KEY POINTS:
I thought Mike Moore's accusations in the New Zealand Herald this week that Helen Clark was using Rob Muldoon-like tactics were rather treacherous.
Whatever anyone thinks of Clark, do we really believe for a minute that she's Muldoon-like?
Have we forgotten what Muldoon was really like?
I know
Clark's opponents have labelled her a control freak, and of course there would be an element of that in anyone in the role of party leader and Prime Minister.
But personal thuggery at the level that Muldoon exhibited in his last days? Hardly.
Labour's front bench, no doubt with Clark's sanction, putting the acid on John Key doesn't make her a political thug. And certainly nowhere near in Muldoon's league.
Even ardent supporters of Muldoon would have to concede he was a bully and seemed to revel in cutting people down.
Any journalist who upset him would be bullied and their editor threatened.
If that didn't work, Muldoon would bar individual journalists or offending media outlets from his press conferences, and refuse them access to Government information.
When it came to his political opponents, parliamentary or non-parliamentary, he would even use the state agencies to dig up dirt on them. No politician, before or since, has come close to this sort of behaviour.
Those of us who were around in the Muldoon era will remember him releasing confidential dossiers on his opponents compiled by our Secret Intelligence Service. The fact that many of these reports were wrong or benign did not stop Muldoon from denouncing his targets, implying that they were communists in the pay of Soviet masters.
All this was nonsense, of course, but it intimidated, and created fear in the population. The irony that Muldoon's tactics were used by some repressive Communist regimes against their political opponents was obviously lost on him.
In 1981, Muldoon was not against cynically supporting the touring of the Springbok rugby team to assist his Government to survive. He even egged on the police force to baton protesters and innocent bystanders. The tour divided New Zealand, but garnered enough support in the regions to allow him to hang on to power by one seat. When it came to personal vindictiveness, Muldoon was hard to beat. One of his more tacky moments was when Colin Moyle, a Labour front-bencher, had a go at Muldoon in Parliament. Muldoon retaliated by deliberately misusing a police report to accuse Moyle of being a closet homosexual. This accusation and its aftermath destroyed Moyle personally and forced his resignation from Parliament. To compare Clark to someone like this is just disgraceful.
Even in a worst-case scenario, Clark could never be accused of this level of malevolence. Moore knows that. So did he write his article out of long-suppressed spite and resentment that Clark took the Labour Party leadership off him and then went on to become Prime Minister when it could have been him? Or it is just another mad stream-of-consciousness such as Moore is renowned for?
I remember we all used to cringe whenever Moore, as Labour leader, got into one of his moods and shared with us the thought processes that were rattling around in his head.
Remember his cunning plan to cure the farming recession? He was going to mobilise the country to export lamb-burgers to the world. This was one of his more sane ideas.
I think New Zealanders either thought he was a creative genius or that he was completely whacko.
Just think. If Clark hadn't garrotted him the whole world might now be eating McLamb burgers. Oh yes, Mike was a great creative thinker but this country was too small for his ideas.
So as soon as Clark was able to, she packed him off to head up the World Trade Organisation and gave them the benefit of his genius. She must regret this week that she didn't have other jobs to keep him out of the country after that job finished.
Moore has ended up exiled back to New Zealand, where every now and then he pops up and either deliberately or inadvertently pisses on Clark and his party.
The tone of Moore's New Zealand Herald article is malevolent. But oddly, I am prepared to believe him when he says he meant it as a joke and that it wasn't intended to insult. He claims he wrote it in an attempt to give advice to Clark and the Labour Party. There's no doubt Labour is on the ropes and the desperate attacking of Key seems to be backfiring.
But whether Moore intended it or not, his utterings have helped National. There has always been a code of honour that former party leaders shut their mouths if they haven't got anything nice to say about their successors.
Ironically, the worst offender against this code before now was Muldoon. After he was deposed, he spent his final years undermining and attacking National leaders, which helped Labour immensely.
Moore might like to reflect this weekend on who exactly is showing the Muldoon characteristics and traits he warns us about.