A Kiwi subscriber writes:


One to add to the quips of
former NZ prime minister David Lange, featured on TV memorials. As
Lange strides down a parliamentary corridor pursued by TV cameras and
attendant pack, one hackette mewed: “Prime Minister, could we have a
brief word?” To which he replied, “Wombat.”

In his own words, from The New Zealand Herald:
On being made a Companion of Honour: “It’s not a high-class escort agency.”
Helen Clark while rising through the Labour ranks was “so dry she’s combustible.”
Lange on Lange:
(valedictory speech on leaving Parliament in 1996) “I was quite
obvious. I really only got here by the attraction of mass and I was an
enormous acquisition to the people who bought 26-inch television sets.”
(He then weighted 28 stone – 177.8kg)

And from Scoop.co.nz:
Lange on politics: “Theatre
is very important to the human condition. It is not about reason. It is
not about rationality. Politics is irrational. Politics is about human
beings with their frailties and perversions and distortions or
perception, who prioritise things according to their conviction. I
didn’t go into Parliament to be fair to my opponents. Quite honestly I
went in to jump on their windpipes!”
And on New Zealand’s place in the world:
“If you look at the world and draw our hemisphere around Auckland it
only just touches north America and South America – just a little bit.
It takes in the whole of China, back over through India, and just
touches bits of Africa. It takes in all the dragon economies, takes in
Indonesia the biggest Muslim state in the world, takes in the huge arid
masses of Australia and Antarctica, the little island states of the
Pacific. The funny thing about our world is there are about 3.5 billion
people in it, and there is only 21 million people in it like you and
me. We have never come to terms with that. We can’t grasp that we are
the minuscule minority.”

From New Zealand’s Sunday Star-Times:
At
a political meeting the local National MP, Leon Gotz, whose German name
gave rise to unpleasant questions, explained that his name was Frank
Leon Albert Gotz, and the initials spelled “flag.” A heckler yelled,
“Yeah mate, and like all flags you’re up the pole.” Lange told Wright:
“I think more than anything, that’s when I decided politics was on.”

In 1977 [Lange] entered Parliament after winning selection as the
Labour candidate for the safe seat of Mangere. Once again, his wit
carried the day. As the last of 16 candidates to speak, the
heavily-built politician was introduced as “the person who has had the
longest wait of the evening.” Lange shot back: “And with respect, the
greatest weight too, I think.”