27 Facts About Dean Eyre

Dean Jack Eyre was a New Zealand politician of the National Party.

Dean Eyre's father was an official with the Customs Department and due to this the family moved around frequently, first on the West Coast then living in New Plymouth, Takapuna and Ngaruawahia later being educated at Hamilton Boys' High School.

Dean Eyre developed an interest in politics early when he attended a political rally with his father in New Plymouth leading him to eventually join the junior league of the Reform Party in about 1933.

In 1938 Eyre had to suspend his business after imports from the United States were restricted by the government.

Dean Eyre was living there when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Dean Eyre subsequently joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and served on destroyers in England and the Atlantic from 1941 to 1945.

Dean Eyre later served in the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve at Freetown, Sierra Leone holding the rank of lieutenant.

Dean Eyre represented the North Shore seat from the 29th to 34th parliaments until 1966, when he retired.

Dean Eyre was a liberal within the National Party and, alongside Tamaki MP Eric Halstead, he supported the alternative drainage scheme in Auckland proposed by Dove-Myer Robinson.

Dean Eyre served as a cabinet minister, initially under Sidney Holland as Minister of Industries and Commerce and Minister of Customs from 1954 to 1956.

In February 1956, Holland announced that Dean Eyre had been granted six weeks leave in order to attend to private business in Sweden.

Dean Eyre was later given the additional roles of Minister of Housing and Minister of Police.

Auckland newspaper The New Zealand Herald reported that on 23 November 1966, Dean Eyre had responded to an election meeting question in Devonport that his personal solution to end the war in Vietnam was to drop "a basin full of bombs" on the enemy.

Dean Eyre claimed the reporting was not contextually related to his comments about military targets and he successfully sued for defamation over the reporting of the remark.

Dean Eyre sought $50,000 in damages from the Herald, and $50,000 each from its publisher Wilson and Horton and from the New Zealand Press Association.

Dean Eyre won, and in March 1968 was awarded $15,000 from them and later an undisclosed amount from The Dominion.

Dean Eyre was then High Commissioner to Canada from 1968 to 1973.

Dean Eyre would have gone to London instead of Ottawa if he had not been involved in the misreporting incident at the 1966 election campaign.

Dean Eyre was viewed as a solid performer in the role despite it not regarded as a difficult one.

Dean Eyre believed Robert Muldoon's leadership was the cause for National's fall of support comparative to the 1960s and thought the Muldoon government cabinet was weaker than previous National cabinets.

Dean Eyre served a second period as High Commissioner to Canada from 1976 to 1980.

Dean Eyre frequently fielded calls from New Zealand journalists at his home in Ottawa which he found increasingly irritating.

The most outrageous use of this privilege has been by former defence minister Dean Eyre, who has not lived in New Zealand for 30 years.

Dean Eyre retired in Canada after serving as high commissioner there, and has vigorously defended his right to continue travelling at New Zealand taxpayers' expense.

In 2003 Dean Eyre was rendered disabled after suffering a stroke.

In 1953, Dean Eyre was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, and in 1977 he received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal.

Dean Eyre was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.