Natalie
Akoorie, Waikato senior reporter
Four
of New Zealand’s former prime ministers were so sick two
died in office, one shortly after leaving, and the last
drank so heavily at critical times that on one bender he
called a snap election which his party lost.
Now a
New Zealand Medical Journal article is calling for
further research into health impaired former PMs and whether
leaders should undergo medical assessments before and during
office.
It also highlighted concerns with supporters
who enabled their leader to remain in office while
physically incapable of the job by hiding the true extent of
their impairment.
The article, released on Friday and
written by Otago University Professor Nick Wilson,
researcher Dr John Horrocks and George Thomson, discusses
the growing international concern around impaired leaders,
especially in a world of heightened geopolitical
instability.
Horrocks noted former United States
president Joe Biden during his election campaign debate
against opponent Donald Trump last year when Biden shocked
viewers with poor skills and slurring words.
The
article referred to previous research that concluded: “Who
ends up in office plays a critical role in determining when
and why countries go to war”.
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
It examined the four New
Zealand cases and called for further research into other
impaired former prime ministers, and a discussion around
possible safeguarding against such situations including
requiring independent medical assessments.
“Tensions
between privacy of health information and protection of
government decision-making need to be resolved, but it could
reduce the chance that a country might have political
leaders with diminished understanding of their own
limitations,” the article said.
The four case studies
highlighted leaders with diminished capacity leading to
reckless decision-making.
The four prime ministers
were Sir Joseph Ward, who died at 74 just six weeks after
leaving office in May 1930, Michael Joseph Savage, who died
in office on 27 March 1940 at age 68, Norman Kirk who was 51
when he died in office in August 1974 and Sir Robert
Muldoon, who was on various medications and whose drinking
contributed to the demise of his leadership in
1984.
“All of these figures were reluctant to accept
limitations to their authority, despite urgings from
associates who considered them no longer able to make sound
decisions or too ill to carry out their work.”
Ward’s
second term as PM from December 1928 was dogged by serious
errors, over-promising, physical frailty and poor health,
according to the article – which sourced the history from
biographies.
“Apart from these demonstrations of
Ward’s failing capacity to make good decisions, his
declining health meant that more and more of his work had to
be delegated.
“Important public engagements had to be
passed onto ministers, and his own family were closely
involved with his support.”
In October 1929 Ward had a
stroke.
Two months later on 28 December 1929 police
shots killed 11 in Western Samoa, which was administered by
New Zealand at the time, but Ward was in bed sick and his
whole ministry was absent on holiday.
The article said
the slow response from Ward’s government, which eventually
sent a ship to deal with the emergency on 31 December,
demonstrated the danger of impaired leadership with Ward
himself initially considering suppressing the bad
news.
During the following five months he spent much
of his remaining time in office convalescing in Rotorua or
at his home, with one photo from the time showing him in a
wheelchair in his garden.
Head
of the first Labour Government from 1935 to 1940, Savage
died of colon cancer while in office after deferring
essential surgery to campaign in 1938.
“As his
sickness progressed, his behaviour was marked by
increasingly erratic and violent outbursts when challenged
by members of the Labour caucus.”
The article said he
grew increasingly rattled by criticism and threatened to
knock off the head of one commentator, and implied he would
fight members of his own caucus.
At the same time the
public was constantly reassured about the 68-year-old’s
health including three weeks before he died in office, by
associates who stated in the Labour Party paper, “Mr Savage
is not only fit and looking very fit, but in daily
consultation with his Ministers”.
Labour leader Kirk’s
secrecy about his health problems, including diabetes and a
mini-stroke in India in December 1973 that left him
temporarily paralysed, left little time to prepare a
successor after his sudden death in office in August
1974.
The 51-year-old had only been prime minister
less than two years but during that time he had collapsed
several times, once while speaking in the House and another
when he passed out in his room in Parliament.
“His
colleagues smuggled him out of the House and took him
home.”
In April 1974 while on a fishing trip in the
Bay of Islands, Kirk could hardly walk for pain in his legs,
was struggling to breathe and was coughing up
blood.
An operation to treat varicose veins left him
with an embolism that caused pleurisy.
Kirk swore the
doctor to secrecy and the official bulletin reported he had
the flu.
By the time Kirk was days away from death in
August that year, with an enlarged liver and heart failure,
he was still insisting no one was to know how sick he
was.
Muldoon had been a popular and powerful National
Party politician who became prime minister in 1975, but
whose notoriously abrasive behaviour was also impacted by
excessive alcohol use, the article said.
“For example,
during a late-night session on 4 November 1976, Muldoon,
described as ‘liquored up’ by Social Credit MP Bruce
Beetham, accused Labour MP Colin Moyle of being ‘picked up
by the police for homosexual activity’.
“This
accusation and its messy aftermath, which included a
commission of inquiry, ultimately resulted in Moyle’s
resignation before the end of the year.”
The article
said Muldoon was drinking when he called a snap election,
otherwise dubbed the “Schnapps Election”, in June 1984
following a tense meeting with MP Marilyn Waring concerning
her opposition to the government’s policies for
women.
Waring described Muldoon as “pouring himself
brandies during a foul-mouthed harangue”, the article said,
after which he called a caucus meeting to endorse his
decision for an early election.
The article said at
1am the prime minister announced the new date through
slurred speech on national television and later was so
insistent he could drive himself home that government whip
Don McKinnon had to arrange for someone to go to the Beehive
garage and let down a tyre on his car.
Muldoon, who at
the time was on three medications for diabetes, hypertension
and a muscle relaxant for chronic back pain, lost the
election.
Horrocks, said all of the PMs displayed one
or more features of failing political leadership including a
belief their leadership was superior and no-one else could
do the job, the need for secrecy or denial, being enabled by
supporters to hide their impairments, making poor decisions,
and being absent from office.
He said it would be hard
and not necessarily correct to install mandatory medical
assessments and upper age limits on prime ministers and he
said the public would rely on the media to scrutinise the
behaviour of
leaders.
New Zealand’s public broadcaster, providing comprehensive NZ news and current affairs, specialist audio features and documentaries.
Radio New Zealand is a Crown entity established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. Radio New Zealand News are vital elements in our programming, providing impartial news and information to New Zealanders every day. Radio New Zealand (RNZ) provides listeners with exciting and independent radio programmes in accordance with the Radio New Zealand Charter.
