Mel Courtney
Melvyn Francis (Mel) Courtney (born 1943) is a former Labour then Independent Member of Parliament for Nelson, in the South Island of New Zealand.
Member of Parliament
| Parliament of New Zealand | ||||
| Years | Term | Electorate | Party | |
| 1976–78 | 38th | Nelson | Labour | |
| 1978–81 | 39th | Nelson | Labour | |
| 1981–81 | Changed allegiance to: | Independent | ||
Mel Courtney represented the Nelson electorate from 1976 to 1981 and was Opposition Spokesman for Horticulture and Fisheries for five years. He was a recipient of both the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977 for service to the community and the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal in recognition of services to New Zealand. Mel Courtney was also a member of the Nelson City Council for nine years.
Independent
In March 1981 Mel Courtney announced that he had let his membership of the Labour Party lapse. Soon after, he withdrew from the Labour Party caucus and sat in the New Zealand House of Representatives as an independent.
Courtney's resignation from the Labour Party came at the end of a lengthy period in which public differences between him and his local electorate committee (and also the Nelson Trades Council) had occurred with increasing frequency. His announcement of his independent candidacy for the 1981 general election was made only a few days before the 35th anniversary of the death of Harry Atmore, MP for Nelson from 1911 to 1946. Atmore had been the last independent MP to be elected to the Parliament of New Zealand.
1981 election
At the 1981 election supporters rallied around Mel Courtney's Independent campaign and, although defeated, it was by the narrow margin of 698 votes. Courtney took a very creditable 37.0 per cent of the total vote, only 3.4 percentage points behind the Labour candidate and nearly three times as many votes as the National candidate's share of the vote. This was the best result by an independent candidate in New Zealand Elections in nearly forty years.
| New Zealand general election, 1981 - Nelson result | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Philip Woollaston | 8,198 | 40.41 | ||
| Independent | Mel Courtney | 7,500 | 36.97 | ||
| National | 2,749 | 13.55 | |||
| Social Credit | 1,545 | 7.61 | |||
| Values | 297 | 1.46 | |||
| Turnout | 20,289 | ||||
| Majority | 698 | 3.44 | |||
Further reading
- Levine, Steven; McRobie, Alan (2002), From Muldoon to Lange: New Zealand Elections in the 1980s, Rangiora, [N.Z.]: MC Enterprises
- Rice, Geoffrey (ed.) (1992), Oxford History of New Zealand, Auckland, [N.Z.]: Oxford University Press
- Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.
- Wood, G. Anthony, ed. (1996). Ministers and Members: In the New Zealand Parliament. Dunedin: Otago University Press.
External links
- Mel Courtney's Political Papers. National Register of Archives and Manuscripts
- Radio New Zealand Interview 1981. Sound Archives
- Nelson City Council Roll of Honour
See also
- Mabel Howard
- Nelson By-election 1976
- Nelson Railway and Nelson Railway Proposals
Mel Courtney's grandfather, H.F. Courtney, was an engine driver on the Nelson Railway from 1915 to 1920 and lived at Glenhope. See Voller, Lois (1991), Appendix in Rails to Nowhere: The History of the Nelson Railway, Nelson, [N.Z.]: Nikau Press
- James Courtney, Military Cross
- People's Republic of China-New Zealand Relations
- Timeline of New Zealand's links with Antarctica
Mel Courtney attended the 21st Anniversary of Scott Base in 1978 representing the New Zealand Parliament.
For contemporaneous events in Britain between January and June 1981 and the Council for Social Democracy.
| New Zealand Parliament | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Stanley Whitehead |
Member of Parliament for Nelson 1976–1981 |
Succeeded by Philip Woollaston |