Alan MacDiarmid - a great New Zealander

Jim Anderton today expressed his great sorrow and dismay at the loss of the great New Zealand scientist and the Nobel Prize winner Alan MacDiarmid who died in his home Pennsylvania.

"I shared the thrill when Alan was awarded his Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000, and it is through that recognition that he will be remembered by most of his fellow New Zealanders. We share in that remembrance; his achievements were considerable and his life well lived," Jim Anderton said.

"But those of us who know him more personally will also be even more aware of what a loss this has been of someone, who, throughout his long and distinguished career, constantly asked how his work might also best serve humanity. Alan knew his worth but combined it with a modest awareness of the need to make a continuing contribution to human wellbeing.

"Alan was a link to a New Zealand generation that knew the very hard times of the depression of the 1930s. He was born in Masterton in 1927 where the MacDiarmid family lived on a hectare of land. His father Archie worked in the freezing works as an engineer but was unemployed for four years during the depression. During this time, the family shared what they had with those less well off.

"Alan MacDiarmid was to later say he was lucky to have been raised in a poor family which was also a close and loving family. Being poor made them self-reliant and conscious of the value of money whilst being close knit taught them the importance of personal relationships.

"Alan's brother, Rod MacDiarmid, has also been a personal friend of mine for years Rod is a pioneer of kiwifruit growing and still working in his orchard and exporting his produce even at the age of ninety years old.

"In 2006, Alan MacDiarmid was working with governments and universities in China, South Korea and Brazil on biofuel technology and was still traveling to these countries against the advice of his doctor. I was to see him next week on the subject of biofuels. I will miss him very much for his determination, his dedication and optimism. He epitomized the very best qualities of a research scientist.

"I have always endorsed the thought contained in John Donne's sermon in which he says that every man's death diminishes us all because we are all part of mankind a sentiment which I have no doubt Alan would thoroughly endorse, and one which is particularly appropriate in his case," Jim Anderton said.

ENDS

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