What was happening in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1980?

A brief glimpse into who we once were.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan which was not a great lead-up to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. Massive international pressure saw no official team from NZ attending, but a few hardy souls did go and marched under a black flag with a silver fern and the Olympic Rings. Many liberal folk asked the question – how come we boycott the Olympic Games in Moscow while we just unquestioningly play apartheid sport with South Africa. Obviously over time, this question became more and more complex.

In the year before, the Nambassa Festival had gone off and in 1980, the first of a rival festival called Sweetwaters kicked off in rural Ngaruawahia. I was there and we were treated to Elvis Costello, John Martyn, Split Enz, Mi-Sex, Th’ Dudes, Citizen Band, Street Talk and Toy Love. It was a golden era in New Zealand music and I will be eternally grateful that I was born in the right time and place to have experienced it.

Fading into the mists of time now is just how deadly serious politics was globally with the Soviets being seen as more toxic than Agent Orange (look up Vietnam War). The Soviet Ambassador to NZ funnelled ?$10k to the Socialist Unity Party in Wellington and was expelled by Robert “Piggy” Muldoon as he genuflected to the USA. As a matter of pure form, our ambassador to the Soviet Union was also given his marching orders.

For those who weren’t there, our PM from 1975 to 1984 was a particularly toxic little troll we knew without affection as Piggy and even his own party couldn’t abide him, despite and because of his being utterly terrified of his malignant and dark influence. In 1980 he was out of the country and a few of the less lily-livered ministers attempted a coup to replace him with Brian Talboys, his deputy. He arrived back home and slapped a few people silly and went on to be a cancer in our body politic until the 1984 election which swept him away.

We’ve talked about Arthur Allan Thomas and his repeated convictions for a double mureder he didn’t commit. In 1980, a British author called David Yallop wrote a book called Beyond Reasonable Doubt that skewered the police case and helped exonerate Thomas.

Politics was a very different thing back here and for any party that wasn’t called National or Labour was a steep mountain to climb. Social Credit had been around for a while with Bruce Beetham holding a single seat in Parliament. In 1980, there was enough revulsion at how badly we were being governed that in a hugely unlikely result, a second Social Credit MP was voted in through the East Coast Bays electorate and so we had Gary Knapp join his leader somewhere at the very back of the House.

Matiu Rata had been a minister in the second Labour government but had left to form Mana Motuhake which through the years has morphed into The Maori Party and now Te Pati Maori. He didn’t make it back into parliament but his courage and vision has led to a renaissance in Maori stature and relevance in this country.

Greg McGee was a playwright and they were not thick on the ground in NZ at this time. He wrote one of the seminal NZ plays called Foreskins Lament and set in the world of rugby, it managed to appeal to both the “rugger bugger” crowd and the limp wristed “lefty crowd” of which I was a member.

Petrol was a massive issue in 1980. You’ve heard of the “oil shocks”. This was the heart of it and in this year, Muldoon introduced a scheme called Carless Days. What it amounted to was that we all got to choose a day of the week when we couldn’t drive our car and were duly issues with a carless days sticker which sat alongside our rego sticker. Caught driving on your carless day didn’t seem to bear any penalty, or at least as a rebellious and spotty youngster, I never felt the long arm of the law.

Len Lye https://www.lenlyefoundation.com/ was a major artist from NZ. Respected both here and abroad, he has left a legacy that will endure long before anyone who knew him have shuffled off this mortal coil. He died in 1980.

Sharon O’Neill was both top female artist and had the album of the year. Still great music after all this time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-gLnGpFagU&ab_channel=nzoz1983

Finally in music, Split Enz had their first NZ number 1 – I Got You from the wonderful album True Colours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiqBlKnb91A&ab_channel=SplitEnz

1980 was a fascinating year and I’ve provided some links to delve into for anyone interested in having a closer look or a reminder. I hope you enjoy.