Hide Rodney: Obituaries — Rt Hon David Russell Lange ONZ CH John Finlay Luxton QSO Hon John Howard Falloon CNZM Rod David Donald 
Hide Rodney: Obituaries — Rt Hon David Russell Lange ONZ CH John Finlay Luxton QSO Hon John Howard Falloon CNZM Rod David Donald 
[Volume:628;Page:56] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 It is truly a sad day when we remember the lives of four men whom we have lost. But it is also a day on which we celebrate their huge achievements and the fact that those men packed so much in. I want to pass on the ACT party’s regards to John Luxton and his family for the loss of their father who was a true gentleman and also to the Hon John Falloon’s family and for the contribution those two men made to this Parliament and to our country. 
I now turn to the two motions. I think that each and every one of us and indeed the entire country was shocked on Sunday to learn of Rod Donald’s passing. I believe that if we had looked around this Parliament and thought about who was most likely to pass away suddenly we would have had to say that Rod Donald would be on the bottom of anyone’s list because I do not know of any MP who had more energy vim and vigour than Rod Donald. So his death was truly a shock for the country and of course the tragedy was in the timing. Here was a man who along with Jeanette Fitzsimons and his party had campaigned hard to make it to Parliament and to be here in Parliament and the day before the swearing-in he passed away. So it was a true shock. 
But Rod Donald lives on in so many ways. Politically people have acknowledged his huge contribution to the achievement of MMP which is a huge legacy. Of course that was not just Rod Donald’s achievement but there is no doubt that he led the charge in terms of MMP. He shaped our Parliament and our politics by his enormous efforts and he achieved that from outside Parliament. Here in Parliament he was along with Jeanette Fitzsimons the leading force for the Greens. So his legacy lives on with the Green Party a party that he was instrumental in getting established in Parliament and on the electoral map. 
I will always remember something about Rod Donald that quite astonished me at the time. I remember going on John Campbell’s show on TV3 2 days before election day—and everyone had had quite a hard campaign—with Rod Donald. Rod Donald was making the point that ACT was finished which everyone was making but he added something. He said that it was sad that ACT would not be here in Parliament—which was quite something. I think that says a huge amount about Rod Donald. He recognised that what made MMP work was the diversity of views. He was a person who always spoke up for every party not just for the views he agreed with. I certainly will remember Rod Donald for that. 
I always used to see Rod Donald running in the morning. He would always tell me that I should join him but I could never catch him up. He was also a man who lived according to his political principles and he was remarkably inventive. He was the man who invented the Kiwi-made hands-free phone kit for the bicycle which was a remarkable affair. He used to wrap a bicycle tube around his head and slip his cellphone up so he could be hands-free while talking on the phone. That was a remarkable invention and remarkable to see. 
It is still truly a shock. I do not think any of us have come to grips with the fact that Rod Donald is no longer with us. It is quite something that tomorrow we all go to Christchurch at the start of the new Parliament and join together to farewell Rod Donald. That is something that Rod Donald has achieved too. 
To his family and friends who have lost a father a partner and a friend I say that the ACT party’s sympathies are with them as well as our thoughts and prayers. To his Green Party colleagues who have lost a close colleague and a leader I say that our thoughts our condolences and our prayers are with them. I say the same to Parliament and all New Zealanders who have cruelly lost a political leader when he clearly had so much more to contribute. 
I did not know David Lange when he was Prime Minister—I met him subsequently—but I felt as though I knew him. Also like most New Zealanders I loved him. He was the only politician I had ever written to. I wrote to him just to say what a great job he was doing and how proud to be a New Zealander he made me and he took the trouble to write a lovely letter back. 
What a difference David Lange made to all of us! I remember coming back to New Zealand—into the “Polish shipyard” as David Lange called it—and it was so dark dank and controlled. In the last years of the Muldoon administration it was not a happy place. It was a place that was divided and that was going nowhere. Then a new Government swept to power. I actually voted for my parliamentary colleague across the way Jim Anderton so that he could be a part of it. In those days one only had one vote. The new Government swept to power led by that most remarkable Prime Minister who opened up New Zealand to the world and stood on the world stage as an equal to the world. 
He spoke for all of us even if we may have disagreed with him. How proud David Lange made us all feel! How optimistic he made us all feel about the future before us. In watching him we felt that as New Zealanders we could do anything because David Lange did. 
Who could ever match his humour or his wit? No one. In Parliament—in life—I have never met anyone more intelligent than Richard Prebble. I have never met anyone who could assemble information and process it so fast and come up with a unique way of looking at it. But Richard Prebble stood in awe of David Lange’s intelligence. Amongst all this we know that David Lange—world leader and Prime Minister of New Zealand—had a place for each and every one of us. 
When I was at Lincoln University we had a secretary there who was terribly obese. She was contemplating radical surgery of the type that David Lange had had and she did not know what to do. She wrote to the Prime Minister of New Zealand and she got the most remarkable letter back which she was so overjoyed to receive that she showed it to colleagues. It was a remarkable letter from the heart full of his personal experience and encouraging her to have the operation given what a difference it had made to him. We know that David Lange always had time to do that for everyone. Here was the Prime Minister of New Zealand on the world stage and busy getting a letter from what one would call in those un-PC days a fat secretary who worked at a university and whom he did not know and taking the trouble to write a very caring thoughtful and personal letter to her. That was David Lange. 
Richard Prebble tells a story about David Lange’s great love of speed—we all know about that when he was Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will know that speeding did not get quite the attention then that it does now. But I think there used to be quite a lot of trouble in that Government with regard to Mr Lange’s speed. Before he became an MP he was caught speeding through some town—I think it was Kaikohe. He turned up to defend himself and his defence was quite unique. The police said they had caught him going through the town at 70 miles per hour. David Lange explained to the court that there could be no law against that and that if David Lange wanted to do 70 miles per hour and could do 70 miles per hour he was perfectly free to do so. The judge took that on board and said: “Good luck at the next Olympics Mr Lange.” because the police officer had neglected to mention that David Lange was in a car when he was doing 70 miles per hour. 
We should remember David Lange as he was and I want to read about the nuclear-free status of New Zealand for which he will be remembered and which has been remarked upon. The following passage is in his own words from his book  
My Life 
: “I agreed with the prevailing opinion in the Labour Party about nuclear weapons; … But I found it hard to accept that the Labour Party’s policy required the exclusion of nuclear-powered ships. Given that nuclear energy exists it is the intention behind its use which matters. The weapons are made to destroy and we have to learn to live without them. The rest may be useful if properly managed.” That too says something about David Lange who was always prepared to step outside ideology and to be a practical man. 
We will not see David Lange’s like again; he made a huge contribution to New Zealand. We will not see the like of Rod Donald again; he made a huge contribution to New Zealand. Today our thoughts are with their achievements and with their families and friends.