David Lange New Zealand's youngest prime minister of the past century

Lange also is credited with giving his nation of four million its most radical economic overhaul in an attempt to open its markets. Though he was forced from power in 1989 by his own legislators, the centre-right National Party that took power the next year continued his economic program.

The son of a doctor, Lange started his career as a lawyer who championed of the rights of poor. He became a lawmaker in the northern city of Mangere, nearAuckland, in 1977. In 1983 he was elected Labour leader and 16 months later led his party to government. He was 41, the nation's youngest prime minister of the last century.

A Methodist lay preacher, Lange spurned the trappings of official life by not moving into the official premier's residence.

Instead, he rented a small apartment in Wellington while his first wife, Naomi, and their children remained in Auckland.

The Labour government Lange led inherited a country in deep economic trouble after the long domination of conservative National Party leader Sir Robert Muldoon.

Lange's government, including finance minister Roger Douglas, architect of New Zealand's free market economy, floated the New

Zealand dollar, freed controls on interest rates, banking and foreign exchange, and turned government businesses into corporations.

Known for his down-to-earth wit, Lange said to retiring US Ambassador H Monroe Browne, who owned a racehorse called Lacka Reason:

"You are the only ambassador in the world to race a horse named after your country's foreign policy."

Lange leapt quickly to international prominence when his government banned all nuclear-powered ships and those carrying nuclear weapons from New Zealand ports, enraging the United States and leading to the country's suspension from the regional security alliance with the United States and Australia, ANZUS.

Lange also clashed with France after French agents bombed the RainbowWarrior, flagship of the environmental group Greenpeace, in Auckland harbour in 1985 as it prepared to sail to the French South Pacific nuclear testing area of Mururoa.

Lange described the bombing as "a sordid act of state-backed terrorism".

In a debate with nuclear weapons supporters at Oxford University, Lange's quips included: "Lean forward, I can smell the uranium on your breath."

Yet his leadership left his party in disarray. It took nine years for Labour to regain power after its defeat in 1990, a year after Lange resigned as prime minister citing ill health.

He fell out with a powerful group of ministers when he called for pause in the rapid rate of economic reform. And his nuclear ban put him at odds with the US administration.

Lange's government also abolished farm and export subsidies and privatised state-run enterprises such as the railroad, the postal service and telecommunications - moves that cost thousands of jobs.

After divorcing in the 1990s, Lange married his former policy adviser Margaret Pope, with whom he had a daughter.

He suffered ill health through much of his adult life. He fought a long battle with obesity - he once weighed 168 kg - and cited health as one reason why he stood down. He had heart surgery in 1988 and 1996, and earlier had his stomach stapled to reduce his eating. He was treated for coronary heart disease with multiple bypass surgery. He admitted to alcoholism in 1999, joining Alcoholics Anonymous. In 2002, Lange was diagnosed with a rare incurable plasma disorder, amyloidosis, which causes a build-up of excess protein from bone marrow and damages the organs.

In 2003, Lange won a Right Livelihood Award, known as the "alternative Nobel, " after reportedly having been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

He also was named to the Order of New Zealand, the nation's highest honour, bestowed on just 20 living New Zealanders at any one time.

He relaxed by driving in motor races, reading and doing crossword puzzles.

He is survived by his wife, Margaret, and four children.

David Lange; born August 4, 1942, died August 13, 2005.