Prime Ministers Of New Zealand

"Climate change is a crisis. It is upon us, And so one of the very few things I will ask of this house on my departure is that you please take the politics out of climate change."

"I cannot determine what will define my time in this place, But I do hope I've demonstrated something else entirely—that you can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve."

"I want to bring into question those old assumptions about the character traits we want in politics."

"People are seeking more kindness, more empathy, and these are not traits that can't coexist with the idea of strength and courage."

"You know, I've had a significant career in politics. I made the decision to leave. There was something very freeing in there and now I feel absolutely able to have this kind of open conversation."

"Most people would look at politics and say, 'Have I got the armour required to be in that space?' And it was actually when I was in parliament itself that I really made the decision that I wasn't willing to change who I was in order to survive what we might call the bear pit."

"I was slumped on the floor thinking, 'what if during this very formal ceremony I can't hold it in?' It's not the kind of thought process you want to go through when you're about to have the speech from the throne, from the then Queen's representative, all the heads of judiciary, the defence force and every single member of parliament sitting in one space facing you."

"when addressing her nation in response to the massacre, Ardern, at 38 the youngest female head of state, said: “Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand, they may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. They have no place in New Zealand”...On Friday, Prime Minister Ardern immediately called the white supremacist attack, terrorism. “We are a nation of 200 ethnicities, 160 languages,” Ardern said. “We open our doors to others and say, ‘Welcome.’” She went on: “We wish for every member of our communities to also feel safe. Safety means being free from the fear of violence. But it also means being free from the fear of those sentiments of racism and hate that create a place where violence can flourish. And every single one of us has the power to change that.”"

"My favourite leader in the world who I look up to is Jacinda Ardern. I think she proved to the world during the COVID crisis and during the Christchurch massacre that you don’t have to be a ‘strongman’ with fear tactics and a militant background to resolve crises for the country."

"He was an arrogant, pigheaded doctrinaire fool."

"Muldoon was an enigma, he worried, he disliked the rich and the powerful and the establishment. He had a very paternal attitude to the poor and powerless. It was a typical Labour Party attitude."

"This Prime Minister outgoing, beaten, has, in the course of one television interview, tried to do more damage to the New Zealand economy than any statement ever made. He has actually alerted the world to a crisis. And like King Canute he stands there and says everyone is wrong but me."

"Muldoon, in 1975, had got a huge electoral mandate and he'd squandered it."

"After a very long year we've got a very short knight."

""They can't promise anything because I've spent it all"."

""They won’t put up a statue to me. No, no, no. Nobody’s got that sense of humour"."

""I came here [Parliament] to help people, not to hurt people, and I find that it has not been possible for me this year to stop very many people from being hurt"."

""Arnold Nordmeyer had probably the most brilliant mind of any politician in my time but his political reputation was destroyed by the 1958 "black" budget. He was a remarkable politician and parliamentarian, as straight as they come, and, I repeat, about the most intelligent that I have come across"."

""There was a lady walking down the pavement and as we passed she stopped and she said: 'I know you, don't I?' ... I said: 'My name's Muldoon.'. She said: 'You're not related to that bastard in Parliament, are you?'. And on that salutary note Mr Speaker, I say goodbye"."

"We are a free and independent nation but in time of trouble we stand with our mother country...New Zealand's decision to break off diplomatic relations with Argentina over the Falklands, immediately after Britain had done so, was not because of Britain's support on the sporting issue. The reason goes much deeper than that. It is in the context of the statement made by a Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1939: "Where Britain goes, we go." We see the Falklands as British territory and the Falklands Islanders as subjects of our Queen. We live at the end of the line and we know the feeling of isolation...With the Falklands Islands, it is family. Historically, Britain has so often on great occasions thrown up the leader that the occasion demanded. I regard Margaret Thatcher as one of the finest and straightest politicians I have ever met...In 1939 we learned the folly of appeasement. A great catastrophe was the price that was paid. The military rulers of Argentina must not be appeased. New Zealand will back Britain all the way."

"Shortly after I entered Parliament, it became clear to me that I had too many friends. What I needed was some enemies. There was no way that I was ever going to get across the message that I wanted to give to the people of this country if I used the soft, simple word, offending no-one and in fact being heard by no-one."

"New Zealand was colonised initially by those Australians who had the initiative to escape."

"He wanted to be remembered as a person who left New Zealand no worse than he found it. My own view is that he did leave it with substantial problems and substantial dilemmas which have taken us a lot of time and no little anguish to sort out."

"Girls can do anything. We do do anything and we expect to be treated as equals."

"I believe I'm the best person for the job. Obviously I'm a woman, but I've never sought election on the basis of being a woman. I've always sought election as the best person for the job."

"People weren’t used to the prospect of a woman becoming prime minister so there were attacks about my appearance, my voice and even my clothing. But I found that there was little point dwelling on such criticism. I just had to look straight ahead and get on with the task at hand and, by and large, that strategy worked for me. I think women politicians today are more confident in being able to call out such behaviour than I was at a time when it was very rare to have many women in parliament."

"The carrot is a happy and harmonious society, the only stick is shame."

"We have a lot of issues to sort through, most of them because of the pandemic. 11 million girls have not returned to school since 2020 and that’s a problem we should solve. I believe in Women Deliver’s ability to build solidarity and find solutions while sticking to the themes,”"

"If ordinary means I have suddenly got to produce a household of kids and iron Peter's shirts, I'm sorry, I'm not interested."

"It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars, Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago."

"Once while waiting at Auckland airport, Lange insisted on buying himself a newspaper and joined a queue at a newsstand. The woman in front of him turned around and said, "Good God!" Lange replied affably, "No madam, you are mistaken. I have never made that claim.""

"My back is so scar-tissued that you couldn't find a place to slip a knife."

"...it all happened so quickly you got a lot of bewilderment; you get a lot of people who are basically meat-and-three-veg quarter-acre New Zealanders who find themselves eating dim sims with chopsticks and they can't cope."

"Bassett was a member of parliament and a cousin on my father's side of the family. My father delivered him and it became plain in later days that he must have dropped him."

"He viewed humour as a relaxing introduction to many situations. "It is, of course, completely inappropriate in some... but in the end, you know, if you were serious in this job you'd go mad.""

"To US Ambassador H. Monroe Browne, who owned a racehorse called Lacka Reason: "You are the only ambassador in the world to race a horse named after your country's foreign policy.""

"Winston Peters: "the only member of Parliament named after a concrete block, and I can understand that.""

"An itinerant masseur, massaging the politically erogenous zones."

"I've got two shirts still missing from the Bahamas. I'm sure they are part of a youth camping programme somewhere in Tanzania by now."

"I went in a round of the Domain on Saturday morning in a rally car. At the start of it, I was asked if I felt scared. I said, 'certainly not, I have been working with Roger for years'."

"a man whose life is so boring that if it flashed past he wouldn't be in it"

"Lange was hosting a reception at Vogel House for the Chinese politician Hu Yao Bang when the lights went out. Lange immediately asked all the guests to raise their hands because "many hands make light work." The audience complied, and to their amazement the lights immediately came back on. Lange was invited to visit China."

"On a trip to Germany, Lange and his entourage were climbing the tower of an ancient castle when they stopped to catch their breath. "How old is this ruin?" someone asked a guide. "Forty-two years," said Lange."

"Greens are not expected to be anything but nice."

"After that, whenever I drove past Mangakahia, I would empty my ashtray — and I was a heavy smoker in those days — on the road outside the hall."

"Will the United States pull the rug on New Zealand? The answer is no. They might polish the lino a bit harder and hope that I execute a rather unseemly glide across it."

"The statement which has been made by the Leader of the Opposition was that the intelligence has stopped. I don't know whether that was a personal confession or whether it was a statement of position."

"They couldn't, in the National Party, run a bath and if either the deputy leader or the leader tried to, Sir Robert would run away with the plug."

"Death is very, very terminal."

"...a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism."