Duncan MacIntyre

Brigadier Duncan MacIntyre (10 November 19158 June 2001) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. He served as the eighth deputy prime minister of New Zealand from 1981 to 1984 under Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.

Biography Early life and career MacIntyre was born at Hastings on 10 November 1915. He returned to New Zealand where he received his secondary school education at Christ's College, Christchurch.

He started work in 1933 as a farm cadet and from 1936 managed a farm at Punakitere, Northland until 1939. MacIntyre married Diana Grace Hunter, the daughter of a Hawke's Bay farming family on 10 January 1939 in Havelock North. The two were to have three daughters and two sons.

MacIntyre returned to New Zealand and resumed farming and joined the local branch of Federated Farmers. He purchased a sheep farm near Pōrangahau in southern Hawke's Bay in the early 1950s and was elected to the Hawke's Bay Catchment Board. His military career continued on part-time with the Territorial Force, commanding various components including the Hawke's Bay Regiment, Armoured Car Regiment, Infantry Brigade and Armoured Brigade as well as gaining the rank of brigadier. In the 1956 New Year Honours, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division).

Political career

MacIntyre represented the Hastings electorate in Parliament from to 1972. With Robert Muldoon and Peter Gordon he was one of the three "Young Turks" of the National Party who entered Parliament in 1960. Out of parliament he returned to farming, before being appointed by the Meat Producers' Board as chairman of their export committee.

In September 1980 MacIntyre gave a Marginal Land Boards loan to his daughter and son-in-law raising questions around Conflict of interest. In 1979 his daughter Audrey and her husband, Jim Fitzgerald, had purchased land near Karori, Wellington. After applying twice unsuccessfully, they were granted a loan of $137,000 from the Marginal Lands Board to develop the property. A public inquiry later concluded that MacIntyre had not acted willfully improperly. Nonetheless, several public resignations of National Party officeholders followed in MacIntyre's East Cape electorate causing serious damage to MacIntyre's reputation. He later conceded that the 'Marginal Lands affair' was "a ghost that haunts me for the rest of my life."

He died at Waipukurau on 8 June 2001. Ngāti Kahungunu held him in such high regard for his conduct as Māori Affairs Minister that his body was at their Porangahau Marae for one night before the funeral. He was survived by his second wife Jaqueline MacIntyre (Gilbertson), daughters and a son.