Belich was born on 25 July 1927, of Croat descent, in Awanui, Northland, to immigrant parents, Jakov and Marija, from the Dalmatian island of Korcula.

[4] His family home was a two room house at the edge of a gum-digging town, later with a lean-to kitchen added by his father after borrowing £400.

For the next several years he worked with the politically fragmented communities (many who had fled invasion from Nazi Germany) in both Auckland and Sydney until 1956.

He was also president of the United Nations Association and in 1979 was chairman of the International Year of the Child, which led to the establishment of the Children's Commission.

He attributed this to the lack of financial security his parents and other people in the town he grew up in had and thought Labour promised "jobs and a fair go for workers".

Belich and Lawrence had been friends for nearly twenty years adding a more personal element than normal to an election.

[11] The two first met in the late-1960s when Lawrence, as a member of the Jaycees, helped organise a fundraising international ball for a UNICEF, which Belich was then president of.

One newspaper ad showed a toilet on the beach, linking to the clean water campaign to stop raw sewage discharge at Moa Point.

Belich began the process toward a newer and more environmentally sustainable sewerage system, however the years long project to build a new plant was not completed until after he retired.

Belich and the majority Labour councillors navigated the downturn through a public works programme which included an extension to the Kilbirnie pool and the re-development of the central library, art museum and Civic Square.