Lange ‘up here and I can spit’

Press, 1 April 1989, Page 8

Lange ‘up here and I can spit’

PA Invercargill A Wallacetown man said yesterday that the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, had reacted to a woman booing at him at Invercargill Airport by looking down at her as he descended a set of stairs and saying, “I’m up here and I can spit.” “I was right beside the lady who booed him,” Mr Gerald Gunther said. He had chatted with the woman and her husband before Mr Lange’s arrival on Thursday. They said they were getting out of farming and leaving the country. They had all been surprised to see Mr Lange above them, not knowing he was due in Invercargill. ; Mr Lange was in Invercargill as Minister of Education to speak on the Government’s “Tomorrow’s Schools” programme at a a public meeting, at Southland Girls’ High School. He visited several schools in the district during the day.

Mr Gunther took issue with Mr Lange’s description of the incident, that he had seen a woman below who “appeared to be in some pain” and that he had "inquired into her well-being.” Four people claimed they heard the Prime Minister say that he could spit, Mr Gunther said.

“We couldn’t believe our ears.” Mr Gunther said an Australian seated beside him asked if that was the Prime Minister. “I was ashamed to admit who he was,” he said.