Prologue: The Promise

I’ve been asked several times recently about my involvement in various political campaigns over the last couple of decades, and some very polite people have suggested that I write down some of it to put Online. Somewhat egotistically, I have taken them at their word, but have altered the plan slightly since the sudden advent of iBooks in the last few months. I might as well make a few cents from this.
Anyway.
This was about thirty years ago, and my hair was far longer than it had any right to be.
Part of the reason for this was that, as a nineteen-year-old, I still felt the adolescent need to rebel against my parents. The other part of the reason was that I was still not accustomed to the frigid climate of Dunedin. I was in my second year of a degree majoring in Classics (my choice of course had elicited much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the various surviving grandparents) and was living with some people who had seemed terrifically fun in first year, but had begun to subdue themselves as soon as it was impressed upon them that writing essays was not entirely optional.
Brett and Paul were aspiring lawyers, and had benefited hugely from the legalisation of homosexuality late in the previous year. I don’t think their aspirations bore much fruit - not just because the close-knit legal community in New Zealand is always about twenty years behind the times in some areas, but also because it is remarkably avant-garde in others: once wigs were declared to be old hat, the romance of the occupation was gone. My other flatmate was Freddy, a mathematician who swayed between alcoholic exuberance and (increasingly frequently) entire months spent poring over textbooks in his bedroom. Sometimes we found used plates. Usually, we did not.
On this particular night, Freddy had emerged, and had demanded that we watch the election debate on TV. As students, the rest of us were of the general opinion that politics was just something that happened to other people, until such a time as an attractive acquaintance expressed a desire to save the whales or ban war or something, at which point it became integral to our very being. Freddy was more into politics, but not the sexy kind. He could bore you to tears with talk of Condorcet Winners and Droop Quotas and Underhang Mandates, but fortunately he normally only did this after eight cans of Speights, when you could just let the enthusiasm wash over you. Tonight, however, was the first time we had seen him in three weeks, and we were well-disposed to allow him to dictate the TV schedule. Especially as we were slightly concerned that he might literally die at any point.
The debate was a round-table sort of thing, with an interviewer sitting down in the studio and asking questions to the leaders of the three parties then represented in Parliament: Neil Morrison of the ‘Democrats’ (Freddy explained after 15 minutes that this was the new brand of the Social Credit Party, which was news to the rest of us); Jim Bolger of National; and of course the Prime Minister, David Lange. For all that I was uninterested in politics, it was difficult to escape Lange’s highly individual manner, and even harder to be unaffected by it. Words flowed past me in that fat, rich, smoker’s voice, and while I was left with only a vague idea of what he had said, I was fairly sure that it was brilliant. Everything would be alright, and at the end of each of his responses, I was struck with a sudden desire to phone my Dad.
It was only later that I found out that Mr Lange had only slightly more idea of what he was saying that night than I did.
Many promises were made on all sides, of course, but one - an almost entirely extemporised promise, as it later emerged - was to have the most short-term impact. It is that one that I remembered the next day, if only because Freddy simply would not shut up about it.
Quite late in the debate, Neil Morrison made some jibe about his party having received X amount of votes in the previous election and only two seats. I could feel Freddy crossing his legs next to me on the scorched old sofa.
The issue was passed over to Lange:
“I think there
is something unfair about it - I think that the Democrats benefited from that unfairness at the last election. They polled half the votes, in percentage terms, as the New Zealand Party. They got two seats; the New Zealand Party got none.”
“Is that right, Freddy?” asked Paul.
“Hnghh.” Freddy was standing on the sofa at this point.
Lange continued: “I think there are, therefore, aspects of unfairness, which is why this Government supported the move to have the Royal Commission, and we will, in the… next term…”
At this point, irrespective of Freddy’s bated breath, I could clearly see on that tiny screen that David Lange was speaking words as they came into his head. He had, in fact, come out of a conversation with well-known Constitutional bore, Geoffrey Palmer, earlier that day, and was essentially repeating Palmer’s lines at the hundreds of thousands of viewers at home. We, of course, could not be sure of this at the time, and to the average person, the rolling breakers of Lange’s voice would have sounded the same as they had over the rest of the programme. Indeed, it was only Freddy’s excitement that made this segment especially memorable to me.
“... refer that Report to a Parliamentary Select Committee. A Referendum will thereafter be held.”
I don’t know why I’m starting off with this story. Perhaps it’s because this was the first time I saw someone get so animated about a Parliamentary Select Committee (Freddy was now writhing on the carpet, and Paul was growing a little concerned for his wellbeing), which made it feel as if Politics was something worth paying attention to; or perhaps it’s because it’s the first time I saw a promise being made by a politician which was kept to the letter. It might even be that I saw the possibilities of things that could be done by people who were going with the flow - ‘going with the flow’ had been my M.O. up till then, and had served me well thus far.
Lange seemed to have realised that what he was saying was the death knell of the political world he loved so much: “I believe that there will probably be a public acceptance of a four-year term and a
modified form of Proportional Representation. But everyone will have - a - practically - ha - a very substantial opportunity to… consult.“
“A
modified form of - “ said the interviewer.
“A MODIFIED FORM OF - “ said Freddy, a tremor of disgust rising from his throat.
“I think that you - I don’t think that - I think the German one is an example of it. I think that other forms of Proportional Representation, you can have, er, not just the tail wagging the dog, but the flea wagging the tail, and that would be crazy.”
Typical Lange: always end on an indelible soundbite, even if you’re staring chaos in the headlights.
When we had physically restrained Freddy and calmed him down by encouraging him to explain the German electoral system in copious detail, we all went off to bed, as normal. I didn’t realise then, that an innocuous evening in watching TV would crop up so often in my memory over the next three decades.