New Zealand Liberal Party (1991)

The Liberal Party was founded by Gilbert Myles and Hamish MacIntyre, two dissident National MPs. Myles and McIntyre were opponents of the economic reforms (dubbed "Ruthanasia") promoted by Minister of Finance Ruth Richardson, believing that they were harmful to society. As a result of their objections, Myles and McIntyre fell out with their National Party colleagues, and eventually decided to break away. After a short time as independents, they established the Liberal Party.[1]

At its launch the party predicted it would win "six or seven seats" at the next election and hold the balance of power. Myles and MacIntyre also stated that they were anticipating a third National MP would soon join. They were careful not to mention a name, but media quickly identified Cam Campion as the MP inferred. Campion was interviewed and stated that he had not given up on National just yet and was still "flat out" trying to change National's policy direction.[1]

The new organisation was plagued by organisational difficulties, and neither Myles not MacIntyre — both first-term MPs — had much political experience. Not long after the party was established, Myles and McIntyre opted to join the Liberals with the newly formed Alliance party.[2] Although the Alliance was considerably more left-wing than the Liberals, it was emerging as the most significant political group to oppose Ruth Richardson's policies — the leader of the Alliance, Jim Anderton, had quit his own Labour Party out of opposition to Roger Douglas, an ideological ally of Richardson.

In 1993, however, a more prominent dissident within the National Party, Winston Peters, also quit. Although it was briefly considered that a pact might be formed between the Alliance and Peters, the two proved incompatible, and Peters established the New Zealand First party. At the time when Myles and McIntyre had split from National, they had entertained hopes that Peters (and possibly Michael Laws or Cam Campion) would join them, and were therefore disappointed at the failure of talks between Peters and the Alliance. The possibility of leaving the Alliance and merging with New Zealand First was discussed, but deep divisions emerged within the party about this possibility. In the end, Gilbert Myles (along with party president Malcolm Wright) opted to leave the Liberals and join New Zealand First. MacIntyre remained with the Liberals for some time afterwards, however he did not enter Parliament again and following the 1996 election where he was a list candidate for the Alliance, retired from politics.

In 1996, leadership of the Liberals fell to Frank Grover, who had been elected to Parliament as an Alliance list MP in the 1996 election. Grover himself eventually rejected the Alliance, and shortly before the 1999 election, defected to the Christian Heritage Party, giving it its first seat in Parliament though he did not secure re-election, however. The leadership of the Liberal Party then passed to former Auckland City Councillor Sue Corbett,[3] though the party was eventually dissolved, with its few remaining members simply becoming members of the Alliance as a whole.