The Facts Don’t Always Tell The Truth.

ByChris Trotter

WHAT WOULD YOU THINK of a man who offered himself for high political office with the following credentials? He was raised in humble circumstances, fought his way out of poverty and, at 44, is a twice-decorated war hero. He does not eat meat or drink alcohol, loves animals and has an easy rapport with children.

Worth a go?

Not when you hear his name. Not when you discover that the man seeking your support is Adolf Hitler.

And yet, all the attributes listed above are completely factual. Adolf Hitler was all of those things. But, simply listing facts, especially when they are stripped of context, is not the same as telling the truth. To grasp the truth of Adolf Hitler’s contribution to world history requires more than mere facts, it requires understanding, interpretation and judgement.

When the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, addressed her party’s annual conference on 6 November 2022, she cloaked herself in the legacy of the Labour leaders who had preceded her. This is what she said:

“On the 9th floor of the Beehive building in Wellington, sitting directly behind my desk, is a picture of Michael Joseph Savage. You could say he’s on my shoulder but also ever so slightly in my ear.

“Of course it was Savage and the first Labour Government that lifted New Zealand out of the depths of the Great Depression. Not by cutting taxes and services, but by investing in jobs, and building a social welfare safety net. They built the country’s first state home. And not long after these social reforms – New Zealand’s living standards were among some of the highest in the world. Not for the few, but for the many.

“The Finance Minister who supported Savage, Walter Nash, then led Labour’s second government as it continued to build our nation’s social welfare system, while advocating on the world stage for peace over war after World War 2.

“It was Norman Kirk and a Labour government who tilted the country towards a modern future with reforms of trade, health, the arts, and education. They worked hard to foster a renewed national identity and partnership with Maōri – all the while challenging global evil such as apartheid and nuclear testing.

“It was a fight David Lange continued, making New Zealand nuclear free, while also righting the wrongs of the past by legalising homosexuality, and fully abolishing the death penalty.”

There are many facts embedded in the PM’s speech, but precious little truth.

It is certainly a fact that the Second Labour Government was led by Walter Nash, but to suggest that he was some sort of courageous pacifist visionary is very far from the truth.

Nash was 75 years old when he became Prime Minister in 1957 and was a notorious prevaricator and procrastinator. The two Labour Ministers who drove the Second Labour Government were Finance Minister, Arnold Nordmeyer, and the Trade & Industry Minister, Phil Holloway. Inspiring these two men was a third – the senior public servant and left-wing intellectual, Bill Sutch.

Knowing these things about the Second Labour Government, being able to put Nash and his colleagues into their proper historical context, offers the present-day member of the Labour Party a radically different perspective on the possibilities of social-democratic government. Sadly, Ardern did not want to share even a small measure of the truth about those three years. Her only concern was to establish her place in the line of succession.

Poor Norman Kirk fares little better. On the basis of the PM’s summary, the Third Labour Government could easily be presented as laying the groundwork for the Fourth. The truth is, of course, very different. Kirk was a nation-builder who, like his Australian counterpart, Gough Whitlam, was determined to extend and expand the Labour accomplishments of the 1930s and 40s. In other words, Kirk’s government represented the antithesis of Lange’s.

The Fourth Labour Government made New Zealand safe for neoliberalism by dismantling everything that the First, Second and Third Labour Government’s had built. Ardern’s impossibly brief sketch of the Fourth Labour Government, in which Lange champions the anti-nuclear policy, decriminalises homosexuality, and “finally” abolishes the death penalty comes perilously close to lying by omission.

Lange initially attempted to water-down the anti-nuclear strategy, and then made sure he was as far from Wellington as possible when the critical decision to either admit or deny entry to a visiting US warship could no longer be put off. The decriminalisation of homosexuality was effected by a private members bill in the name of Fran Wilde on a conscience vote. It was not a government bill, and Lange had nothing to do with it. The big battle over the death penalty for murder had been won twenty-three years before Lange became PM. It was accomplished under a National Party government in 1961. All that the Fourth Labour Government abolished, thanks to Sir Geoffrey Palmer (not Lange) was the death penalty for treason in time of war.

Ardern’s reference to the Fourth Labour Government shows just how much of the truth can be obscured through the presentation of a few highly dubious “facts”. Had she been of a mind to speak honestly to her party, she could have explained to conference delegates that the reason so little has been accomplished on her watch is because the Fourth Labour Government quite consciously decided to disempower the state, and had carefully dismantled all the machinery that made it possible for previous Labour Governments to make New Zealand a better place.

It is entirely possible that Ardern approves of David Lange’s and Roger Douglas’s “reforms”. Certainly, neither she, nor her Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, have seen fit to roll back the neoliberal revolution which the Lange/Douglas partnership began. And that’s fine – just so long as she doesn’t then pretend to be one more gleaming crimson link in the long democratic-socialist chain that begins with Harry Holland in 1919!

The Labour Party does not like to be criticised and is fiercely protective of its leaders. Over the years it has discovered that the best form of defence is to personally attack all those who draw attention to its shortcomings. Crucial to the success of this strategy, however, is the fostering within its ranks of a pervasive political amnesia, and the encouragement of a profound level of  historical ignorance. The measure of these Labour apparatchiks’ success is that, to date, not one party member has dared to protest the Prime Minister’s grotesque misrepresentation of the Labour governments which preceded her own.

There is so much that the Labour Party could learn from its past. So much courage that could be drawn from the men and women who refused to be told that their plans were beyond the scope of practical politics. People who didn’t have to pretend to be radical reformers. A party that said “Let’s do this!” – and then did it.

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81 Comments

  1. A great summary from Mr Trotter here of a classic Jacinda “fudge Sundae”. History can be inconvenient indeed for some when context is added.

    Helen Clark had “jobs Jolt” which restricted where some citizens could live!, Lange was a coward when dealing with Douglas, Norm Kirk over saw Dawn Raids and threatened to “take the bikes from the bikies”-which as per the natzos car crushing-rarely happened.

    The context for Chris here is I guess Don Presland’s personal attack. And a fair response. I am not looking forward to certain Tory commenters reactions though, they will devour this column like a dog returning to a regurgitated dinner!

  2. …And thence to Antarctica in the intrepid footsteps of Ernest Shackleton. It’s called triangulating. Sometimes it requires inconvenient ever-present shadows like Mt Erebus to be ignored in the interests of opportunism, but that’s politics New Zealand today.

    1. There is real danger in groups that once meant something. Groups that enacted genuine courage and foresight, who once presaged something more noble.
      It maybe human nature that once the results of such actions are seen and gratitude and accolades replace radicalism, risk and virulent opposition, such groups inevitably begin to stagnate.

      They come to move in the opposite direction according to the momentum created by the toxic cargo that moral-acclaim engenders; the influx of wannabes, people devoid of moral courage who wish instead to associate themselves virtues they are unable to muster in themselves, and with exploiters who will ride any train that promises personal gain – people who believe in nothing.

      It’s not just Labour. I’ve seen this dynamic repeatedly. Words, names, associations, twisted into fighting against non-pretenders, against the very values that through battle and hardship once birthed new life.

      1. Yes, What+Now, Thank you for saying this. The glib equators also diminish the real work of others utterly oblivious of what they’re doing, and ergo unconcerned about it. They’re our societal destroyers.

  3. I dislike personnal politics but Jacinda has based her whole power play on her smiling way much as John Key did the differents is that one used his lifes skills to move the country forward where as the other is causing the country to flounder. Unfortunately for some Keys way missed them out and they suffered but in the present case all seem to be suffering as shown by wage demands from all sectors teachers university professors health workers firemen the list goes on as more find they cannot met their bills .

    1. You lost me when you.said Key moved the country forward.
      Key was the cosumate ” smiling assassin” and fisherman, why, well he certainly hooked you.

    2. Gee Trevor if anything Ardern is too Key like. He drove the real estate fixation as much as anyone, and can be accused of as much neglect of things like health and infrastructure as anyone. Then went and chaired one of the largest lenders. Key was about Key.

      1. Wheel. ‘Key was about Key,’ and then left whining because he hadn’t been able to change our flag to suit himself, but worse is happening now.

  4. When Carmel Sepuloni, a distant relative, was first an MP and I talked to her about my “disappointment ” with the Roger Douglas led reforms she seemed unaware he had been a Labour Minister. Luckily for her she had family ties in Taranaki and began as a substitute representative for Andrew Little in the area. Purely by chance she latched on to the right coat-tails.

  5. Oh come now. This Labour government is radical, its 3 Waters trojan horse to deliver split control of all water to unelected people identifying as Maori is extremely transformational but not in a good way. The same with the merger of RNZ & TVNZ under the same principles, albeit that attempt to control the airwaves will relegate both to the lowest listenership rungs of broadcasting. And let’s not leave out the secretive He Puapua agenda. I mean if this transformation from a democratically elected system of government to some sort of hybrid non democracy is not radical, I don’t know what is!

    It’s just so weird though isn’t it that not a soul in Labour want to grab the spotlight on those radical subjects. Certainly not Jacinda who knows all about these, intimately, but pretends she doesn’t. Not this orchestras conductor, Willie Jackson, who didn’t even like Labour but saw it as a handy vehicle to implement his master plan.

    The rest of Labours ineffectual plans are a bad joke. As John Minto highlighted yesterday another unannounced achievement has been the sell off of public land as the biggest privatisation of public assets since the halcyon days of the 90’s for reasons only best known to Grant Robertson and our secretive Prime Minister. But in any case they have massively under delivered on their housing promises and have overseen the worst inequity and homelessness this country has seen.

    But as for Jacinda, a used car salesmans salesman. The promises and the sales pitch was first class, world leading, and truly inspiring. But the delivery and the total walk away from her commitments has reduced her brand to the level of junk status.

    And how dare she compare herself to truly great Labour leaders. Even Lange, who even if we look back in regret, brought massive change and not always for the worse.

    The question is, how long can our PM last with the public’s goodwill toward her and her government on empty?

    1. Yes, and actually 3 waters is 5 waters because not only didn’t they listen to submissions against cogovernance, the government just added effective Maori control of geothermal and salt water to 50 km off shore:
      https://theplatform.kiwi/opinions/hey-presto-three-waters-becomes-five-waters
      It’s not about cleaner water, it’s about giving certain chosen Maori control of all water.
      That’s a radical agenda alright, just not one they had the honesty to discuss with the electorate.

      2. Thanks, Keep Calm, for posting a link to my article on Five Waters.
        This is what Ardern will be remembered as — a weak, bombastic leader like David Lange who didn’t fully comprehend what his Cabinet was up to with Rogernomics.
        Ardern doesn’t fully comprehend what Mahuta is up to with Five Waters — although she will soon find out how unpopular it is.
        I have been writing about the binding Te Mana o te Wai statements for six months or more but no one seemed to take much notice when they were just over fresh water. I think most people believed Mahuta when she implied they would only be concerned with the purity of water.
        Extending the reach of TMoTW to the coast / geothermal water, however, makes it pretty clear this isn’t about getting clean drinking water and fixing broken pipes. It’s a massive Treaty settlement.
        People seem to be sitting up and noticing now. And not a moment too soon!
        They will not judge Ardern kindly for its stealthy implementation.

      3. Kcco. It was already inching in, but under government’s hitherto hidden agenda, Caroline Bay, Milford Sound, the jetty to Uncle Percy’s little rural loch, will all be under Maori control.

    2. The TVNZ RNZ merger is to get more documentaries and less MasterChef on our screens. Anyone who opposes it simply just wants more trash on our screens.

    3. Yes seems like radical reform is in fact taking place. Straight out of the Roger Douglas playbook – dont signal it, dont campaign on it, dont talk about it, pass it, fait accompli, then the electorate learns and lives with the dubious consequences.

    4. Good question xray go to the top of the class and write your version of the answer on the greenboard. I’m feeling too deflated after viewing the whole thing.

  6. Kirk’s predecessor, Nordmeyer presided over the notorious 1958 “black budget”. A budget that hit the working men’s “simple pleasures” with a huge increase in taxation on items such as beer and tobacco. Cost them the 1960 election.

    Worth reading the 2001 Nordmeyer lecture delivered by Helen Clark for a more factual acknowledge of the problems faced then and how little the present government did for nine years while in opposition and five years in government, to address the 2001 concerns.

    https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/sir-arnold-nordmeyer-lecture

    When reading the speech it does seems like we a running around in a circle not achieving anything. Same problems, same initiatives to right the wrongs but no change in outcomes.

    Clarks speech could easily be delivered by Ardern in 2021 and be factually accurate.

    “The objective is to find the means to fund the decent society for all New Zealanders. The government of which Sir Arnold was part found solutions which worked in their time. Our job is to find a new balance appropriate to the 21st century which secures health and other services of quality and provides long term economic and social security.”

    1. I think you’ll find the 1958 Budget was a response to a Balance of Payments crisis left by the outgoing National Government for the incoming Labour one.

      The measures did, of course, work. Hence the prosperity of the 1960s, which National claimed credit for.

  7. “History has known many great liars. Copernicus, Goebbels,
    St Ralph the Liar, but there have been none quite so
    vile as the Tudor king Henry VII……..Henry also claimed he won the Battle of Bosworth Field and killed Richard III. Again, the truth is very different; for it was Richard, Duke of York, who became king after Bosworth Field, and
    reigned for thirteen glorious years……..As for who really killed Richard III and how the defeated Henry Tudor escaped with his life, all is revealed in this, the first chapter of a history never before told: the history of The Black
    Adder”

  8. New Zealand seems to be settling on a three-term government as the standard model.

    Can the Labour Party refrain from the urge to buck the trend?

  9. ” A party that said “Let’s do this!” – and then did it.”

    What worries me is that they are ‘doing it’, and ‘it’ is all bad.

    2. A party that said ” a brighter future ” and look how bad their 9 years turned out. We are still paying for it.

    2. And wasn’t Max Key’s( son of)comment to a passing cyclist ” real men ride women ” on the money also.

    4. And what happened to Gareth Morgan as soon as he attacked people’s lovely pussy cats, he was a goner never to be seen again in politics. My, we have some real wankers and their wanker comments on here today same old shit just another day in little Aotearoa. Can all you bunch of wankers tell me who you think will be a better PM than Jacinda cause I can’t see anyone suitable yet.

      1. Kiri Allan until she got the ministerial warrant to sit around the cabinet table and drink the coolaid of submission, succumbing to the party line. Unfortunately she is now no better then Ardern.

        Politician do not do succession planning. As we saw with the Shearer, Cunliffe, Little parade before Ardern was anointed.

      2. “Bunch of wankers”? That’s a great way to initiate a conversation.
        Anyway, Labour seem to think Jacinda is the best chance they’ve got, for now anyway.
        I can’t speak for the rest of the “bunch” but plenty of quality candidates for PM in the other parties, it’s hard to know where to start. Luxon, Reti and Goldsmith are head and shoulders above JA, up and coming Willis and Stanford in National. Seymour and Brooke van Veldon for ACT.
        You’re welcome.

  11. Mind you, Lab4 did expand the welfare system, and boosted state housing, and made a big effort to devolve powers and services to iwi, which was undone by Winston Peters after the 1990 election.

    Not all bad.

  13. So after reading your post CT, I am wondering if you have been getting your feet held to the fire by the Woke OVerlords of LINO due to your ‘heresies’ of the last few weeks.

    I salute you!! Keep on talking truth to power. Maybe it might start a movement ….

  14. “There is so much that the Labour Party could learn from its past. So much courage that could be drawn from the men and women who refused to be told that their plans were beyond the scope of practical politics. People who didn’t have to pretend to be radical reformers. A party that said “Let’s do this!” – and then did it.”

    I recall yourself strongly advising against any move to tax CG because the people of your generation would not like it and Labour would lose an election. The same people who do not want any action in accord with New Zealand signing up to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010. And Article 23 says that Maori should have the right to be actively involved in determining their health, housing and social programmes and as far as possible administer through their own institutions. Something you strongly opposed, as to a Maori Health Authority.

  15. A party that said “Let’s do this!” – and then did it.……..sums up everything that is wrong with politics from all sides of the equation.

    1. Hedlok “ The lord hates liars.” He also forgives those who repent and who vow not to sin again. That’s no reason for us to like deceitful politicians who do not repent, and who get trickier by the day, when we’re not even lords and actually pay the buggers to behave badly.

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