New Zealand National Party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| New Zealand National Party | |
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| Leader | John Key |
| Founded | 13-14 May, 1936 |
| Headquarters | Willbank House, Willis Street Wellington |
| Political ideology | Liberal conservatism |
| International affiliation | International Democrat Union |
| Website | National Party of New Zealand |
The New Zealand National Party ("National" or "the Nats") currently forms the second-largest (in terms of seats) political party represented in the New Zealand Parliament, and thus functions as the core of the parliamentary Opposition. "National" has become the largest (in terms of membership) centre-right conservative political party in New Zealand.
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[edit] Policies
The National Party presently advocates policies of reducing taxes, reducing social welfare payments, promoting free trade, restoring or maintaining New Zealand's traditional (Western) defence and security alliances and promoting one standard of citizenship for all New Zealanders ("One law for all"). The party's policy documents contain commitments to doubling New Zealand's economic growth, to giving welfare payments only to "those in genuine need" and to "speedy, full and final settlements to historic Waitangi Treaty claims."
[edit] Support
Starting as a balanced urban/rural movement, National has seemed to appeal more consistently to country voters. At the 2005 election, the Party narrowly won more votes than the Labour Party in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, and in the northern cities of Hamilton and Tauranga. It also won almost all of the rural and provincial electoral seats. However, the rival Labour Party won considerably more votes in the cities of Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
[edit] Organisation
National features both regional and electorate-level organisational structures. In light of the 2002 election result, a review of the party organisation resulted in decisions to weaken the regional structure and to implement a more centralised structure. The Party President (currently Judy Kirk) heads the administration outside of National's current sitting MPs.
Historically, the youth wing, the Young Nationals, commonly known as the "Young Nats", has provided much political impetus as a ginger group: historically it gained a reputation as "the" social organisation in rural New Zealand and in some urban circles.[citation needed]
A group called the Bluegreens exists within National and advises on environmental policy.
[edit] History
[edit] Formation
The National Party officially formed in 1936, but its roots considerably pre-date that period. The party formed as the result of a merger between the United Party (known as the Liberal Party until 1927) and the Reform Party. The United Party gained its main support from the cities, and drew upon businesses for money and upon middle class electors for votes, while the Reform Party had a rural base and received substantial support from farmers.
Historically, the Liberal and Reform parties had competed against each other, but from 1931 until 1935 a coalition between the United and Reform parties held power in New Zealand. The coalition went into the 1935 election under the title of the "National Political Federation", a name adopted to indicate that the grouping intended to represent New Zealanders from all backgrounds (in contrast to the previous situation, where United served city-dwellers and Reform served farmers). However, because of the effects of the Great Depression and a perception that the existing coalition government had handled the situation poorly, the National Political Federation lost heavily in 1935 to the Labour Party, the rise of which had originally prompted the alliance.
A new party, called the New Zealand National Party, formed at a meeting held in Wellington on May 13 and 14, 1936. Erstwhile members of the United and Reform parties made up the bulk of the new party. George Forbes, Prime Minister from 1930 until 1935 and United Party Leader, opened the conference; and served as Leader of the Opposition until October, when the party elected Adam Hamilton as its first leader. Hamilton led the Party into its first election in 1938. He became the leader primarily due to a compromise between George Forbes (leader of United) and Gordon Coates (leader of Reform). Hamilton, however, failed to counter Labour's popular Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage effectively. This, along with perceptions that he remained too much under the control of Coates and that he lacked real support from his party colleagues, saw Hamilton fail to prevent Labour's re-election in 1938.
In 1940 Sidney Holland replaced Hamilton. The 1943 election saw Labour's majority reduced, but it remained in power. In the 1946 elections, National also failed to unseat Labour. However, in the 1949 elections, thirteen years after the party's foundation, National finally won power, and Holland became Prime Minister.
[edit] The First National Government
In 1949 National had campaigned on "the private ownership of production, distribution and exchange". Once in power, however, the new Holland Government proved decidedly conservative, retaining, for instance, the welfare state set up by the previous Labour Government; though National gained, and has largely kept, a reputation for showing more favour to farmers and to business than did the Labour Party.
In 1951, the Waterfront Dispute broke out, lasting 151 days, and the National government stepped in, acting against the maritime unions. Holland also used this opportunity to call the 1951 snap election. Campaigning on an anti-Communist platform and exploiting the Labour Opposition's apparent indecisiveness, National returned with an increased majority, gaining 54 seats out of 80.
In the 1954 elections, National again won, though losing some of its seats, and Holland became Prime Minister for a third term. Towards the end of his third term, however, Holland became increasingly ill, and stepped down from the leadership shortly before the general election in 1957. Keith Holyoake, the party's long-standing deputy leader, took Holland's place. Holyoake, however, had insufficient time to establish himself in then public mind as Prime Minister, and lost in the election later that year to Labour, then under Walter Nash.
[edit] Second National Government
Nash's government proved very unpopular. Labour quickly acquired a reputation for poor economic management, and its 1958 Budget, known since as the "Black Budget", was widely seen as miserly and puritanical. After only one term in office, Labour suffered defeat at the hands of Holyoake in the elections of 1960. Holyoake's government lasted twelve years, gaining re-election three times (in 1963, 1966, and 1969). However, this period was also notable for the rise of Social Credit, which broke the National/Labour duopoly in parliament, winning former National seats from 1966. Holyoake retired from the Prime Ministership and from the Party leadership at the beginning of 1972, and was replaced by his deputy, Jack Marshall.
Marshall suffered the same fate as Holyoake. Having succeeded an experienced leader in an election year, he was unable to establish himself in time. Marshall had an added disadvantage; he was competing against the much more popular and charismatic Norman Kirk, then leader of the Labour Party. He lost the ensuing election.
[edit] Third National Government
Within two years, Marshall was removed as party leader, and replaced with Robert Muldoon, who had previously served as Minister of Finance. An intense contest between Kirk and Muldoon followed. In a stroke of luck for Muldoon, Kirk became ill and died in office; his successor, Bill Rowling, was no match for Muldoon, and in the 1975 elections, National under Muldoon returned comfortably to power.
The Muldoon administration, which favoured interventionist economic policies, arouses mixed opinions amongst the majority free-market adherents of the modern National. The "Think Big" initiatives, designed to invest public money in major projects, stand in contrast to the party's modern views. Muldoon's interventionist economics, increasingly unpopular with both the public and the party, caused an attempted leadership change in 1980. Led by ministers Derek Quigley, Jim McLay, and Jim Bolger, the challenge (dubbed the "colonels' coup") against Muldoon aimed to replace him with Brian Talboys, his deputy. However, the plan collapsed as the result of Talboys' unwillingness, and Muldoon kept his position.
Under Muldoon, National won elections in 1978 and 1981. However, even then, public dissatisfaction with Government policies was growing, and Muldoon's controlling and belligerent style of leadership became less and less appealing. In the 1981 election, National gained fewer votes than the Labour opposition, but was able to command a small majority in Parliament because of the then-used First Past the Post electoral system.
Dissent within the National Party continued to grow, however. Rebel National MPs Marilyn Waring and Mike Minogue caused particular concern to the leadership, threatening National's thin majority in parliament. When, in 1984, Marilyn Waring refused to support Muldoon's policies on nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ships, Muldoon called a snap election. Muldoon made the television announcement of this election while visibly inebriated, and some believe that he later regretted the decision to "go to the country". National resoundingly lost the election to Labour's David Lange.
[edit] Fourth National Government
Shortly after this loss, the Party removed Muldoon from the leadership. Jim McLay, who had replaced Brian Talboys as deputy leader shortly before the election, became the new leader. McLay, however, failed to restore the party's fortunes, partly because a bitter Muldoon undermined McLay's position. In 1986, Jim Bolger took over the leadership.
In the 1990 elections, National defeated Labour in an electoral landslide and formed a new government under Bolger. However, the party lost support when it continued the economic reforms which had damaged the previous Labour government - these policies, started by Labour Party Finance Minister Roger Douglas and popularly known as Rogernomics, centred on the privatization of state assets and on the removal of tariffs and subsidies. These policies alienated traditional Labour supporters, who saw them as a betrayal of the party's left-wing character, but did not entirely appease the right-wing National party either. Many more conservative National supporters preferred Muldoon's more authoritarian and interventionist policies over the free-market liberalism promoted by Douglas. However, the new National Party Finance Minister, Ruth Richardson, strongly supported Rogernomics, actually believing that Douglas had not gone far enough. (See Ruthanasia.) Her policies encouraged two National MPs to leave the National Party and form the New Zealand Liberal Party (1992). They also met with considerable caucus opposition and caused damage to the party's membership base.
Nevertheless, National (albeit barely) retained office in 1993, due partly to a strongly recovering economy. At the same time as the 1993 election, however, a referendum took place which established the MMP electoral system for future use. This would have a significant impact on New Zealand politics. Some National Party MPs defected to a new grouping, United New Zealand in mid-1995. And as a result of the new electoral mechanics, the New Zealand First Party, led by former National MP and former Cabinet minister Winston Peters, held the balance of power after the 1996 elections. After a prolonged period of negotiation, in which New Zealand First played National and Labour off against each other (both parties negotiated complete coalition agreements), New Zealand First entered into a coalition with National.
Under the coalition agreement, Peters became Deputy Prime Minister, and had the post of Treasurer especially created for him. New Zealand First extracted a number of other concessions from National in exchange for its support. The influence of New Zealand First angered many National MPs, particularly Jenny Shipley. When, in 1997, Shipley toppled Bolger to become leader, relations between National and its coalition partner deteriorated. After Shipley sacked Peters from Cabinet in 1998, the New Zealand First party split into two groups - half the MPs followed Peters out of the coalition, but the remainder broke away, establishing themselves as independents or as members of new parties. From the latter group National gained enough support to continue in government. The visibly damaged National Government managed to survive the parliamentary term, but lost the election to Labour's Helen Clark and the Alliance's Jim Anderton, who formed a coalition government.
[edit] The Present
Shipley continued to lead the National Party until 2001, when Bill English replaced her. English, however, proved unable to gain traction against Clark, and National suffered its worst-ever electoral defeat in the 2002 elections, gaining only 27 of 120 seats. Many hoped that English would succeed in rebuilding the party, given time, but a year later polling showed the party performing only slightly better than in the election. In October 2003 English gave way as leader to Don Brash, a former governor of the Reserve Bank who had joined the National Parliamentary caucus in the 2002 election.
Under Dr Brash, the National Party's overall popularity with voters improved markedly. Mostly, however, the party achieved this by 'reclaiming' support from electors who voted for other Centre-Right parties in 2002. National's campaigning on race relations, amid claims of preferential treatment of Māori, and amid their staunch opposition to Government policy during the foreshore-and-seabed controversy, generated considerable publicity and much controversy. Strong campaigning on a tax-cuts theme in the lead-up to the 2005 elections, together with a consolidation of centre-right support, may have contributed to the National Party's winning 48 out of 121 seats in Parliament. National, however, remained the second-largest party in Parliament (marginally behind Labour, which gained 50 seats), and had fewer options for forming a coalition government. With the formation of a new Labour-dominated Government, National remained the major Opposition party.
On 11 May 2006, National celebrated its 70th anniversary with a black-tie dinner at Parliament Buildings. All National Parliamentary leaders from Jim McLay (1985) to the present attended.
After the 2005 election defeat Don Brash's leadership of National came under scrutiny from the media and political watchers referred to the prospect of a leadership challenge before the next general election due in 2008. Don Brash resigned on November 23, 2006, immediately before a Nicky Hager book, containing allegedly damaging revelations obtained from private emails, was released. He was replaced by John Key on 27 November 2006. Key has attempted to create a more 'centrist' image, discussing issues such as child poverty.
[edit] Parliamentary Leaders
- Adam Hamilton (1936 - 1940)
- Sidney Holland (1940 - 1957)
- Keith Holyoake (1957 - 1972)
- Jack Marshall (1972 - 1974)
- Robert Muldoon (1974 - 1984)
- Jim McLay (1984 - 1986)
- Jim Bolger (1986 - 1997)
- Jenny Shipley (1997 - 2001)
- Bill English (2001 - 2003)
- Don Brash (2003 - 2006)
- John Key (2006 -)
Of these leaders, six have served as Prime Minister. Five have not: Hamilton, McLay, English, Brash and Key.
[edit] Party Presidents
- Sir George Chapman (1973 - 1982)
- Sue Wood (1982 - 1986)
- Neville Young (1986 - 1989)
- John Collinge (1989 - 1994)
- Lindsay Tisch (1994)
- Geoff Thompson (1994 - 1998)
- John Slater (1998 - 2001)
- Michelle Boag (2001 - 2002)
- Judy Kirk (2002 - )
[edit] See also
- Political parties in New Zealand
- Governments of New Zealand
- National Party's Caucus and National MPs' responsibilities
[edit] External links
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