Labour suspends Mr John Kirk

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 1

Labour suspends Mr John Kirk

Parliamentary reporter

The Labour member of Parliament for Sydenham, Mr John Kirk, has been suspended from the Labour Party. Yesterday’s decision of the Labour Party Council at its meeting in Wellington was made in Mr Kirk’s absence. Although he had been invited to attend, he had not appeared, said the party’s senior vicepresident, Mr H. S. McCaffley. The party’s constitution made no provision for expulsion, so suspension was the strongest action the council could take, said the chairman of the constitutional committee and junior vice-president, Ms Margaret Wilson.

The suspension took effect from midnight.

The party president, and the Labour candidate for

Sydenham, Mr Jim Anderton, refused to comment on anything other than constitutional matters during questions on Mr Kirk, after the council meeting.

During the council’s consideration of Mr Kirk’s claims of jack-ups in candidate selection orchestrated by Mr Anderton, he left the chair and the meeting.

Party rules provide for suspension of two kinds: for six years for campaigning against the Labour Party publicly at either local body or General Elections; and for an indefinite period.

Mr Kirk’s membership suspension fell into the latter category, said Mr Anderton.

“There is the possibility that a member who has been suspended can, at some time, have the sspension lifted. That is the very point of the word ‘suspension.’ ”

Asked if the indefinite suspension was a more severe chastisement for Mr Kirk than the unconditional six-year suspension, Mr Anderton said that was a “value judgment that we are not into.”

The council had attempted to convey its decision to Mr Kirk, said Mr McCaffley, “but we can’t find him.” The Opposition leader, Mr Lange, said on Thursday that Mr Kirk was on a week’s leave from the House.

Mr Lange said that Mr Kirk had made no submissions to the council. There had been no “sustained discussion” before the vote was taken. Mr Kirk’s case was one of the first up before the council. Asked whether he was happy with the council’s decision, Mr Lange said “one must always feel some sense of sadness when people hitherto closely identified with the party are no longer so identified.

“He was the one who distanced himself from the party, its disciplines and its commitments.”

Asked if he was apprehensive about trouble Mr Kirk might create for the party

in the House, Mr Lange said it depended on the position taken by Mr Kirk. “It could be used to attack us.”

Mr Lange said that it was his view that Mr Kirk had disqualified himself as a member of the Labour Party.

But he said it would be “business as usual” in the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday.

Mr Anderton said that caucus’s position on Mr Kirk would be “up to caucus,” but that the “caucus would recognise that the New Zealand Council has suspended Mr Kirk’s membership of the party, and that as such he could not be a member of the caucus.”

Mr Kirk was not available for comment last evening. Labour Party officials in Wellington still did not know where he was. His. Sydenham electorate officials were not able to get in touch with him.

Some party officials in Wellington thought he might be in Methven, where he runs two houses as accommodation for skiers. However, no-one in the area had seen him yesterday. Mr Kirk now appears to be totally estranged from the party. He hinted two weeks ago on an Auckland radio talkback show that he might stand as an Independent. He said then that he would decide about that closer to

yesterday’s meeting, but has made no subsequent statements on it On another occasion, he denied that he had been offered $lOO,OOO to stand for Mr Bob Jones’s New Zealand Party. He said he had talked with Mr Jones about the party “and my situation in relation to that" but he would not give any details of what they had discussed. Mr Kirk has said that the Labour Party is drifting too far to the Left. He was the only Labour member to board the nuclear-powered warship U.S.S. Texas in Wellington harbour, saying that he would rather see a United States nuclear warship in a New Zealand port than a Russian one.

Mr Kirk replies, pS