words. What are you doing now, Michael? You
you should have retired a hundred times by now, But
I notice you're still writing, and you're and you're still researching.
And I guess you can take the boy out of
the university, but you can't take the university out of
the boy. What are you doing with your life today? Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
I write a blog, I read a lot. I'm catching
up on stuff that I should have read years ago,
and listening to music. We didn't touch on it, but
it's been one of the passions of my life. Music.
I came from a very musical family. My father was
(01:07:12):
a very good pianist and an organ player, and my
mother and family were singers, and I was a singer
and as a kid, and I was part of the
Do With School quartet that won the quartet section of
(01:07:36):
the Auckland Competitions in nineteen fifty one, and we sang
around the city, and so I've always been interested in music.
I have twelve hundred CDs. Many I'm staring up above here.
You can't see it, but I've got a large number
(01:07:56):
of them on the shelf above you right now. Not
crash them on to you. So music is good fun,
reading is good fun. And taking an interest in my family.
I've got three quenchldren. One is currently traveling in the
Baltic States. She's the qualified, fully qualified nurse right off
(01:08:21):
at the age of twenty six to on her first oe.
And I've got a seventeen year old at Autin Grammar
a boy, and a fifteen year old at Parnell College
ACG a boy. And you know, keeping an interest in
them and doing little bits to help them is a
(01:08:44):
part of my life too.
Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Well. It's been a busy life, it's been an effective life,
and you deserve to go and spend some time with
your grandchildren. Doctor Michael Bassett, I knew we'd be over time.
We are over time. Thank you for joining us on
leaders getting coffee. I feel we could keep going. There's
all sorts of things we could talk about, but I
do appreciate you taking time out of those grandfatherly duties
(01:09:09):
and the music and the reading to join us, to
share your story with us. But most importantly, I'd like
to thank you for the contribution you have made and
continue to make to this little country. So doctor Michael Bassett,
thanks for joining us on leaders Getting Coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Thank you, Bruce so pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Finally, folks, my leadership tip of the week. Given the
topic today, I couldn't resist this one. It's short and sweet.
If we don't learn from history, we will become history.
If we don't learn from history, we will become history.
And of course we've been with one of the country's
best known historians for the last hour or so. That's
it from us for a couple another couple of weeks.
(01:09:48):
Thanks for joining us on leaders Getting Coffee, episode number
twenty three with our guest, doctor Michael Bassett. If you
have any feedback, please get in touch at info at
leaders Getting Coffee dot com. Remember that our favorite charity
is Bike for Blokes dot co dot Nz. And we'll
see you soon with another New Zealander and another leadership story.
Until then, have a great couple of weeks and we'll
(01:10:09):
catch up soon.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.