Colin Moyle

Colin James Moyle (born 18 July 1929) is a former politician of the New Zealand Labour Party who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1963 to 1976 and again from 1981 to 1990.

He was a Government minister in the Third Labour and Fourth Labour Governments.

He was a close confidant of Bill Rowling during Rowling's short premiership.

In the Fourth Labour Government, as Minister of Agriculture, Moyle oversaw the removal of farming subsidies and the establishment of a fisheries quota system.

Moyle was born on 18 July 1929 in Thames.

His parents were both teachers so he had an itinerant childhood travelling around the Thames, Rotorua and Bay of Islands districts.

He went to high school first in Kaikohe and later in Kawakawa followed by one year at Auckland Grammar School.

He then attended university at Auckland Teachers College, leaving just short of earning a full degree.

In 1950 he got his first teaching job and in 1952 he married Adelaide Millicent Chapman with whom he had two daughters and one son.

Aged 23 and newly married, Moyle returned to the far north and took over a rough farm in Hokianga next to his parents-in-law's property.

He broke in the land and created a dairy farm large enough to accommodate 50 cows.

He had no tractor and after milking the cows he had to carry the cans of milk in cans tied to a yoke on his back.

He also augmented his income by winching out "sinkers" (logs of kauri wood) that had disappeared underneath semi-reclaimed mangrove swamps.

Additionally he later farmed sheep as well.

As well as being a farmer he taught full-time during the day as a secondary school teacher at Okaihau College.

As well as teaching there he drove the school bus on its 59-mile route every day.

He eventually gave up his farm, selling it to his neighbouring father-in-law, as part of an amalgamation deal in order to move to Whangārei for a teaching job.

Moyle joined the Labour Party as a teenager and while still in sixth form was a campaign volunteer for Hugh Watt in the Onehunga electorate.

He attended University of Auckland and was a member of the university's socialist club alongside other future Labour MPs Martyn Finlay and Bob Tizard.

After moving to Hokianga in 1952 he founded the Labour Party's branch there at the same time that a nearby friend (future Prime Minister Bill Rowling) founded a branch in Hobson.

Moyle was then president of the Hobson Labour Representation Committee for two years.

He then became secretary of the Labour Party's Regional Advisory Committee and from 1959 a national organiser for the party.

He also helped organise the publishing of the party newspaper The Statesman which had a circulation of 100,000 at its peak.

He is a convert to Roman Catholicism.

Moyle stood unsuccessfully for the Hobson electorate in.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1963 general election, as a Labour MP for the South Auckland electorate of Manukau.

In 1969 the Mangere electorate was created in the same general area, and Moyle moved his candidacy there, allowing Roger Douglas to take over Manukau.

Moyle was elected for Mangere in the 1969 election, and would hold the electorate for another eight years.

He was soon appointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister of Agriculture and Lands.

He was one of the main campaign organisers for Labour at the where he suggested a strategy of focusing attention on new seats as well as marginal ones.

This saw an increase in both votes and seats, but Labour was narrowly defeated.

In the 1972 general election, the Labour Party came to power for the first time in over a decade, forming the Third Labour Government led by Norman Kirk.

Moyle was appointed to the Ministerial positions of Agriculture and Fisheries, Forests, and Science.

The corporation was created in April 1974 by separating the rural division of the extant State Advances Corporation into its own entity and expanding its role in farming finance (which Labour had promised to do in its 1972 manifesto).

It was also a response to banks charging farmers high interest rates on loans which were hindering agricultural development.

The government also cut several farming subsidies for pesticides, stock drenches and aerial application of lime and fertiliser a net budget saving of $17.4 million.

In September 1975 he also became Minister responsible for the newly formed Rural Banking and Finance Corporation.

In late 1976, Prime Minister Robert Muldoon accused Moyle in Parliament of having been questioned by the police on suspicion of homosexual activities, which were then illegal in New Zealand.

After changing his story several times, Moyle resigned from Parliament, although he was re-elected four years later.

Muldoon may have viewed Moyle as a future Labour leader and potential rival, and sought to discredit him.