Martyn Finlay
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The Honourable Martyn Finlay QC |
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| 22nd Attorney-General of New Zealand | |
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In office 8 December 1972 – 12 December 1975 |
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| Preceded by | Roy Jack |
| Succeeded by | Peter Wilkinson |
| 36th Minister of Justice of New Zealand | |
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In office 8 December 1972 – 12 December 1975 |
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| Preceded by | Roy Jack |
| Succeeded by | David Spence Thomson |
| 19th President of the Labour Party | |
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In office 1960–1964 |
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| Vice President | Jim Bateman |
| Leader |
Walter Nash Arnold Nordmeyer |
| Preceded by | Michael Moohan |
| Succeeded by | Norman Kirk |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 January 1912 |
| Died | 20 January 1999 (aged 87) |
| Political party | Labour Party |
Allan "Martyn" Finlay QC (1 January 1912 – 20 January 1999) was a New Zealand lawyer and politician of the Labour Party.
Martyn was born in Dunedin to Baptist missionaries who had worked in India. His father died when he was two and his mother was forced by economic circumstances to take in boarders. He used to push his brother Harold, ten years older and with polio, two miles to Otago University in his wheelchair. With the oncoming depression, Martyn had to leave school to get a job at the end of fifth form - he had wanted to be a doctor. With a job as an office boy in a law firm at the age of 16, he was able to study law part time at Otago University for eight years before getting his LLM with First Class Honours. (Fairburn and friends / edited by Dinah Holman and Christine Cole Catley, Devonport, North Shore City : Cape Catley Ltd., 2004. p196)
He got a scholarship to the London School of Economics and got a PhD in 1938 before becoming a Resident Fellow at Harvard. He returned to NZ in 1939 and was employed as a private secretary to Cabinet Ministers Rex Mason and Arnold Nordmeyer. [1]
Martyn Finlay stood unsuccessfully for Remuera in 1943. He then represented the North Shore electorate from 1946 to 1949, when he was defeated. Later he represented the Waitakere electorate from 1963 to 1969, then the Henderson electorate from 1969 to 1978, when he retired.
Martyn Finlay was also one of the Labour Party's most active opponents of New Zealand's military involvement in the Vietnam War and questioned the New Zealand government's support for South Vietnam. In 1964, he argued during a parliamentary speech that the Viet Cong were the only effective opposition in South Vietnam, but still accepted the general consensus within New Zealand government circles that the Viet Cong were being supported by North Vietnam and the People's Republic of China. On 6 June 1965, Finlay chaired an anti-war meeting in Auckland which was sponsored by the Auckland Trades Council, the Auckland Labour Representation Committee, and the Auckland Peace For Vietnam Committee (PFVC). A prominent speaker at that meeting was the trade unionist Jim Knox. He also participated in a teach-in at the University of Auckland on 12 September 1966, which drew about 600 people.
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