- For the fictional character in Jurassic Park, see List of characters in Jurassic Park.
Sir Robert David ("Rob") Muldoon, GCMG, CH (25 September 1921–5 August 1992) served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984.
Youth
Robert Muldoon was born to lower-middle-class parents in Auckland, New Zealand's largest
city. His strongest formative influence was his fiercely intelligent, iron-willed maternal grandmother, Jerusha, a committed
socialist. Though Muldoon never accepted her creed, he did develop under her influence a
potent ambition, a consuming interest in politics, and an abiding respect for New Zealand's welfare state. He attended Mount Albert Grammar
School from 1933 to 1936.
Early career
Muldoon joined the army during the Second World War and served in the South Pacific and
Italy. While in Italy he served in the same battalion as two other National Party colleagues, Duncan MacIntyre and Jack Marshall. He completed his training as
an accountant, sitting his final exams to become an accountant while in Italy. When he
returned to New Zealand after the war, he was the country's first fully qualified cost accountant.
In March 1947 he joined a newly-founded branch of the Junior Nationals, the youth wing of the conservative New Zealand National Party. He quickly became active in the party, making two
sacrificial-lamb bids for Parliament against entrenched but vulnerable Labour
incumbents in 1954 (Mount Albert) and 1957
(Waitemata), before being elected MP for the suburban Auckland electorate of Tamaki in 1960; winning against
Bob Tizard who had taken the former National seat in 1957. In 1960, a swing brought Keith Holyoake to power
as Prime Minister of the Second National government. Muldoon
would represent Tamaki for the next 32 years.
Entry into Cabinet
He displayed a flair for debate and a diligence in his backbench work, and in 1963 he was made
Under-Secretary to the Minister of Finance, Harry Lake. While holding this office, he was responsible for the successful introduction of decimal currency into New Zealand.
Minister of Finance
When Lake died in 1967, Muldoon was the natural (and only obvious) choice to replace him; at 45,
he was the youngest Minister of Finance since the 1890s. However, because Holyoake believed
Muldoon was too arrogant and ambitious for his own good, thus he was only ranked eighth in Cabinet (Traditionally Ministers of
Finance are usually ranked second or third in seniority lists within Westminster Cabinets).
Muldoon believed that both abortion and capital
punishment were wrong. He crossed the floor to vote with the Opposition for abolishing the death penalty, in 1961. Later,
in 1977, he voted against abortion when the issue came up as a conscience vote.
From his early years as a Member of Parliament, Muldoon became known as
Piggy; the epithet that was to remain
with him throughout his life even amongst those who were his supporters. Muldoon himself seemed to relish his controversial
public profile and later claimed that he thought that satirical critics were not hard enough on him.
Muldoon established a considerable national profile rapidly; many historians credit his image, rather than that of the Prime
Minister, Holyoake, or his deputy, Jack Marshall, for the National Party's surprise
victory in the 1969 election. He also displayed a flair for the new
medium of television lacking in his senior colleagues; he is still considered one of New
Zealand's most artful practitioners of media manipulation.
Deputy Prime Minister
When Holyoake stood down in 1971, Muldoon challenged Marshall for the top job; he was defeated, barely, but unanimously
elected deputy leader and hence Deputy Prime Minister.
Leader of the Opposition
Marshall fought the 1972 election on a slogan of "Man For Man, The
Strongest Team" — an allusion to Marshall's own low-key style, particularly compared to his deputy. The party was badly defeated,
ending 12 years in power. In the aftermath, Marshall resigned, and Muldoon took over, becoming Leader of the Opposition. Many members of the party caucus believed Marshall was
not up to the task of taking on the formidable Labour Prime Minister,
Norman Kirk.
Muldoon, on the other hand, relished the opportunity — but had it for only a short time, until Kirk's sudden death in August
1974. In the 1975 election, Muldoon overwhelmed Kirk's lacklustre
successor, Bill Rowling, reversing the 32–55 Labour majority into a 55–32 National
majority. His platform offered "New Zealand - The Way You Want It", promising a generous national superannuation scheme to replace Kirk and Rowling's employer-contribution superannuation scheme
(which was implied in the famous "Dancing Cossack" advertisement as a policy of turning New Zealand into a communist state), and
the promise to fix New Zealand's "shattered economy". Economics correspondent Brian Gaynor has
claimed that Muldoon's policy of reversing Labour's saving scheme lost New Zealand the chance of transforming the New Zealand
economy.[1]
Prime Minister
-
Muldoon had remained National's Finance spokesman when he became party leader, and as a result became Minister of Finance as
well as Prime Minister - the last to hold both posts to date. He had a reputation for being very combative, and many people in
political positions and the media were afraid of openly confronting him.
Muldoon led National to victory in 1978 and 1981; however, in both elections, the Labour opposition received more popular votes
across the country as a whole. This ambiguous mandate did not dilute Muldoon's agenda, and he became more emphatic and autocratic
as his time in power grew.
The "Muldoon years" are marked by Muldoon's obstinate and resourceful attempts to maintain New Zealand's "cradle to the grave"
welfare state, dating from 1935, in the face of a changing world. The nation's economy was
suffering from the aftermath of the 1973 energy crisis, the loss of New Zealand's
biggest export market upon Britain's entry to the European Economic Community, and
rampant inflation.
Concerned about the use of foreign exchange during the 1970s' oil crises, Muldoon supported a scheme where automobiles could
be powered by natural gas or a dual-fuel gas–petrol system. Incentives were introduced in
Muldoon's 1979 budget to encourage the conversions, and New Zealand emerged as possibly the first
country to have dual-fuel cars as a commonplace sight. However, the projection that oil prices
would become ever-higher did not happen during this period.
In 1980, there was an abortive attempt, known as the Colonels' Coup, to replace Muldoon with his more economically liberal
deputy, Brian Talboys. However, Talboys was a somewhat reluctant draftee, and Muldoon was
able to see the plotters off with relative ease. This was the only serious challenge to Muldoon's authority in his years as Prime
Minister.
Having been honoured with the Companion of Honour in the 1970s,
Muldoon became a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St
George in 1983, only the second New Zealand Prime Minister to be knighted while in office (Sir Keith Holyoake being the first).
Think Big
-
As economic pressures continued to build, Muldoon tried to control spiralling wages through a trade off with the Trade Union
leadership: a reduction in the tax rate against an agreement not to press for further rounds of wage increases. When this
strategy proved unsuccessful, as a last resort Muldoon imposed a total freeze on wages, prices, interest rates and dividends
across the country, against a "sweetener" of a tax cut which cost the New Zealand treasury approximately a billion New Zealand
dollars, and held the country in that state against the hope that his "Think Big" strategy, in which the government borrowed
heavily and pumped the funds into large-scale industrial projects, would create trickle-down benefits in the form of jobs and
revenue. This never happened: most of the Think Big projects yielded minimal profit whilst Muldoon was still Prime Minister and
many were hampered by industrial disputes. With a fiscal deficit, and with a billion dollars not now coming into treasury
coffers, Muldoon was also obliged to borrow to fund the welfare state and New Zealand's agricultural subsidies. Ultimately the
Wage and Price Freeze, which had been intended only to last for a year, remained in force for nearly two years. Years later,
Muldoon admitted that the freeze was a political mistake.
Springbok tour 1981
-
Main article: 1981 Springbok Tour
Muldoon's belief in keeping his word on never allowing politics to enter sport resulted in his refusal to bar the 1981
Springbok Tour by the Springboks, the national rugby squad of apartheid
South Africa. "The Tour", as it has become known, provoked massive public demonstrations,
the formation of public pressure group Halt All Racist Tours(HART) and some of the
worst social schisms New Zealand has ever seen. Muldoon came down firmly on the pro-Tour side, arguing that sport and politics
should be kept separate. He argued that his refusal to ban the Springboks was anti-authoritarian, leaving it up to individual
consciences whether to play sports with representatives of apartheid. He also argued that allowing their rugby team to tour did not
mean supporting apartheid any more than playing a Soviet Union team meant supporting
Communism.
Falklands' War
In 1982, Muldoon's government supported the British in the Falklands War. While New
Zealand did not directly participate in the conflict, Muldoon ensured that the frigate HMNZS Canterbury was sent to the Indian Ocean to
relieve a Royal Navy frigate, so that it could be deployed in the conflict. New Zealand also broke off its diplomatic relations
with Argentina. In defence of his support for the war, Muldoon wrote an article that was published in The Times, entitled Why we Stand by our Mother Country[2].
Closer Economic Relations
Muldoon initiated a Closer Economic Relations free-trade programme with
Australia to liberalise trade, which came into effect from New Year's Day 1982. The aim of total free trade between the two countries
was achieved in 1990, five years ahead of schedule.
Nuclear ships policy and snap election
Ultimately, the end of Muldoon's government came following a late-night clash with National backbencher Marilyn Waring over highly contentious Opposition-sponsored nuclear-free New Zealand legislation, in which Waring told him she would cross the floor (giving the Opposition a victory). A visibly drunk Muldoon called a snap election for 14 July 1984 (Which most commentators noted was unfortunate, as it is Bastille Day).
He was heavily defeated by David Lange's resurgent Labour Party, which won 56 seats to
National's 37 with a massive vote division caused by the New Zealand Party in
particular.
It has long been a political convention in New Zealand politics that a prime minister does not advise the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament prematurely unless he or she cannot govern, or
unless they need to seek the electorate's endorsement on a matter of national importance (as was the case in 1951). Muldoon justified the snap election because he felt Waring's revolt impeded
his ability to govern. Indeed, it was obvious that Muldoon was finding it hard to pass financial measures with neo-liberal rebels like Ruth Richardson and Derek Quigley voting against the Government on certain issues;[3] however, some historians have been critical of this excuse, as Waring said that
she would not have denied Muldoon confidence or supply, and would not have prevented him
from governing, as the government still had the constitutional means to govern.
Foreign exchange and constitutional crises
-
A final controversy occurred during the course of the election and transfer of government: during early 1984 Roderick Deane, then Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of
New Zealand, became concerned that the New Zealand dollar (which was held at a
fixed exchange rate to the US Dollar) had become significantly overvalued and was
vulnerable to currency speculation on the financial markets in the event of a "significant political event". This was exacerbated
by media speculation following a leak that an incoming Labour administration would be likely to significantly devalue the NZ
dollar upon election. The Reserve Bank counseled Muldoon that the dollar should be devalued. Muldoon ignored the advice, owing to
his belief that it would hurt poor New Zealanders in the medium term, and in June of 1984 announced the snap election mentioned
above which, as predicted, caused an immediate run on the dollar.
Following the election the controversy became a constitutional crisis: Muldoon
refused to do as he had been instructed by the incoming government, causing the currency crisis to worsen. Eventually he relented
however, after his position as leader of the National party was threatened by members of his caucus.
After nine years, Muldoon's stewardship of the nation and its economy was over. The newly elected radically neo-liberal and
unexpectedly pro-free market Fourth Labour Government embarked on a series of fundamental free-market reforms known (after
Labour's finance minister Roger Douglas) as Rogernomics, and which were then continued from 1990 to 1994 by the succeeding National government's
policies known as (after National's finance minister Ruth Richardson) as
Ruthanasia. These policies marked a fundamental break with the more interventionist policies
of Muldoon's era.
Later life
Muldoon was deposed as National Party leader shortly after the election by his deputy leader, Jim
McLay. McLay lasted two years, with Muldoon and others actively undermining his leadership. In 1986, he was ousted in turn by his own deputy (and Muldoon's preferred candidate), Jim
Bolger, who had served as Minister of Labour for the latter half of Muldoon's term as Prime Minister.
Muldoon remained in Parliament as the MP for Tamaki until shortly before his death. He lived through the Fourth Labour Government's neo-liberal
reforms, known as Rogernomics, and to his horror — to see a National government led
by his own man, Bolger, after being elected in the landslide of 1990,
take up the baton with Ruthanasia, named after Finance Minister Ruth Richardson. Muldoon's
conscience tormented him; he could not bring himself to vote with the Labour Party against the Bolger government's benefit cuts,
and, looking miserable, abstained.
Muldoon also opposed the legalisation of homosexual behavior when Labour MP
Fran Wilde introduced the Homosexual Law
Reform Bill in 1985, which was passed.
Although he remained iconic to particular segments of society, particularly the elderly, Muldoon faded quickly as a force on
the political scene. His biographer, Barry Gustafson — who noted that he was not a Muldoon
supporter — wrote that he still served as an active MP for his Tamaki electorate, dealing immediately with matters from all walks
of life. He continued to write in international economic journals, arguing that the unemployment that had arisen as a result of
the free-market reforms was worse than the gains that were made, a view that came to be popular by the time of the Fifth Labour
Government in 1999.
He had a short stage career in a New Zealand production of The Rocky Horror
Show, starring as the narrator, had minor television appearances on commercials for Panasonic (when it changed its name in New Zealand from National) and the TV series Terry and the
Gunrunners (as Arnos Grove) and The Friday Frights (as the host), and hosted a talkback radio show entitled Lilies
and Other Things, after his favourite flower.
It was on this show, on 17 November, 1991, that he
announced he would stand down from Parliament; he formally retired one month later, on 17
December. His retirement party featured taped speeches from Ronald Reagan
(commenting that at Muldoon's age, he was only getting started) and Margaret Thatcher.
He fell seriously ill almost immediately, and died in hospital on 5 August, 1992, aged 70.
Legacy
Muldoon remains one of the most complex, fascinating, and polarising figures in New Zealand history. He divided people into
camps of those who loved him and those who hated him; very few people, except those born after his fall, were neutral. To his
enemies, "Piggy" Muldoon was a dictatorial Prime Minister who nearly destroyed both New Zealand's economy and New Zealand society
through his arrogance.
To those, known as "Rob's Mob", who revered him, he was an icon of the New Zealand national character, a supporter of the
"ordinary bloke" (his own description of himself) and an international statesman. Curiously, he was also patron of the
Mongrel Mob gang [citation needed], members of which paid him solemn respect by kneeling on the street and
performing two haka during his funeral procession in 1992.
Historians like Gustafson and Brian Easton criticise Muldoon because, according to them,
the line of policy he ultimately pursued was not sustainable.[4][5] Some argue
that he was responsible for much of the pain caused by the free-market reforms of 1984 – 1993, because by holding on for as long
as he did he forced the inevitable reforms to be implemented with unusual speed and severity. However, this view is not
universal, and many also argue that the free market reformers of the 1980s and 1990s used Muldoon as an excuse to embark on
radical ideological programs.
Muldoon famously declared upon becoming Prime Minister that he hoped to leave New Zealand "no worse off than I found it". He
dominated New Zealand politics for over a decade, and still influences the conduct of government today. Gustafson gives him the
following epitaph: "By 1992 New Zealand had not become what Muldoon or many other New Zealanders wanted it to be but he was not
prepared to take the blame for that. Muldoon died unrepentant and still convinced that his way, even if never perfect, had been a
better way."
Thea Muldoon
In 1951 Muldoon married Thea Flyger, by whom he would have three children, and who survives him.
She was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in
1993, and QSO.
Trivia
- When questioned about increased levels of emigration to Australia, Muldoon responded that these migrants "raised the average
IQ of both countries".
- In April 1980, when there were efforts to remove a 40% sales tax on music sales in New Zealand,
Muldoon refused to have the tax lifted remarking that "[t]he records that are sold in this country are not Kiri Te Kanawa's: they are about 50 to one these horrible pop groups and I'm not going to take the tax
off them"[6]. This remark was followed a couple of days
afterwards with "If you use the word 'cultural' in its normal sense, I don't think Split Enz and Mi-Sex are cultural"[7]. Several New Zealand bands answered to Muldoon, notably
Mi-Sex, who invited him to a Wellington concert (he attended), and The Knobz, who recorded a song "Culture?", which parodied Muldoon - complete with a Rob Muldoon
soundalike.
- In 1979, Muldoon imposed a controversial 20 percent surcharge on boats and caravans. Instead of generating extra revenue,
this tax virtually brought the caravan and boating industry to its knees as customers could not afford the new tax and thus
cancelled their orders. Despite evidence showing clearly that this tax had resulted in a detrimental effect to the industry,
Muldoon refused to repeal it on the grounds that such an admission of error on his part would be regarded as an opposition
victory. This tax led to a popular bumper-sticker which read I'd rather be sailing, but I voted National. The Lange
Government's first budget repealed this tax.
- Muldoon was renowned for the variety of the ties he wore (in contrast to subsequent Labour Prime Minister David Lange who did not necessarily want to wear ties in the debating chamber). This was so well known that
some of his ties were made available for sale to the public following his death.
- In 1995, actor Ian Mune played Sir Robert Muldoon in the made-for-television mini-series
Fallout, depicting the end of the Muldoon National Government.
References
- ^ Brain Gaynor (22 September 2007). Brian Gaynor: How Muldoon threw away NZ's wealth. The New Zealand
Herald. Retrieved on 2007-09-22.
- ^ James Belich, Professor, Department of History,
University of Auckland. The 1999
Papers. Retrieved on 2007-04-16.
- ^ Bohan, Edmund: "Burdon: A Man Of Our Time." page 95. Hazard Press,
2005
- ^ Easton, Brian. The Nationbuilders, pp. 239-53. Auckland:
Auckland University Press, ISBN 1-86940-260-X (2001)
- ^ Gustafson,
Barry. His Way: A Biography of Robert Muldoon. Auckland University
Press.
- ^ The Press, Monday 21 April 1980, p.1
- ^ The Dominion, Tuesday 22 April 1980, p.1
Suggestions for further reading
- Clark, Margaret. (ed.) Muldoon Revisited. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, ISBN 0-86469-465-2 (2004). [The
revised proceedings of a conference on Muldoon held at Victoria University of
Wellington during 2002.]
- Gustafson, Barry, His Way, a biography of Robert Muldoon, Auckland University Press, 2000, ISBN
1-86940-236-7
- Jones, Bob. Memories of Muldoon. Christchurch: Canterbury
University Press, ISBN 0-908812-69-8 (1997).
- Muldoon, R.D.
- The Rise and Fall of a Young Turk. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, ISBN 0-589-00873-1 (1974).
- Muldoon. Wellington: Reed, ISBN 0-589-01087-5 (1977).
- My Way. Wellington: Reed, ISBN 0-589-01385-8 (1981).
- The New Zealand Economy: A Personal View. Auckland: Endeavour Press, ISBN 0-86481-105-5 (1985).
- Number
38. Auckland: Reed Methuen, ISBN 0-474-00220-9 (1986).
- [Muldoon's autobiographical writings are inevitably self-serving, but he speaks candidly about his thinking and his
desires for New Zealand.]
- Russell, Marcia. Revolution:New Zealand from Fortress to Free Market Hodder Moa
Beckett, 1996
- Zavos, Spiro. The Real Muldoon. Wellington: Fourth Estate Books
(1978).
External links
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