By Sorrel Hoskin

One man's campaign

Malcolm Newton Belcher was a returned serviceman who just wanted to settle down on his Warea dairy farm with his wife and build a family. He had received a rehabilitation block under the Government's Farming Assistance Scheme and was busily breaking in the country and paying off the loan. But in 1949 the National Government came into power and everything changed. The State Advances Corporation introduced new statutes regarding land values and farm loan payments - sending many ex-servicemen on dairy farms into financial strife. 

Democracy - government by the people

Malcolm wasn't a quiet man who would take things sitting down. In another life he would have been a politician. He thought the changes stank and said so.

He called public meetings, started petitions, talked to politicians, wrote letters asking for the opportunity to speak to Parliament - generally made a nuisance of himself - but no-one listened. "We were forced to fight a war for the right of the rank and file minority to have a say and a fair hearing, and we are not getting it," he told one group of unhappy farmers. "Democracy means 'government by the people' how can they govern if they are not allowed to hear the evidence to judge for themselves?"

Fiercely loyal to the Monarchy, Malcolm had one unshakeable belief - that a British subject had a right to appeal to the Monarch or their representative, who should, if he saw fit, allow the person to plead his case before Parliament. But despite a flurry of letters to the Governor General Sir Willoughby Norrie, he didn't get to voice his concerns before the country's politicians. It was this belief that would eventually lead to Malcolm being labelled mad and locked in a mental institution.

Finally, in frustration he came up with a plan. He needed to get the Government's attention - he would commit a crime - minimum harm for maximum publicity - and argue his case in the courtroom under the eyes of the New Zealand public.

The Anzac Day Bomber

On 25 April 1954 Malcolm drove to Parliament Building in Wellington with two packets of dynamite, detonators and fuses. An explosives instructor in World War II, he'd spent weeks beforehand carefully testing on his farm to ensure the bombs wouldn't hurt anyone. That day in New Plymouth Cannon Hurst had spoken at the Anzac Service: "We each and every one of us has got a job to do, remember what they fought for and to see they didn't fight in vain." His words rang true with the Taranaki farmer fighting for a "fair deal."

At 2am on a crisp Wellington Monday morning Malcolm set his bombs in the deserted grounds of Parliament Buildings, under a pōhutukawa tree near the marble statue of former Prime Minister Richard Seddon. He laid the dynamite on the ground and set the fuses, he'd wrapped the explosives in cellophane and a copy of the Taranaki Daily News with his address on. After chalking his name on the footpath the farmer drove home. He'd set two bombs, one to wake Wellington up, and the other to get their attention.

As he'd planned, the bombs went off with a big bang but no harm, a shop window across the street was the only thing broken by the shock wave. The noise woke up half of Wellington and sent the police and fire department scurrying to the scene. By this time Malcolm was long gone. "I set off the explosions because it was the most spectacular and safe thing I could think of to do and especially in Parliament grounds on Anzac Day," he wrote years later in a book of reminiscences. "One man cannot hold a protest march."

But he didn't get the publicity he wanted. A week went by and Malcolm still hadn't been arrested for the bombings. He attempted to place an advertisement in the local paper, confessing to the explosions. Finally, after 11 days the local police came to his farm and light-heartedly arrested him. Locals knew Malcolm and that he was harmless. He appeared in the New Plymouth Court, charged with setting off the explosives and released on a leniant bail, to ring the local police in Okato once a day.

Lock the door and throw away the key

A week later, Malcolm was at his lawyers office in Stratford when he was seized by Wellington police and thrown in a padded jail cell. "That," he told NZ Truth magazine, "was the point of no return - for them as well as for me." The farmer was examined by a doctor, labelled idealistic and delusional - the bomb prank was used as evidence that he was a danger to the public - and sent to Porirua Psychiatric Hospital. It would be his home for the next three years.

Malcolm's belief that the Governor General could grant him the right to speak in front of Parliament had seen him declared insane. To be released from an institute a patient's condition had to change for the better - Malcolm had to recant his "delusional" belief. But he wouldn't. For 34 months he endured being shut away from society, refusing treatment and ignoring the exhortations of his wife to come to his senses and grow up "give in and get home with her … She believed I only had to give in and accept medical treatment - a prefrontal lobotomy, or a transorbital lobotomy?"

For two years Malcolm wasn't allowed outside the institute grounds, except to see the occasional movie accompanied by an attendant. His visitors were restricted as the doctors discouraged anyone who might encourage the farmer to uphold his belief.

An aerial view of the large Porirua Psychiatric Hospital in the 1940s.

The farm was falling into disrepair because his wife was unable to cope with the strain of a new child and having to travel to Wellington each weekend to visit her husband. The family wore out two cars visiting Malcolm and spent hundreds of pounds in legal fees trying to get him out of Porirua.

It nearly became too much for the dairy farmer. One night, woken by the cries of an epileptic ward mate and overcome by the stench of a dirty bathroom he reached breaking point and resolved to begin drug treatment the next day. To calm himself he tried a yoga technique he'd read about. It worked and from then on he was able to beat the raging despair that threatened to overtake him.

Not fighting alone

Outside the hospital a group of men had got together to campaign for Malcolm's release. His father, brothers, ex-servicemen and local farmers appealed to the Supreme Court but were turned down, petitions were ignored, and personal pleas to the Prime Minister went unheard. NZ Truth investigated the story and informed the New Zealand public what was going on under their noses. But Malcolm hadn't recanted his belief so was still considered delusional and a danger to society - his condition was described as "unchanged."

Pure chance

It was only pure chance that got him out.
His wife got permission to take Malcolm out for the day - unknown to the authorities she took him on the train to Wellington zoo. News of this outing got back to his father who demanded the same visiting rights and got them. "They were hopping mad," he recalled, "but there was nothing they could do to stop it."

In November 1957 the National Government was defeated. Malcolm's supporters arranged to meet with the new Prime Minister Walter Nash to present him with a petition.

"My father and brothers called in at Porirua on the way down from Taranaki to see what I thought of the idea of going with them," Malcolm recalled. "We never asked permission - I just went. It was almost worth the years in Porirua to see the faces of the Director of Mental Hygiene and the Prime Minister's Secretary when I walked in. Thanks to that visit to the zoo, we had broken the system. The Prime Minister didn't have to rely on the word of the officials. The real evidence, me, was right there in his office. He could see the true meaning of 'condition unchanged.'"

On the spot Malcolm was given leave for Christmas and New Year, then six months probation. He was eventually allowed to return to his farm, administered by the Public Trust since his committal, and attempt to regain his life. He continued to live on his Ōkato farm, fighting various national campaigns until he died of leukaemia aged 74 in 1992.

Although he was unsuccessful in his original campaign Malcolm's extraordinary case had far reaching effects in the mental health system. He brought New Zealand's attention to the backward state of the nation's psychiatric hospitals and people's rights within those hospitals.