Dick Quax

Athletic career

At the 1970 British Commonwealth Games, Quax won the silver medal in the 1500 metres. In the 5000 m, at the 1972 Summer Olympics he was eliminated in the heats, but he won silver in 1976. He did not compete in 1980 in Moscow due to the West's boycott.

In 1977 at Stockholm he set a world record of 13:12.9 in the 5000 m. This record stood for less than a year, but as a national record it stood for over 31 years, until beaten by Adrian Blincoe in July 2008.

Early in 1980 at Stanford Stadium Quax missed Jos Hermens' 15 km world record by five seconds, running a New Zealand national record of 43:01.7. In his later career Quax switched his focus to the marathon, running 2:11.13 in his debut for 4th place at the Nike OTC Marathon in 1979, at that time the fastest debut marathon in history. In 1980 he returned and won the race in a New Zealand record time of 2:10.47. After retiring from competition, Quax established a career in sports management.

Politician

Quax is a member of the ACT Party and stood in the 1999 election in the Pakuranga electorate but was unsuccessful. He was ranked 11th on the ACT party list, which was too low to be elected from the list, as only the first 9 candidates got returned. He stood again in the 2002 general election.

In October 2001 Quax was elected to the Manukau City Council for the Pakuranga ward and was re-elected in 2004 to represent the new Botany-Clevedon ward after a failed bid for the Manukau mayoralty. On 13 October 2007 Quax lost his bid to become mayor of Manukau to Len Brown by 14,000 votes.

During this election, Quax complained to the electoral office over an "offensive flyer" depicting him and members of his People's Choice party as the Thunderbirds. His complaint was not upheld as there was no evidence to suggest who had posted the flyers.

Quax stood for Citizens & Ratepayers in the 2010 Auckland Council elections, losing to Jami-Lee Ross by 253 votes. In 2011 Quax was elected to the council after a by-election was held in Howick due to Ross resigning after becoming a Member of Parliament. He was re-elected unopposed in 2013.

During the 2013 Len Brown mayoral scandal, Quax took the opportunity for political payback against Mr Brown, leading the call for him to resign for not declaring hotel upgrades as gifts. It emerged that Quax had also not filed returns on the gifts he had received during the previous term.

Quax was re-elected in the 2016 Auckland elections.

#Quaxing

Dick Quax tweeted in January 2015 about his disbelief that anyone in the Western world would go shopping by means of a train or bicycle (or by bus, ferry, etc., presumably). Twitter users responded by creating the #quaxing hashtag, defined below.

The Public Address website voted quaxing as its word of the year 2015, followed by Red Peak and Twitterati.

Quax, [verb; past: quaxed, present: quaxing] — to shop, in the western world, by means of walking, cycling or public transit. #quaxing — Non-motorist (@ByTheMotorway) 26 April 2015

Also:

quaxer, n., one who quaxes. quaxable, adj., something with which one may quax.

Personal life

Quax and his family arrived in New Zealand from the Netherlands during the 1950s, and according to an interview in the New Zealand Listener travelled on the same ship as former Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres. Quax became a naturalised New Zealander in 1969.

It was revealed on 27 November 2013 that Quax had been undergoing treatment for throat cancer, which had been diagnosed two months earlier.

Quax married three times, his third marriage being to Roxanne in August 1991. Quax has three children.