David Lange
David Russell Lange, ONZ, CH ( LONG-ee; 4 August 1942 – 13 August 2005), served as the 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. He headed New Zealand's fourth Labour Government, one of the most reforming administrations in his country's history, but one which did not always conform to traditional expectations of a social-democrat party. He had a reputation for cutting wit (sometimes directed against himself) and eloquence. His government implemented far-reaching free-market reforms. Helen Clark described New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation as his legacy.
Early life
Lange was born on 4 August 1942 in Otahuhu, a small industrial borough since absorbed into Auckland. He was the oldest of four children of Roy Lange, a general practitioner and obstetrician and grandson of a German settler, and Phoebe Fysh Lange, who trained as a nurse in her native Tasmania before she migrated to New Zealand. Lange's autobiography suggests that he admired his soft-spoken and dryly humorous father, while his demanding and sometimes overbearing mother tested his tolerance. He received his formal education at Fairburn Primary School, Otara Intermediate School and Otahuhu College, then at the University of Auckland, where he graduated in law in 1965. He paid his way through university by working in a meat-freezing works. In 1968 he married Naomi Crampton. He gained a Master of Laws in 1970, then practised law in Northland and Auckland for some years, often giving legal representation to the most dispossessed members of Auckland society.