Flashback: New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange blasted Gold Coast’s ‘Kiwi dole bludgers’ during 1988 visit
‘KIWIS go home’: was the message from the New Zealand Prime Minister to their countrymen who were accused of dole bludging and social security rip-offs on the Gold Coast.
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THE Gold Coast has a love affair with New Zealanders.
New tourism figures released in May showed more than 50,000 Kiwis made the trip to the Glitter Strip in April, up 6.8 per cent on the previous year.
It was welcome news four years after data revealed 32,000 more Kiwis had left the country in the previous year, with few coming across the ditch.
Today Kiwis are a beloved and significant part of the Gold Coast’s population.
But it was a different story 30 years ago today when the then-New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange flew into Queensland.
Nearing the end of his five-year reign, Mr Lange was in town to mark New Zealand’s National Day as a guest of Expo ’88.
He attended the festivities at Southbank in Brisbane with Mt Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary, Deputy Prime Minister Lionel Bowen, Local Government Minister Jim Randell and Expo boss Sir Llew Edwards.
Mr Lange was asked to comment on a recent statement by a Gold Coast Magistrate, David Hogan, who told New Zealanders who appeared before him facing social security fraud charges, that they had let their country down.
Seven out of eight people who pleaded guilty to the charges were originally from across the ditch.
“Kiwis go home” was the message Mr Lange wanted to get across, something he said he would give to any Australians who tried to rip off his countrymen.
Mr Lange said if people were not prepared to live by the laws of the country in which they residing, they had no right to stay.
He said he was aware of similar rip-offs by Australians because, during his previous career as a lawyer, most of his clients were Australian.
Mr Lange said Australians and New Zealanders had much to give each other in trade relations and industry but there was no place for those who did not pull their weight.
Then-recent government statistics showed a large portion of people on the dole for more than six months on the Gold Coast were New Zealand-born.
Mr Lange said: “They must be the people who have bought the condominiums.”
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He said the rip-off merchants were “certainly” in the minority but the laws of the country must be obeyed.
Mr Bowen almost made the same point in his welcoming speech to Mr Lange in the amphitheatre of the Expo.
He said Australia and New Zealand had a special relationship where the people of each country could readily visit each other without objections or barriers.
“We do sometimes object to so many coming over here and staying too long,” he said.
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Mr Lange also saw no harm in New Zealanders investing so strongly in the Gold Coast.
He said the New Zealand dollar had been so strong and naturally investors were attracted to the great possibilities both on the Gold Coast and the rest of Queensland.
Mr Lange said there was nothing new in that because Australians had invested heavily in New Zealand.
Before leaving Queensland for meetings in Canberra, Mr Lange took a tour of the Australia pavilion at expo and was handed a muzzled live baby crocodile.
“There goes all the RSCPA votes,” he said.
Mr Lange resigned from New Zealand’s top job in 1989 and died in 2005.
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