Brash Don: Obituaries — Rt Hon David Russell Lange ONZ CH John Finlay Luxton QSO Hon John Howard Falloon CNZM Rod David Donald 
Brash Don: Obituaries — Rt Hon David Russell Lange ONZ CH John Finlay Luxton QSO Hon John Howard Falloon CNZM Rod David Donald 
[Volume:628;Page:46] 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 The National Party certainly supports the motions put before the House. I plan to talk mainly about David Lange. My colleague Gerry Brownlee will talk mainly about Rod Donald. But let me also say that in my view Rod Donald was a compassionate man an intelligent man and an enthusiastic politician who played the ball and not the person and although he and I differed on many policy issues I certainly held him in high regard. 
Let me also pay a brief tribute to Jack Luxton and the Hon John Falloon. I did not know either of them as well as I knew David Lange but they too as the Prime Minister has said made a very considerable contribution to this House. I pay tribute to them—indeed John to your father. 
I first met David Lange very shortly after he was elected in the by-election in Mangere when I was the chief executive of a small merchant bank in Auckland. Out of the blue he came to see me and asked whether I might be available to join the Labour Party policy council and be available for selection as a Labour Party candidate. I was enormously flattered having never been a member of any political party at that point and I actually gave the matter serious consideration for several days. I eventually rang him back and said that notwithstanding the flattery I would not accept his invitation. I said that in my view New Zealand was being held back by two important obstacles: one was the excessive dominance of the Government in the New Zealand economy and the other was the rather archaic structure of the union movement as it then was based on a British craft-union model. I said that in my mind the Labour Party was committed to a large Government and was so institutionally bound up with the union movement that it would be difficult to change the union structure with Labour. I have never forgotten his response to my comments. He said: “I agree with you. Join the Labour Party and help me change it.” I did not believe that he could change the Labour Party so I turned down the invitation. 
Of course as history would show David Lange did make a huge impact on the New Zealand economy and he even had some impact on the Labour Party itself. So while there will be speakers here today who will recall David Lange’s contribution to New Zealand in foreign policy—his arguments with the French over the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 and with the Americans over nuclear-propelled ships—I would remind the House about his enormous influence along with distinguished colleagues like David Caygill Roger Douglas Richard Prebble Peter Neilson and David Butcher in reforming the New Zealand economy. All of us in this House owe David Lange a debt of gratitude for the enormous contribution he made to the reforms of the 1980s. No the reforms were not flawless and they were not completed under his prime ministership but he made great progress. 
Although of course I was not a member of his Government I worked with his Government in designing the goods and services tax in reforming the taxation of the rural sector in closing loopholes in the company tax structure that had made paying company tax almost a voluntary activity by the 1980s and in reforming the taxation of superannuation and life insurance. David Lange was Prime Minister when the Government he led appointed me as Governor of the Reserve Bank and I met him a number of times in that capacity. Yes he made a very considerable contribution to the development of the New Zealand economy. He acknowledged as I do that government has a very important role to play in establishing the rules within which production and distribution occur. But he also believed as I do that the market economy is the most efficient way of producing goods and services for the people. Nobody is devoid of faults and David Lange had his share of faults. But he was a great orator and had a great vision of what New Zealand could be. He found New Zealand organised like the proverbial Polish shipyard—a consequence of the policies followed by successive Governments over several decades—and left it approaching modernity. 
David Lange was trained in the law and practised for a number of years as a lawyer before entering Parliament. Long after he left Parliament he retained a vital interest in seeing that justice was done. When Katherine Rich and I mounted a petition calling for a royal commission into the Peter Ellis case he signed that petition without hesitation. Like me he did not know whether Peter Ellis was innocent or guilty but he was gravely concerned at the number of unanswered questions that surround the case. In the early 1990s when still in Parliament he provided substantial support to one of my own colleagues Dr Nick Smith who was being sued on an issue on which he felt very strongly. Not many members of Parliament of any party are willing to come to the aid of a political opponent in the way that David Lange did. 
David Lange was a vigorous opponent of the party that I now lead. On behalf of the National Party I nevertheless salute his memory. He was a great New Zealander.