Duynhoven Harry: Obituaries — Rt Hon David Russell Lange ONZ CH John Finlay Luxton QSO Hon John Howard Falloon CNZM Rod David Donald 
Duynhoven Harry: Obituaries — Rt Hon David Russell Lange ONZ CH John Finlay Luxton QSO Hon John Howard Falloon CNZM Rod David Donald 
[Volume:628;Page:72] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 This has been a rare and an unusually sad beginning to our Parliament and I extend my and my wife’s sympathy to the families of the four MPs who have left us. I did not know Jack Luxton personally but I know of the esteem he is held in by this Parliament. My great mentor the late Ron Barclay MP mentioned him on several occasions. But I did know the Hon John Falloon personally and he was very supportive of me when I—together with some other MPs perhaps—had a small mishap during the citizenship debate of a year or two ago. The two people I would most like to speak about are of course the Rt Hon David Lange who was Prime Minister when I was first contemplating a political career and Rod Donald. 
I knew David Lange from 1978 when I met him for the first time at a conference and then in 1984 he came to New Plymouth during the very brief run-up to the 1984 snap election. He peered out the back window of the Labour Party rooms in Vivian Street and looked at my Porsche which was quite flash-looking but quite beaten up under the skin and made a bit of a quip about it to a friend of mine who was standing there in a suit. Naturally David thought that as he was wearing a suit the Porsche out there must belong to him but in fact the car belonged to the slightly scruffy schoolteacher in the T-shirt and jeans. Lange thought that was a real hoot. 
David was a very inspirational leader of this country and when I was a new candidate in 1986 he again came to New Plymouth. Being someone who did not like formality much he arranged for us to have a cup of tea and a meeting before we set out on the road. We were there for the spudding-in of the McKee project. David asked me about New Plymouth and then asked me whether I had any questions. I said yes got out the manifesto of the time and asked: “What does this sentence mean?”. He grinned and said: “Well whatever the reader would like it to mean actually.” I thought that was a very pragmatic approach. 
We then set off for the McKee project. I had given a warning that I thought the timetable was much too tight and that we should have been using one of the helicopters from the oil company that was doing the job at the time. But we set off in the LTD and we were late not only because the travelling distance had been greatly underestimated but also because the LTD got stuck and had to dragged out of the well site. On the way back although we had a single police car behind us as was the case in those days David said to the driver: “Hughie floor it mate.”—and he did! David often asked about the health of Hugh whom he regarded as the best and fastest ministerial driver around. 
Strangely enough even though I was the youngest and one of the newest MPs at the time I got on well with David. I was one of the group that worked hard to try to keep David in his position as Prime Minister. I was pretty energetic and new and full of all sorts of interesting ideas. Some of the older MPs will know that I promoted a few things quite extensively particularly the idea of having an alternative ship to the Anzac frigates and a new concept for the Navy together with a servicing base for the fishing fleet that was then operating at New Plymouth and an extended runway for the international flights we need in order to shift fishing crews back to their homes overseas etc etc. I prepared lots of briefing papers and things which David was kind enough sometimes at short notice to have delivered to his home. On one occasion he invited me up to talk with him about the issue—or agreed to let me come up after I pestered him. He was gazing out the window as he was wont to do. Without a break in the delivery of my brilliant ideas to him I said: “And you are not listening to a blind bit of this are you?”. He then proceeded to repeat the last five sentences verbatim. I learnt a valuable lesson that day. David was a marvellous and an inspirational leader and I am delighted to have come in as an MP in the time when he was Prime Minister. 
Strangely enough we kept in touch because David’s younger daughter Edith was born at around the same time as my youngest daughter Anny. He thought that that was a real hoot. We kept in touch and one day just before the end of his life I phoned him and he told me that he expected to be in hospital that afternoon. And so it was. He said he realised that he was becoming too difficult for Margaret to manage. He was then moved into hospital and of course the end was inevitable. 
David was very supportive of me at the time of the citizenship debacle. We had a number of interests in common not the least of which was motor sport. During my time as an MP David had taken some relaxation time and had been racing in the Nissan Mobil 500 support races in Wellington driving a Nissan Pulsar. The following year when that race was on again I was invited to be one of the lesser celebrities in it. David’s office rang me and said: “Please do not do this because we do not want David to do it and we have been trying to convince him for the sake of his health that he shouldn’t.” Damn! I would really like to do that race but I did not. 
We certainly had a visionary leader at the time. David was much criticised greatly admired and greatly loved. As has been mentioned before I do not think anyone in New Zealand was not proud of his Oxford debate. In my view that debate put New Zealand on the map internationally. 
I wish of course to extend my sympathy and the sympathy of all those who knew David to Naomi and his children. I was particularly impressed with the way in which Roy conducted himself at the funeral and with Byron and Emily and Margaret and Edith who are probably listening today. They can all be very proud of the man whom they knew and loved. 
Rod Donald and I have known each other for a very long time—probably for 30 years or close to it. We share a few things politically too which surprised me. The first political meeting I attended was also a Values Party meeting back in the early 1970s. But I decided that the Labour Party had more chance of getting progressive policies into place and so it has been particularly in the last 6 years under the leadership of Helen Clark. When I first met Rod he was the boss of an outfit called Piko Wholefoods Co-operative. It was a little brick shop on the corner of a street in Christchurch and I visited him there on one occasion. We actually met through Trade Aid which we were both involved in. Later Rod became the general manager of the importing and distribution arm of that organisation. 
It is marvellous that we can have friendships across party lines. During the 1996 campaign before he became an MP Rod came to New Plymouth. He was looking after the two things that were of prime importance in his life at that time: Trade Aid and the Green Party. He came to New Plymouth and I happened to bump into him. He said that he would love to come around and see Margaret. So he had a meal with us which is a pretty remarkable thing for a politician from another party to do. 
It has been a privilege and a pleasure to know Rod. I was always impressed with his energy and his commitment to the issues he was involved in. Nicola Holly Emma and Zoe can be very very proud of the man they knew and loved and they can be very proud of the things he achieved in his time in Parliament. We did not always agree but we agreed on the vast majority of things and it was a privilege to work with Rod. 
An interesting thing about that first election in 1996—or it might have been the next one in 1999—was that Rodney Hide Rod and I found ourselves having a beer one night. That was an odd thing to happen but it occurred. Rod quipped: “You know we might all be in the same Cabinet one day.” Sadly for a variety of reasons each of us has not made it but it was marvellous to see that that could have occurred. I pointed out to them that the Dutch Government had exactly that sort of coalition very successfully for several years. Sometimes we come from very differing viewpoints politically. I think Rod described me as the “greenest” of the Labour MPs when the Green Party came into Parliament. 
This has been quite a remarkable few days and I think the tributes to our former MPs—particularly to Rod on this very poignant and sad beginning to Parliament—show that there is goodwill between all parliamentarians. It does come to the fore on an occasion like this. I hope that the legacy that is left is that such goodwill will be extended more often in future. I know that Rod worked very very hard on the MMP campaign particularly with the Electoral Reform Coalition which he saw as being a way for the future. I joined in that work. Many of my colleagues were not as impressed with proportional representation as I was but I thought it was the way ahead. I have always thought so since I visited Germany in the early 1980s and saw that it handled a very controversial issue vastly better than New Zealand had the year before in 1981. Rod and I were both involved in that as well. 
This has been a very unusual and sad way to begin a Parliament but let us hope that the legacy left by these great leaders remains.