His Way

A Biography of Robert Muldoon

Barry Gustafson

• Publisher: Auckland University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781869402365
• eBook ISBN: 9781775580874
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This the only authorized biography of New Zealand's prime minister, Robert Muldoon—one of the dominant political figures of the last half-century in that country. Based on many hours of conversation with Muldoon himself as well as colleagues, friends, and family, and wide access to the prime minister's official and private papers and diaries, this book has been awarded the Ian Wards Prize for published historical writing. Muldoon is shown as a champion of the ordinary people whose vision over time became anachronistic and inflexible. The book is also a fascinating picture of New Zealand's changing political landscape from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Notes

Introduction

1 Ruth Richardson–BSG, 21 March 1990.

2 For concise and excellent analyses of Richard Nixon see the obituaries by John Herbers, Tom Wicker, and Garry Wills in the New York Times, 24 April 1994.

3 James McGregor Burns, Leadership. Another useful introduction to visionary leadership is James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge. See also John Gardner, On Leadership. For my discussion of Burns’s views on leadership and Savage see my From the Cradle to the Grave: A Biography of Michael Joseph Savage, Reed Methuen, Auckland, 1986, pp 2–3.

4 Doug Kidd–BSG, 1 March 1990.

5 Otago Daily Times, 3 August 1984.

6 Auckland Star, 16 July 1984.

7 For a very interesting discussion of Muldoon and the National Party’s populist tradition see David Orwin, ‘Conservatism in New Zealand’, 1999, pp 189–209. See also the discussion of populism and New Zealand politics in my ‘Regeneration, Rejection or Realignment: New Zealand Political Parties in the 1990s’, in G. R. Hawke (ed), Changing Politics? The Electoral Referendum 1993, esp. pp 82–5. For populism generally see Ghita Ionescu and Ernst Gellner (eds), Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteristics; Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History; and Margaret Canovan, ‘People, Politicians and Populism’.

8 cit. Sunday Star, 8 March 1987.

9 Oliver Riddell, Press, 21 October 1985. One of the best short analytical essays on Muldoon is Warwick Roger, ‘The Real Muldoon’.

10 Dominion editorial, 18 November 1991.

11 Robert Dilenschneider, On Power, pp 2–3. See also Jeffrey Pfeffer, Managing With Power: Politics and Influence in Organisations.

12 Gardner, On Leadership, p 24.

13 Roy Johnston, paper delivered to Wellington Divisional Seminar, 22 and 23 October 1984, NPP A 89/75 MSC 145/2325.

14 Pfeffer, op cit., p 304.

15 John Henderson, ‘Muldoon and Rowling: A Preliminary Analysis of Contrasting Personalities’. See also James Barber, The Presidential Character.

16 Jock Phillips (ed), Biography in New Zealand.

17 J. C. Davis, ‘Clio’s Lost Sheep’, in Phillips (ed), Biography in New Zealand, pp 7–18, p 8.

18 Ben Pimlott, review of Macmillan: Volume 2, 1957–1986, in New Statesman and Society, 23 June 1989, pp 35–36, p 35.

19 Jock Phillips, ‘Introduction’, in Phillips (ed), Biography in New Zealand, pp 1–6, p 1.

20 Keith Sinclair, ‘Political Biography in New Zealand’, in Phillips (ed), Biography in New Zealand, pp 30–36.

21 Ibid., p 30.

22 Antony Alpers, ‘Literary Biography (in New Zealand)’, in Phillips (ed), Biography in New Zealand, pp 19–29, p 27.

23 Robert Muldoon, The Rise and Fall of a Young Turk; Muldoon; My Way; The New Zealand Economy: A Personal View; Number 38; ‘The Precipice – 1929 Revisited’, unpublished typescript of book dated 25 September 1985 and in Muldoon Papers.

24 Spiro Zavos, The Real Muldoon.

25 Hugh Templeton, All Honourable Men: Inside the Muldoon Cabinet 1975–1984, and Bob Jones, Memories of Muldoon.

26 Margaret Clark, ‘Clash of the Titans’.

27 Erik Olssen, ‘Political Biography: A Commentary’, in Phillips (ed), Biography in New Zealand, pp 39–41.

28 Michael King discusses this problem in an article, ‘Tread Softly For You Tread On My Life: Biography and Compassionate Truth’.

29 Murray McCully–BSG, 21 March 1990.

1 Family and Childhood

1 The information in this chapter came largely from the author’s interviews with Muldoon 22 April 1985, 24 February, 7 and 15 July 1989; Lawrence Browne, 15 July 1989; Richard Fickling, 2 June 1989; Jack Ryder, 1 June 1989; Lady Thea Muldoon, 10 August 1992 and 12 August 1994; Bert Stokes, 24 April 1990; and Joe Jones, 22 April 1998. See also Muldoon’s first three autobiographies, The Rise and Fall of a Young Turk, Muldoon, and My Way. The Muldoon Papers include birth, death and marriage certificates; photocopies of the monthly Helping Hand, January-October 1893; Wes Muldoon’s and Jim Muldoon’s war service records; Wes Muldoon’s war diary; and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Research Report 20 November 1979. The Wederell Papers include Muldoon’s war service records and correspondence with some of Muldoon’s contemporaries. Muldoon also discussed his family and early life with Jim Sullivan, Oral History Centre, National Library of New Zealand, 3 March 1992.

2 The Rise and Fall of a Young Turk, p 2, and The Helping Hand, September 1893.

3 Frank Adams to Wederell 31/1/69 WP 1655 1/1.

4 Interview Bert Stokes, 24 April 1990. Also NZEF conduct sheet. The entry was subsequently cancelled as was the punishment of 96 hours’ detention and reversion from the rank of corporal to gunner. Also RDM-BSG 24 February 1989.

5 Wes Muldoon’s diary, 30 April 1915, MP. See also Rise and Fall of a Young Turk, p 3.

6 Ibid, 24 June – 4 July 1915. MP.

7 RDM–BSG, 24 February 1989, and Lawrence Browne–BSG, 15 July 1989. See also marriage certificate of Amie Rusha Browne and James Henry Muldoon, 29 October 1919, and birth certificate of Robert David Muldoon, 25 September 1921.

8 Lawrence Browne–BSG, 15 July 1989.

9 Undated Greymouth newspaper clipping, MP, and RDM–BSG, 24 February 1989. Muldoon at the launch of his book The Rise and Fall of a Young Turk dedicated the book to ‘his boyhood hero – Dick Seddon … the greatest politician New Zealand has ever known’. Cit. NZ Herald, 11 July 1974.

10 Lawrence Browne–BSG, 15 July 1989, and Colin Busfield–BSG, 7 June 1989.

11 Rise and Fall of a Young Turk, pp 6–7.

12 RDM article in NZ Truth, 18 September 1973, and RDM–BSG, 24 February 1989.

13 Lawrence Browne–BSG, 15 July 1989, and RDM–BSG 22 April 1985.

14 Ibid.

15 RDM-BSG, 24 February 1989. See also The Rise and Fall of a Young Turk, p 8. A copy of Jim Muldoon’s death certificate giving syphilis as the primary cause of death is in the Muldoon Papers. Dr Pat Savage, one-time Superintendent of the hospital, in an interview with the author on 1 March 1993, said that the disease took about seven years to come and took up to twenty years to affect seriously the ...

Table of contents

• His Way
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Family and Childhood
• School and Church
• War and Work
• The Junior Nationals and Marriage
• Three Times Lucky: The Mount Albert (1954), Waitemata (1957) and Tamaki (1960) Campaigns
• The MP for Tamaki 1960–63
• The Under-Secretary 1963–66
• Minister of Finance 1967–69
• The End of the Holyoake Era 1969–72
• In Opposition 1972–75
• The 1975 Election
• Power, Personality and Political Process
• Turbulent Times: SIS, Abortion, the Moyle Affair, and the Governor-General
• Foreign Policy and Overseas Trade 1975–78
• National Superannuation and ‘Restoring New Zealand’s Shattered Economy’
• Economic Restructuring and ‘Think Big’ after 1978
• The Colonels’ Coup 1980
• The Springbok Tour and the 1981 Election
• Third World Debt, the Clyde Dam, the Quigley Affair, and Bob Jones’s New Zealand Party
• The Freeze: Unions, Consumers and Finance Houses
• The 1984 Election
• The Post-Election Currency Crisis
• The Leadership Transition: Muldoon, McLay, Bolger 1984–86
• Court Cases, Radio Pacific and the 1987 Election
• The Global Economic Action Institute and the 1990 Election
• ‘Mr Speaker, I Say Goodbye’
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright