Bruce Beetham
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Bruce Craig Beetham (1936-1997) was an academic and politician from New Zealand, whose career spanned the 1970s and early 1980s.
A lecturer at Hamilton's University of Waikato and at the Hamilton Teacher's Training College, he was elected leader of the Social Credit Party (which he had joined in 1969) in 1972, at a time when the party was in disarray and many were questioning its chances of survival. A brilliant organizer and an electrifying speaker, Beetham succeeded in rebuilding the party, and by the late 1970s it was challenging the stranglehold on the two-party system of the long-dominant National and Labour parties.
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[edit] Early Days
Born in New Plymouth Betham attended New Plymouth Boys High School from 1951-1955. He then went onto the Auckland Secondary Teachers College where he eventually acquired a BA(honours) in History and later a MA. After joining the Social Credit party during the 1969 Election Campaign he was elected as one of the Vice Presidents of the party in 1971. Also in 1971 he ran his first election campaign, an unsuccessfully attempt for a position as a Hamilton City Counciler. His rapid rise in the Social Credit ranks was complete when he was elected Leader in 1972. He presided over Social Credits 1972 and 1975 election campaigns, in which they failed to get any members elected.
[edit] Mayor of Hamilton
In 1976, Beetham was elected Mayor of Hamilton in a byelection to replace Mike Minogue, who had resigned to take up a seat in Parliament. One of his early ideas as Mayor was to finance municipal projects with interest-free "rates vouchers", but the council, dominated by his opponents, passed a 20 percent rates increase instead. His frustrations caused by political gridlock, as well as the difficulty of simultaneously leading a national political party while serving as a Mayor (a post generally expected to be apolitical in New Zealand), were factors in his decision not to seek a second term as Mayor in 1977. Ross Jansen succeeded him.
[edit] Member of Parliament
On February 18, 1978, Beetham won election to Parliament in a by-election for the Rangitikei electorate, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of its long-time member, the Parliamentary Speaker, Sir Roy Jack. He retained the seat in the general election later that year, and the Social Credit Party polled 16 percent of the vote nationwide, its best result to date. In the 1981 election, the party polled just over 20 percent - the best showing for a third party since the 1920s, but fell short of its goal of holding the balance of power; its support was too evenly spread to translate into more than a couple of seats under the First-past-the-post electoral system in use at that time. The party, and Beetham himself, strongly promoted a form of proportional representation, but this was not adopted till many years later. However this saw the addition of Gary Knapp as a second Social Credit MP, meaning the party could make more of an impact inside Parliament itself.
In line with his party's policies, Beetham attempted to organize a barter trade deal with Fiji. Prime Minister Robert Muldoon vetoed the deal, preferring to borrow money and pay interest to international banks.
[edit] Political twilight
A number of factors resulted in a sharp drop in support for the Social Credit Party in the general election of 1984. One of these factors was Beetham's ill health. A major heart attack in 1983 curtailed his activities for much of that year and early 1984, and his disappearance from the public view made it possible for a new political party, the New Zealand Party (founded by millionaire businessman Bob Jones) to fill the vacuum. This party succeeded in attracting much of the protest vote that Social Credit had previously enjoyed.
Beetham lost his Rangitikei seat, mainly because of electoral boundary changes; suspicions have lingered since that the redistribution may have been politically motivated. (See: Gerrymander).
In 1986, Beetham lost the leadership of the party to Neil Morrison who had been elected an MP in 1984. The new leader, on the night he was elected, implied in a TV interview that the Social Credit national dividend policy was out of date and would be dropped. This was in response to a question from the interviewer, which he might not have listened to carefully. The next day Mr Beetham said he was considering resigning because the new leadership was rejecting basic Social Credit philosophy. This promoted Morrison to publicly retract his comments, and affirm that of course the national dividend would be retained as an important part of Social Credit policy.
Beetham remained active in politics despite losing the leadership. He contested his old seat under the party's new name (New Zealand Democratic Party) in 1987; in 1990 he broke away from the Democrats and assumed leadership of a new party, under the old Social Credit banner; in 1992, he attempted to put together a coalition of centrist parties, the New Zealand Centre Coalition, but was overtaken by the course of events as numerous new parties were formed around that time and crowded out the political spectrum.
His last electoral campaign was in 1996 as an independent candidate for his old Rangitikei electorate. Although placed fourth, he received almost four thousand votes - one of the best-ever showings for an independent candidate.
[edit] Personal factors
Bruce Beetham was known as a liberal on human rights, a conservative on moral and social issues, and a pragmatist on economic matters. He disliked confrontation, preferring to work for consensus in decision-making. He was married twice, and had four children. He died of heart failure in 1997 at the age of 61.
[edit] References
Bryant, George. "Beetham", Palmerston North, The Dunmore Press, 1981. ISBN 0-908564-73-2
