Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/governments

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Discussion on formation from Talk:Rogernomics

I'm wondering if there should be a page on the fourth Labour government in general. While Rogernomics was the most important thing they did, there were also a lot of other important things, like getting out of ANZUS, general rejigging of foreign policy, homosexual law reform and other social stuff, and it would be good to have it all on one page. Rogernomics could be briefly dealt with and have a link to this page.

Currently there is a page on the 41st New Zealand Parliament but this just focusses on who the MPs were, and should probably be left as such, especially since a fourth Labour government page would obviously need to cover both terms.

Perhaps a project could be started to create a page for each New Zealand government, at least since the party system got started in 1890ish. It would definitely be useful to have pages on the first Labour government, the Liberals etc.

What do people think? --Helenalex 21:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be a good thing. I suggest Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand, and similarly for the other governments. There's some material already at New_Zealand_Labour_Party#Fourth_Labour_Government; it should be condensed if a fuller article is written, with a link to the new article. Links also from the 41st New Zealand Parliament, New Zealand general election, 1984 etc. and Timeline of New Zealand history. Some material at Helen Clark and articles for earlier Prime Ministers could possibly be moved to the new articles.

Since this discussion is about much more than Rogernomics, I'll add a note to WP:NZWNB pointing to it.-gadfium 07:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I support making those articles. They really are needed, and Australia has them for each of their governments. The series by Margaret Clark on political leaders would be a good source, and Ian Grant's Public Lives as well. There will need to be some discussion on how to deal with the coalition governments - I would suggest

The Bolger National Government and National-led Coalition Government

The Fifth Labour Government in Coalition

NB, National governments have tended to be referred to as "The Bolger National Government" whereas Labour governments have tended to be "The Fourth Labour Government". --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 22:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I had also been wondering about what to do with coalitions. I think you're right in that we need to sort of treat a series of coalitions led by one party as a government, ie now back to 1999 as the fifth Labour government rather than three or more seperate governments. There is a similar issue for governments before the advent of party politics in about 1890. Before this time 'ministries' were made up of a loose collection of individual MPs temporarily united behind a leader (the Vogel Ministry etc). These could last anywhere from a few days to the best part of a decade. My inclination is to just start the government series in 1890 and deal with the ministries seperately.

In reference to naming, I think we should be consistant one way or the other, ie name them all after their main leader, with a slash in cases of two major leaders, ie the Savage / Fraser government, or all numbered. James Belich numbers all his governments in Paradise Reforged. Personally I'm not sure which way to go. The fourth Labour government is the only one which has a basically invariable name in terms of what people call it, and 'the Lange government' sounds kind of weird. On the other hand in the early 20th century parties changed their names quite a bit and it could get confusing, whereas things like 'the Ward government' are pretty straight forward. Either way it should be consistent and the other name should direct people to the page, ie if we choose numbering than a search for 'Muldoon government' should lead people directly to 'third National government' and vice versa.

Perhaps some kind of project page needs to be set up for this. There will obviously be a lot of debate and co-ordination required, and this talk page should probably be reserved for discussion of the page it actually relates to. I have no idea how to do anything like that, so could someone arrange it? --Helenalex 01:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/governments can be a base, and discussion should probably move to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/governments. --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 01:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. King lists NZ's governments on this basis too. I would add that (for example) the "Fourth Labour government" is a fairly Kiwi way of naming governments. --Lholden 02:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)