Keith Melville

Sir Robert Jones was a great New Zealander whose legacy included playing an important role in the defeat of the Muldoon-led National government in 1984.

But it is incorrect to say, as claimed by Dave Stewart in his Beacon opinion piece last Friday, prompted by the death of Jones, that Jones and some right-wing supporters hatched a plan to get rid of Rob Muldoon, pictured, in a coup.

A coup, by the way, is the violent overthrow of a government, and even if Mr Stewart was exaggerating to make a point, he was wrong to say Muldoon was ousted in a coup. I was a reporter in Wellington in 1983 and played a tiny part in covering the New Zealand Party, and Jones as its founding leader, and the election the following year.

Maybe there were right wing extremists in the forces opposing Muldoon, but the opposition came from such a broad cross-section of people, you could not possibly pin down Muldoon’s defeat to any one person or group except the Labour party. Muldoon’s detractors all had one thing in common. They wanted him gone.

Muldoon was a conservative but did like to control the political, social and economic landscape more like a fascist than someone steeped in democratic and liberal values.

He publicly attacked anyone with an opposing view, including the more liberal-minded in his own caucus such as Derek Quigley.

He incessantly baited members of the communist Socialist Unity Party, social activists such as John Minto and Trevor Hart, and left-wing trade unionists.

His reputation as a merciless political opponent was built in the 1970s. Then, he ruthlessly accused a former Labour agriculture minister, Colin Moyle, of homosexual activities, unproven and illegal in those days, but the allegations drove Moyle to resign from politics.

Although lefties, and even good ones, pretend that only Jones and his right-wing wealthy mates were responsible for getting rid of the Nats in 1984. Labour actually won the election in a stunning landslide.

Rob’s mob, as Muldoon liked to describe his supporters, had deserted him in droves.

Labour won by 56 seats to National’s 37 and did not need New Zealand Party to do it. That is not to say, the Jones Party, as Muldoon called it, did not play an influential role in the outcome. The defeat of Muldoon was exactly what Bob Jones wanted.