50 years since Norman Kirk died: His legacy, his popularity, and the conspiracy theories - The Front Page

Norman Kirk in full cry at the opening of the Labour Party election campaign in the Auckland Town Hall in 1969. Photo / NZ Herald

When Labour’s Norman Kirk was elected the 29th Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1972, it marked the end of 12 years of National Party rule and a shift for the country.

For the next two years, Kirk passed legislation that was radical at the time, looking to reshape New Zealand’s place in the world, and his legacy has endured as one of the country’s most popular Prime Ministers.

However, on August 31 1974, Kirk died after a lengthy but private illness, having only served two-thirds of his term.

50 years later, Kirk’s legacy, and the ‘what ifs’ created by his untimely and shock death, remain.

But it wasn’t an easy road to the ninth floor for Kirk. Victoria University of Wellington Professor of History Jim McAloon told The Front Page that Kirk did not immediately grab the public’s attention.

“His first election as leader in 1966 really didn’t result in too much gain for the Labour Party. I think over the next six years he learned what was necessary to be a successful party leader and more a successful Prime Minister.”

McAloon said a combination of events, including troubled industrial relations, saw voters back Keith Holyoake for a fourth term, but the writing was “on the wall” and Kirk was setting the agenda during that last term.

“He was also increasingly able to capture the spirit of the age, especially some of the concerns of the younger generation - voters in their early 20s - around care for the environment, around foreign affairs, particularly apartheid and nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific.

“And I think too, he espoused a vision, which was fresh and compelling by 1972, of more social justice, more cohesion, and I think too what he might have called a more independent sense of New Zealand’s nationhood.”

Kirk’s policies included protesting French nuclear testing in the Pacific and recognising China, seeking to create an independent foreign policy for New Zealand.

He also made February 6 a national public holiday to recognise the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, though it was called ‘New Zealand Day’.

McAloon said that Kirk was popular at the time, and there was a sense of a “new beginning” under his premiership.

“Of course, dying in office did give him a posthumous reputation that’s very hard to shake. And I don’t want to diminish his popularity or diminish the positive dimensions of his prime ministership, but there is a bit of nostalgia around Kirk that I think sometimes gets a little bit uncritical.”

Kirk made his last public appearance on August 18, 1974, and 10 days later was photographed going into the Home of Compassion Hospital in Island Bay, Wellington.

While Kirk had been sick with obesity and heart problems for some time, he kept it hidden from the public and continued working during his illness. When he did die, it came largely as a shock to the nation.

Over the years, it has even contributed to conspiracy theories about how he did, with allegations that foreign powers were involved.

Most prominently, in 1999, then Labour Party president Bob Harvey suggested that the CIA may have been involved and said that US President Bill Clinton release files on it - prompting a telling-off from then leader Helen Clark.

McAloon said it is a natural tendency when something dreadful and shocking happens to look for sinister causes, and his death occurred in the shadow of the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy.

“I think too, given that Kirk, like those others I’ve mentioned, seemed to be heading in a progressive direction, it’s perhaps natural also to ask oneself ‘who were their enemies?’

“There’s never, so far as I’m aware, been a really good case that there was anything more than the fact that Norman Kirk’s health was not that great.”

Kirk’s death saw Bill Rowling take over as Prime Minister, and head into the 1975 election against National’s Robert Muldoon, which Labour lost.

McAloon said it’s difficult to theorise what could have happened if Kirk had survived, but thinks that a Kirk in good health would have been in a better position to defeat Muldoon.

“This is not to denigrate Bill Rowling, who I think was a very good prime minister, but in terms of image, Muldoon was making all the running. It’s also important to remember that the National Party had a much better funded campaign than Labour did.

“That said, I think Kirk would likely have won a second term in 1975 with a much reduced majority, I suspect, if he had been at the height of his powers. I like to say that in some respects, I think, you know, Kirk and Muldoon were both very dominant personalities in Parliament, in Cabinet, in caucus. both very much out there.

“I like to say though, that in some ways I think Norman Kirk represented the better angels of our nature and Muldoon sometimes played to the worst.”

Listen to the full episode for more on the life, death and legacy of Norman Kirk.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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