For the Record: Lange and the Fourth Labour Government.

• Author: Hoadley, Stephen
• Position: Book review

FOR THE RECORD Lange and the Fourth Labour Government

Edited by: Margaret Clark

Published by: Dunmore Publishing Ltd, Wellington, 2005, 262pp, $34.95.

This book grew out of a Victoria University of Wellington conference marking the 20th anniversary of the advent of the fourth Labour government. Its contributors are a virtual Who's Who of veteran politicians, senior public servants, and prominent analysts from academia and media.

The book contains a wealth of information on and retrospective assessment of domestic political affairs during the Lange era, flavoured by eloquent anecdote, revelation, speculation and self-justification. Contributors include such participants and close observers as (surnames only in alphabetical order for brevity) Bassett, Bolger, Burke, Caygill, Cullen, Douglas, Grant, Hawke, James, Johansson, Lange (Peter), Levine, Palmer, Pope, Prebble, Roberts, Scott, Stace, Vintiner, and Wilson. This review confines itself to those chapters devoted to foreign affairs, contributed by Gerald Hensley, John Henderson, Denis McLean, Merwyn Norrish, Bruce Brown, and Ted Woodfield.

Hensley, a diplomat briefly head of the Prime Minister's Department under David Lange, cited Mike Moore's observation that Labour had 'a tribal instinct of wariness about public servants'. He added that Labour displayed 'a persisting reluctance to place full trust in the public service' that sometimes obstructed smooth achievement of the fourth Labour government's agenda. For example, the US nuclear-ship-visit issue escalated unnecessarily into a quarrel and then a near-crisis of relations with not only Washington but also Canberra. By deliberately forgoing the advice of the experienced diplomats and conducting person-to-person diplomacy, Lange through 'over-confidence and inexperience' generated controversy instead of compromise among the Americans 'who had tried to be helpful'. Hensley cited a minister who later speculated that 'if we had taken the Buchanan decision eighteen months later, it would have been different', implying that the New Zealand government would have taken a more moderate stance and avoided a breakdown in military and diplomatic relations.

Also, during the Rainbow Warrior and Fiji coup crises, Lange was either impatient of the complexities, made infeasible demands, or undertook direct action, leaving 'key colleagues and departments in the dark'. In contrast, Hensley concedes, Lange's active political style facilitated Cyclone Bola...