ON SATURDAY, 31 August, it will be 45 years to the day since Norman Kirk died. He was no age at all, just 51, and although he died in hospital, hardly any New Zealanders were aware that his reasons for being there were likely to prove fatal.
That’s why the shock of his passing was so devastating. For a brief moment it brought the whole country together. Bosses and trade union leaders stood side-by-side to pay their respects. RSA men wept alongside long-haired hippies. Pakeha and Maori mourned according to their own traditions, but, as always, the Maori did so in ways that both enriched and enlarged the moment of national grief. For the first time, the Maori proverb: Kua hinga te totara i te wao nui a Tane – A Totara has fallen in the forest of Tane, imprinted itself upon the cultural consciousness of the Pakeha nation.
The tragedy of “Big Norm’s” passing was by no means contained within his homeland’s borders. Upon hearing the news in faraway Tanzania, its President, Julius Nyerere, burst into tears. In Beijing the Chinese premier, Chou Enlai, bowed three times before Kirk’s photograph in solemn acknowledgement of his worth. Australia’s Gough Whitlam hastened across the Tasman to stand by his casket.
Though few were willing, or able, to articulate exactly what it might be; the feeling that something vitally important to the country’s future would now be left undone was palpable. Long before he was buried amidst rain and an all-enveloping mist (as befitted a rangatira of such great mana) the myth of Norman Kirk and his all-too-brief prime-ministership was sending its taproots down deep into the nation’s collective memory.
Recalling Kirk’s death raises some troubling thoughts about New Zealand’s current prime-minister, Jacinda Ardern. God forfend that it should happen, but if she were to die, suddenly and unexpectedly, in the second year of her premiership – how would she be remembered?
Only the most churlish (and dishonest) of observers would suggest that the death of “Jacinda” would inspire anything less than a truly massive outpouring of national grief. The public’s sense of shock and bereavement would be every bit as great as that which greeted Kirk’s demise. Indeed, it would, almost certainly, be greater. Young New Zealanders, in particular, would feel that they had lost not only a personal friend, but a generational champion. Jacinda’s defining quality of empathy would be reflected many times over in the over-brimming emotions of the nation’s stricken youth.
The parallels would not end there. As a living Prime Minister, Kirk had towered above his political contemporaries. The NZ Labour Party contained no one within its parliamentary ranks who could hold a candle to “The Boss”. His eventual successor, the intelligent and thoroughly decent Wallace “Bill” Rowling, was never able to escape Kirk’s huge shadow. The only political leader of any substance left upon the national stage following Kirk’s departure, was the Leader of the Opposition, Rob Muldoon. Everyone who understood the politics of the day grasped immediately that he was the man who, in just 15 months, would be leading the country. The moment Big Norm’s heart stopped beating, Labour became a dead man walking. Without Jacinda, Labour would, similarly, be instantly transformed into a zombie party.
The Myth of Jacinda, like Kirk’s, would swell rapidly to epic proportions. “If only Grant Robertson, Winston Peters and James Shaw had let Jacinda be Jacinda!”, would be the cry that went up from her bereft followers, “Instead of always coming up with reasons why everything she wanted to do couldn’t be done. If only she had been allowed to spend the money needed to end child poverty and homelessness. If only all those men hadn’t prevented her from making Climate Change – as she had promised – the Nuclear-Free Moment of her generation. Jacinda knew what had to be done – why wasn’t she empowered to simply forge ahead and do it?”
Like Kirk before her, a Jacinda taken from her people many years before her time, would rapidly become the righteous receptacle for an ever-increasing multitude of what-ifs and might-have-beens.
Nearly always, the counterfactuals swirling around Kirk posit an alternative future in which all of the Third Labour Government’s reforms – NZ Superannuation in particular – bear healthy fruit and prosper. Hardly ever do those who ask “What if?” raise the possibility that, even in the New Zealand where a healthy Norman Kirk contests the 1975 general election, a rampantly populist Rob Muldoon might still have delivered a knockout blow against the big man’s government. What if the widely-held assumption that “Big Norm” would have defeated Muldoon easily is dead wrong? What if, as is demonstrably happening to Jacinda as she approaches the second anniversary of her prime-ministership, the gloss had well-and-truly come off Kirk?
In 1974-75 a great many New Zealanders were frightened and angry. Frightened by the power of the trade unions; by New Zealand’s growing indebtedness; by inflation eating away at the purchasing power of their salaries and pensions; by hippies and protesters calling the shots at home (hadn’t they persuaded Kirk to cancel the 1973 Springbok Tour?) and by Third World nations defeating the United States, and pushing up the price of oil, abroad. Young people, women and Maori had forgotten their place. Many of the old certainties were under serious challenge – along with the authority figures who defended them. Conservative working-class voters, no less than National’s traditional middle-class supporters, were looking for a strong leader: someone prepared to give them New Zealand the way they wanted it.
Who’s to say that, under a first-past-the-post electoral system, that fear and anger would not have been enough to overpower even Norman Kirk’s hopeful visions of the future?
We shall never know. Forty-five years on, Kirk’s might-have-beens, like the lustre of the man himself, are still sufficiently tantalising to inspire us. Courage. Vision. A principled refusal to step back when confronted with the concentrated malice of the Powers-That-Be. These remain the sacred political talismans handed down by the Labour Prime Minister who died on Saturday, 31st August 1974.
All nations need a mythologised Totara to shelter under.
Even after it has fallen.
No disrespect to Big Norm, but a rather gruesome speculation from our long distance columnist…
Personally I would rather see “what ifs” on developing a strong activist movement, like at Ihumātao, dedicated to burying Roger’n’Ruth’s neo liberal legacy. A cruel wrecking ball that swung through old NZ, and has had many in NZ on the ropes for 30 years.
–Return all SOEs to Govt. Depts
–Make all Senior public servants and CEOs in the ministries reapply for their jobs, send them packing, and for example appoint the likes of AAAP (Auckland Action Against Poverty) to oversee the retirement of WINZ/MSD
–Restrict the free in and outflow of capital
–Massive infrastructure projects and non degree training
–Return to transferable ‘opt–out’ union membership…
Long distance? C’mon, Tiger, Auckland’s not that far from Northland!
Excuse my “manglish” Chris, long distance in terms of duration as a political writer…
Even in death you should always be okaying the long game Tiger.
HEAR! HEAR!
Kirk didn’t just have a vision of how NZ should be, he had an understanding of what needed to be done, what things he had to take control of to put it into place. Jacinda only has the vision of how NZ should be; and a forlorn hope that her neoliberal minister of finance can provide the means.
With Winston in charge of the economic portfolio that would have far more chance of working , but in the present arrangement there’s no show.
Jacinda might have time to learn though; Norm probably gained from his longer experience of the world , life and government. Next term Jacinda could have more self confidence to take control.
Here’s hoping.
D J S
new zealand is faceing a private debt bomb of nats making personaly i see a mass insolvency event on the horizon we will be in uncharted waters
Interesting parallels you make between our current pm and the late Norman Kirk and yes both are probably appreciated more over seas than they are at home in NZ especially now where it seems buffoons are the order of the day to run a northern hemisphere country but the main difference is that Kirk was elected under a FPTP system and Jacinda under a MMP system therefore Kirk didn’t have to appease to to many numbnuts from within .
Ugh….you’re comparing this govt to that of Norman Kirk? Really? Do you think Kirk’s Labour government would have passed the CP-TPP into law, commenced negotiations on the RCEP, continued to under fund healthcare, fail to provide adequate support for the poor, unemployed and homeless, first home buyers and on and on?
Kirk and our best Australian PM Savage actually did things for the NZ people as true decent Socialists and that’s why they are fondly remembered to this day.
Yep.
It’s a nice love letter to Jacinda this piece but the population isn’t that struck with her, she is charismatic and speaks kind words but as I’ve said before she’s our Obama- great words without action will ensure a political backlash.
I’m no longer sure she’s genuine after watching her stuff interview on suicide “we’ve made a great start” much grimacing and nodding of head, floundering and knowing she was failing.
There are only so many times you can deploy the drawn sympathetic smile and earnest nodding of the head before the magic wears off. Words. Lots of words.
Trudeau is another poster child who turned in to a caricature of himself.
Kirk did stuff.
Dead right!
Labour seem to think they can draw political oxygen with words when people want action.
So Labour have now acted. The cancer policy is out and this has thrown National into oblivion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXAUkUpTW4Q
Comparing this garbage fire government to Kirk is a very long bow to draw. The headline is click bait I was hoping the PM had gone.
LOL…..yes indeed…..
I was only 11 when Kirk died but he made an impression on me. I kept the newspaper cuttings – still have them. Jacinda is not in the same league, and yes, it is a very different world we face.
I think what Chris is saying is that Kirk died before the gloss had even started to wear off and had Jacinta died at the same point in her term, she would have been equally revered in the future. But Jacinta is still alive and the gloss is starting to wear off.
His comment is timely. The left seem unaware that the electorate is not quite seeing Jacinta on an invincible pedestal anymore. And as in 74-75, they seem unaware of how the ethics of politics and electioneering is changing. Labour were unprepared for Muldoon’s new use of TV and his appealing to populist misconceptions (dancing Cossack adds etc) and had no way to counter this new style.
In 2020 the new style will be Trump politics….. outlandish promises, blatant lies, personal attacks and libel, one-liners like ‘Crooked Hilary’ etc.
Tamihere is trialing Trump politics in NZ right now and Goff seems to have no answers.
If Tamihere wins Auckland there is a guarantee National will use the same formula.
Is Labour and the left noticing ???
chruskl – I missed this, “I have three priorities: climate, inequality and women”, but can see your concern.
I don’t know who is writing Ardern’s speeches, but had she said.”I have three priorities: climate, equality and people,” I think it would have been a much more powerful statement.
More so perhaps after a Nat govt which only cared about some people – this looks like more of the same thing, but with a gender divide this time rather than an income divide. I’m sick of gender divides and gender complexities, and having to Google to find out whether I am one of Louisa Wall’s “fucking terfs.”
And after Bill English’s idiotically saying that our young men are useless druggies, it’s a shame to see them rendered invisible here. It didn’t have to be that way.
I groaned at the boot camp for Islamic women. It may not necessarily be the most culturally appropriate way of getting Muslim women into politics anyway – community initiatives may work better – but my first reaction was what about all our young guys who are topping themselves.
I don’t know how high PM Ardern’s pedestal is/was, but a lot of the pleasure at seeing her become PM was simply relief after the greedy grasping socially destructive years of the National Government.
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