Political columnist Doreen Agassiz-Suddens revises a few dates surrounding the late Jack Marshall, MP and PM, stemming from her listing of some of the outrageously anti-gay assertions made in the NZ parliament over the years. In my last column I managed to put the Rt. Hon John (Jack) Marshall into a time warp. I realised the time distortion over Marshall's tenure as Prime Minister not long after I had sent the column to GayNZ.com. More than one reader has picked up on my slip-up when I stated that Marshall was, "eventually to become a National Prime Minister," after which I then went on to present his 1975 quotes from Hansard about homosexuals. As we know, Jack Marshall was Prime Minister from February 1972 to December 1972. But he was still an MP in 1975. The time difference does not change the fact that Marshall said what he said in parliament, which is the main point of the column. Although he left politics in December 1975 after the November election of that year, he was active in the House throughout the year as evidenced by his comments on the Venn Young Bill! I have spoken about this situation to Professor Barry Gustafson, who is the Head of the Political Studies Department at Auckland University. He said that Marshall did not resign from parliament in 1975 during the parliamentary session, because this would have caused a by-election, but stayed to the end of the session. Marshall himself discussed his last day in parliament in 1975 in his second volume of memoirs when he stated that he made his valedictory speech on "10 October 1975," which was, he said, "the last day of the third session of the thirty-seventh Parliament." The comments can be found in John Marshall Memoirs - Volume Two: 1960 to 1988, (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, 1989.) on page 243. So, although 'Gentleman Jack', as he was sometimes known, had long since done his time as Prime Minister by 1975, his comments as an MP and person still stand. Doreen Agassiz-Suddens - 9th October 2002
Credit: Doreen Agassiz-Suddens
First published: Wednesday, 9th October 2002 - 12:00pm