Lange savages old colleagues in autobiography

Former colleagues of David Lange are likely to be sneaking off to bookstores to see what he says about them when his autobiography hits the shops tomorrow.

Few have been spared the former Prime Minister's sharp wit in My Life, in which he says of his Cabinet: "Dear God! What a terrible lot of people they were! It is hard to believe I used to think so much of them."

The book follows Mr Lange through the split in the Government that led to his resignation as Prime Minister in August 1989 and Labour's catastrophic defeat by National in 1990.

Among the victims of his caustic pen are Prime Minister Helen Clark, whom he accuses of not speaking out against Rogernomics, and his "fundamentalist" former Finance Minister Roger Douglas, now Sir Roger.

He says Helen Clark never became involved in Cabinet fights over economic policy in the Government's second term, and claims Sir Roger "bought off Clark by promising her supply in her housing portfolio".

"She responded by putting her head down. I do not remember her buying into any fight we ever had in Cabinet. She was by her own account a survivor."

Of Sir Roger, Mr Lange says that when Labour was re-elected in 1987, he "no longer trusted Douglas and wanted to use the [Cabinet] allocation to put some restraints on him".

He says Sir Roger "was not an economist any more than I was. His politics lacked understanding and humanity, and I will always believe I was right to take issue with them."

He describes his Foreign Affairs Minister Russell Marshall as "shallow, shabby, endlessly self-seeking" and Health Minister Michael Bassett as "always venomous", and reveals that he did not trust Mike Moore to run the country in his absence.

He says "there was no end to the vanity" of Australian Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Yesterday, Helen Clark declined to comment, and Sir Roger did not return NZPA's calls.

Dr Bassett said he was not worried about being called "venomous".

"His comments about me are sort of typical of his humorous one-liners. But on a more serious level, they tend to suggest a trait of his that when he can't come to grips with the message people have passed to him he attacks the messenger."

Political commentator and former National and NZ First MP Michael Laws said the book showed "enormous pettiness".

"The excerpts I've read of his book are bitter, vindictive and demonstrate that he liked very few people, including his caucus colleagues, most of whom he has dismissed as venal and addled." 

Mr Lange does have some good words to say about two members of his Cabinet - Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Michael Cullen.

He praises Dr Cullen, now Finance Minister, for fighting hard to stop the right-wing Cabinet faction's bid for a 23c-in-the-dollar flat income-tax rate.

"He did all that and more, and when it came to the crunch, there were only the two of us."

Mr Lange says that when he was taken to hospital in 1988 with heart disease, he asked Sir Geoffrey to return from overseas to be Acting PM because he did not trust Mr Moore, the third-ranked minister, to do the job.

"This led to my parting of the ways with Mike Moore - who was hurt and disappointed at my passing him over. But God alone knew what Moore might do."

- NZPA