Robert Muldoon: The Grim Face of Power - Part One

He had a very strong feeling for New Zealand the way it was and he wanted to protect it — as it was.

– Politician Bill Birch

You have to hand it to the canny folks at Communicado. They know how to take a slightly unhealthy Kiwi obsession and turn it into a slickly packaged television product.

– Listener reviewer Diana Wichtel, 14 May 1994

I think Sir Robert, within himself, felt like a bit of a gangster.

– Black Power leader Reitu Harris on the unlikely relationship between Robert Muldoon and Māori gangs, in clip four

I’ve seen caucus members with tears running down their faces, not willing to move a muscle for fear that someone else would see them. But they were just facing straight ahead and they could do nothing about it.

– Former National Party whip Don McKinnon on Rob Muldoon’s control of caucus, late in the fourth clip

He terrorised them. Full stop. He could go into caucus and the vote might be 50 to one, and one would win.

– Former National Party Director Barrie Leay on Rob Muldoon’s control of caucus, late in the fourth clip

You can’t govern the country with a gentle smile!

– Robert Muldoon interjects a heckler in a public speech in the late 1970s, in clip four

Muldoon, to me, was always, always masked.

– Former Prime Minister David Lange on Robert Muldoon, in the third clip

..he would always be two people: shy, sentimental schoolboy, and ruthless power seeker.

– Neil Roberts lays out one of the documentary's central arguments, in the first clip

The Authority has expressed above its opinion that the item made too much of the syphilis issue and, by doing so, was in breach of standard G6. The programme did not explicitly draw the distinction (made by the broadcaster in the correspondence) between the understandable effect on a child and young man of his father spending 20 years in a mental asylum and the effect of the specific cause of the father's illness. However, the Authority has been unable to decide exactly when Sir Robert learnt of the cause of his father's death and, accordingly, it considered that the issue was more appropriately dealt with as a standard G6 matter rather than a standard G1 issue. Consequently, it has subsumed the standard G1 complaint under standard G6. The Authority concluded on this matter that the programme was unbalanced as the argument about the extent of the impact on Sir Robert of the father's illness, 20 years in a psychiatric hospital, and his possible knowledge about the specific cause of death, were allowed to go unexplored and unchallenged. In conclusion, the Authority repeats the point that apart from the breaches noted, it believed the programme, overall, made a conscientious effort to present a balanced and thoughtful view about a dominant and controversial figure in New  Zealand's political history.

– Excerpt from 1994 Broadcasting Standards Authority ruling on Dame Thea Muldoon's official complaint to TV3 about assertions in the documentary Robert Muldoon: The Grim Face of Power