New Zealand Listener – August 10, 2019

AUGUST 10 2019 LISTENER 53

for the Environment, a parlia-

mentary commissioner for the

environment and a resource

management system that

ensured conservation matters

were considered in develop-

ment proposals.

In the 2000s came an aware-

ness of a more serious threat,

global warming. By 2019,

at a time when our drive to

increase milk production has

led to a flood of nitrogen into

waterways, no one can pretend

that environmental values

rule. But most New Zealanders

recognise that the benefits of

material progress come with

a cost, and that a major issue

for our time is how to enjoy a

prosperous life without com-

promising either the world’s or

New Zealand’s environment.

ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY?

There are obviously other

changes in values since 1939.

At the deepest level, religious

values have radically declined

and diversified. In 1936, about

July 10, 1985. Terrorism came to New Zealand when the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior
was blown up in the Waitematā Harbour, causing a photographer’s death. This, however,
was not the act of some proto-al-Qaeda or urban guerrilla gang: the bombs were planted
by agents of the French Secret Service, under instructions to stop the ship from leading a
protest against French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. Two agents were
sentenced to 10 years’ jail each for manslaughter, but French Government pressure soon had
them freed. Both the US and British governments of the time declined to condemn this act of
terrorism by a leading member of the Western alliance.

June 8,1987. New Zealand

• forelock-tugging, Uncle
  Sam-pleasing, Pommy-greasing,
  butter-access-begging – finally
  took a stand of its own in the
  mid-1980s, when it struck out
  independently of our traditional
  allies and said no to nuclear ships
  in our waters. And we have rather
  grown to like ourselves for it, too.
  By refusing to welcome the US
  warship Buchanan in 1985, we
  buried the moribund Anzus alli-
  ance, and by passing the Nuclear
  Free Zone, Disarmament and
  Arms Control Act two years later,
  we formally gave the foreign-pol-
  icy fingers to the Americans. Even
  though we now know that Prime
  Minister David Lange initially
  sought ways of appeasing the US,
  his name will forever be associ-
  ated with this historic legislation.

Rainbow Warrior

Homosexual

law reform

NZ becomes

nuclear-free

July 11, 1986. By 1986, gay men had suffered 80 years of harsh
judicial discrimination, although lesbian women had largely
slipped beneath the Government’s radar. Writer Frank
Sargeson, who changed his name after a conviction for
indecent assault in 1929, spent the rest of his life in fear of
discovery. Then MP Fran Wilde introduced the Homosexual
Law Reform Bill and was cast as the Antichrist. Opposition
led by Auckland businessman Keith Hay (“God’s carpenter”)
resulted in a petition claiming 800,000 signatures. Polls,
though, showed a more tolerant public supported reform.
On July 9, 1986, the bill was passed. The sky stayed up.
The Listener was one of the first publications to champion
gay marriage as a human rights issue.

The “Save

Manapouri”

petition in 1970

gained 260,000

signatures, the

largest up to that

point in New

Zealand history.

GET

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IMA

GES