Michael Joseph Savage (23 March 1872 – 27 March 1940) was an Australian-born New Zealand politician who served as the 23rd prime minister of New Zealand, heading the First Labour Government from 1935 until his death in 1940.
Savage was born in the Colony of Victoria (present-day Australia), and emigrated to New Zealand in 1907 at the age of 35. A labourer, he became a trade unionist, and in 1910 was elected president of the Auckland Trades and Labour Council. Savage supported the formation of the New Zealand Labour Party in July 1916. He was active in local politics before his election to the House of Representatives in 1919, as one of eight Labour members returned in that election. Savage was elected unopposed as Labour Party leader in 1933.
Savage led the Labour Party to its first ever electoral victory in the 1935 election. He won public support for his government's economic recovery policies and social welfare programme. His popularity assured the Labour Party of an even more significant electoral victory in the 1938 election. His government joined Britain in declaring war against Germany in 1939. Savage's health declined rapidly after Labour's second electoral victory and he died in office. He was succeeded as head of government by his deputy Peter Fraser.
Savage saw himself as spokesman on behalf of his entire party and worked to keep its multiple factions in harness, although a left-wing critic of his leadership, John A. Lee, was expelled. Commonly known as the architect of the New Zealand welfare state, Savage is generally regarded by academics and the general public as one of New Zealand's greatest and most revered prime ministers. To date he is the only New Zealand prime minister or premier to serve under three monarchs: George V, Edward VIII and George VI, owing to Edward's abdication in 1936.
Born as Michael Savage in Tatong, Victoria, Australia, he was the youngest of eight children of Irish immigrant parents. His father, Richard Savage, was a native of Dundrum, County Down and his mother Johanna Savage (née Hayes) was from Limerick. Both migrated to Australia in the 1850s to escape the Irish Famine. He received a Roman Catholic upbringing from his sister Rose, after his mother died when he was aged five. He spent five years attending a state school at Rothesay, the same town as his father's farm. From 1886, aged 14, to 1893 Savage worked at a wine and spirits shop in Benalla. Savage also attended evening classes at Benalla College at this time. Although short in stature, Savage had enormous physical strength and made a name as both a boxer and weightlifter while enjoying dancing and many other sports.
In 1891 Savage was devastated by the deaths of both his sister Rose and his closest brother Joe. He adopted Joe's name and became known as Michael Joseph Savage from then on. After losing his job in 1893, Savage moved to New South Wales, finding work as a labourer and irrigation ditch-digger in Narrandera for seven years. Whilst there, he joined the General Labourers' Union and became familiar with the radical political theories of the Americans Henry George and Edward Bellamy, who influenced his political policies in later life.
Savage moved back to Victoria in 1900, working a number of jobs. He became active in the Political Labor Council of Victoria, and in 1907 he was chosen as the PLC's candidate to stand for the Wangaratta electorate. Savage had to pull out after the party was not able to fund his deposit and campaign costs, and John Thomas stood instead. He remained an active party member and became a close friend of PLC member Paddy Webb, with whom he was closely linked in later years.
After a farewell function in Rutherglen, Savage emigrated to New Zealand in 1907. He arrived in Wellington on 9 October, which happened to be Labour Day. There he worked in a variety of jobs, as a miner, flax-cutter and storeman, before becoming involved in the union movement. Despite initially intending to join Webb on the West Coast, he decided to move north, arriving in Auckland in 1908.
He soon found board there with Alf and Elizabeth French and their two children. Alf had come to New Zealand in 1894 on the ship Wairarapa, which was wrecked on Great Barrier Island, and had helped in the rescue of a girl. Savage, who never married, lived with the French family until 1939, when he moved to the house Hill Haven, 64–66 Harbour View Road, Northland, Wellington, subsequently used by his successor as Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, until 1949. After arriving in Auckland he found employment at Hancock and Co., a brewery. The brewery was owned by a Jewish family who hired irrespective of workers faith helping Savage overcome the anti-Irish Catholic sentiments that were prevalent in much of Auckland at the time. Soon after beginning work he joined the Auckland Brewers', Wine and Spirit Merchants' and Aerated Water Employees' Union and quickly became president of the 154 member union. He was the delegate of the union to the Auckland Trades Council and in 1910 he was elected president of the trades council.
Savage at first opposed the formation of the original New Zealand Labour Party as he viewed the grouping as insufficiently socialistic. Instead he became the chairman of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, known as the "Red Feds". There, he assisted with organising meetings and group sessions and helped to distribute their socialist newspaper, the Maoriland Worker.
In the 1911 and 1914 general election campaigns, Savage unsuccessfully stood as the Socialist candidate for Auckland Central, coming second each time to Albert Glover of the Liberal Party. During this time Savage was also involved in local union groups, becoming president of the Auckland Brewers', Wine and Spirit Merchants' and Aerated-water Employees' Union, president of the Auckland Trades and Labour Council, the Auckland organiser for the Social Democratic Party and supported striking miners at Waihi. During the First World War he opposed conscription, arguing "that the conscription of wealth should precede the conscription of men". Savage's opposition to conscription was not absolute, rather based on balance. Indeed, he complied with a conscription order and entered a training camp in 1918, aged 46.
Savage openly supported the formation of a unified New Zealand Labour Party in July 1916, and became its national vice-president in 1918 and later the first permanent national secretary the next year. In 1919 Savage was elected as a Labour candidate to both the Auckland City Council and the Auckland Hospital and Charitable Aid Board in local body elections. He served on the Charitable Aid Board until 1922 and as a councillor until 1923 but was re-elected to the Charitable Aid Board in 1927, remaining in office until 1935.
As the war came to an end, the voters of the Auckland West electorate put Savage into Parliament as a Labour member in the 1919 general election, an electorate that he held until his death. He became one of eight Labour members of parliament. He formally became the party's deputy-leader after the 1922 election, defeating Dan Sullivan eleven votes to six. Assuming an ever-increasing workload, he had resigned as Labour's national secretary and Auckland Labour Representation Committee secretary in July 1920.
For most of the 1920s Savage sought to expand Labour's support beyond urban unionists and travelled frequently to rural areas. He became the leading advocate for increases to pensions and universally free health care. He is credited for the creation of the Family Allowances Act 1926, which the governing Reform Party openly commented that it had modelled the legislation on three earlier defeated bills introduced by Savage. In 1927 Savage and several others persuaded the party to amend its land policy and recognise the right of freehold which was essential in gaining rural support for Labour. In doing so, Savage furthered perceptions that he was a more practical politician than then Labour leader Harry Holland. In October 1933 Holland died suddenly and Savage took his place becoming Labour's third party Leader.