Phil Amos

Phil Amos
The Honourable; Phil Amos; QSO
	Amos in 1968
31st Minister of Education
	In office; 8 December 1972 – 12 December 1975
Prime Minister	Norman Kirk; Bill Rowling
Preceded by	Herbert Pickering
Succeeded by	Les Gandar
18th Minister of Island Affairs
	In office; 8 December 1972 – 10 September 1974
Prime Minister	Norman Kirk; Bill Rowling
Preceded by	Duncan MacIntyre
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Member of the New Zealand Parliament; for Manurewa
	In office; 30 November 1963 – 29 November 1975
Preceded by	New constituency
Succeeded by	Merv Wellington
Personal details
Born	4 September 1925; Wanganui, New Zealand
Died	8 June 2007; Auckland, New Zealand
Political party	Labour
Relations	Jill Amos (wife)
Children	4
Profession	Teacher

Phillip Albert Amos QSO (4 September 1925 – 8 June 2007) was a New Zealand politician of the Labour Party.

Biography

Early life

Amos was born in Wanganui in 1925, the son of John Amos. He received his education at Otorohanga District High School, later renamed as Otorohanga College. He attended Auckland Teachers College followed by the University of Auckland.[1]

He was a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) pilot in the Pacific in World War II.[2] After demobilizing in 1946 he went to Teachers' College and University, where he studied both anthropology and politics. He had a passion for human rights and was strongly opposed to racism, in particular the apartheid system in South Africa and Rhodesia. This lead him to sign up with the Princes Street branch of the Labour Party in 1949 contrasting with the strong National Party affiliation in his father's family.[1]

As a teacher Amos aspired to be his own boss and chose to work at a sole-charge school to avoid taking orders from a principal. He then won promotion to a two-teacher school which he could also be principal of. He later taught at intermediate and secondary schools as well.[1] Amos and his wife Jill worked as teachers in isolated communities where they were confronted by the challenges facing Maori and Pacific people due to rural isolation and later urban migration. There they taught student notions such as non-violence, racial equality and belief in parental involvement in schools. Such attitudes were then uncommon in New Zealand education circles.[3]

Political career

New Zealand Parliament
Years	Term	Electorate	Party
1963–1966	34th	Manurewa	Labour
1966–1969	35th	Manurewa	Labour
1969–1972	36th	Manurewa	Labour
1972–1975	37th	Manurewa	Labour

In 1960 he stood for Labour in the Rodney electorate, coming second. He was then elected the Member of Parliament for Manurewa from 1963 defeating cabinet minister Leon Götz.[4]

Norman Kirk appointed Amos Minister of Education in the Third Labour Government from 1972 to 1975,[5] and also served as the last Minister of Island Affairs from 1972 to 1974.[6][7] As Minister of Education, he passed the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act which drove the integration of Catholic and private schools with a system which provided them with state funding and worked towards the reduction of class sizes.[1] Allowing private schools to voluntarily integrate with the state system without sacrificing their particular character was seen as outside the traditional Labour Party policy sphere.[3]

In 1975 he was defeated in an upset in the normally safe Labour seat by Merv Wellington.[4] Amos found Kirk's leadership and vision inspiring and thought his death in 1974 to be a crushing blow to Labour. Consequently he was unsurprised when in 1975 the Labour government was defeated by the National Party.[1]

Later life

In July 1976, less than a year after he had lost his parliamentary seat and cabinet post, he protested the visit of the 20,000 tonne American cruiser Long Beach in his small yacht the Dolphin. He impeded its entry to Auckland Harbour. The cruiser was forced to stop mid-stream to allow grappling hooks to be thrown to pull the Dolphin clear. Afterwards Amos was arrested and charged with obstruction. He was convicted, but the conviction was overturned on appeal by criminal defense lawyer David Lange. Amos' protest instantly became a headline-grabbing piece of political drama from which he took a lot of personal satisfaction at bringing public attention to the ant-nuclear issue. Lange would later become Prime Minister and passed a law banning the visit by nuclear propelled or armed ships with Amos' support.[1]

As a friend of the Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, he accepted an invitation to be an education advisor as well as a Swahili interpreter/translator, assisting the local police, courts and other government agencies. He lived in a remote part of Tanzania from 1977 to 1988. His wife Jill went back to New Zealand after a year and they later divorced.[3] He then worked as a lecturer at a teachers' college before moving with his second wife, a fellow lecturer Odilia, to work a farm near her home village on the remote slopes of Mount Kilamanjaro (even climbing to the top himself). He made a living by operating a flour mill he built to serve local farmers and also grew bananas, avocados, pineapple, corn, and vegetables on the one hectare plot they owned.[1]

In 1985 he made headlines in New Zealand again after it was rumoured he had died following a failure to reply to an invitation from David Lange to attend a reception he was also attending in Dar-es-Salaam. His first wife Jill said it was unusual for a former cabinet minister to voluntary live in such a remote place but also stating "...he always was an unusual politician." A parliamentary colleague Richard Mayson who travelled to Tanzania to visit him, described Amos as living the life of a 20th-century version of David Livingstone.[1]

In 1988 he returned to Auckland and immediately became disillusioned with the then state of the Labour Party and horrified by New Zealand's economic reforms, Rogernomics, which pushed for free market economy and privatisation of state assets. He protested by joining Jim Anderton's NewLabour Party soon after it was formed and later became president of the party.[1] He told Anderton he was "devastated by the actions of the Labour Party".[3]

Amos was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.[8] In the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for public services.[9]

Death

Amos was a heavy smoker most of his life. He had been admitted to hospital several times in the months before he died in Auckland on 8 June 2007 of lung failure, aged 81.[1] He was survived by his first and second wives and children from both his marriages.[3]

Personal life

He married Jill Edwina Turner in 1949, the daughter of Ross Turner, and had two sons and one daughter with her.[2] His second marriage was to Odilia.[1]

Notes

Schouten, Hank (14 June 2007). "Politician turned into a Dr Livingstone". The Dominion Post. p. B7.
Traue 1978, p. 42.
Pickmere, Arnold (15 June 2007). "Obituary: Phil Amos". The New Zealand Herald.
Wilson 1985, p. 180.
Wilson 1985, pp. 92–93.
Wilson 1985, p. 92.
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Vols. 382-389 (1973-1974).
Taylor, Alister; Coddington, Deborah (1994). Honoured by the Queen – New Zealand. Auckland: New Zealand Who's Who Aotearoa. p. 345. ISBN 0-908578-34-2.
"No. 53697". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 June 1994. pp. 34–35.

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References

Traue, James Edward, ed. (1978). Who's Who in New Zealand (11th ed.). Wellington: Reed.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand parliamentary record, 1840–1984 (4 ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.

New Zealand Parliament
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Manurewa 1963–1975	Succeeded by Merv Wellington
Political offices
Preceded by Herbert Pickering	Minister of Education 1972–1975	Succeeded by Les Gandar
Preceded by Duncan MacIntyre	Minister of Island Affairs 1972–1974	Office abolished