Politics of New Zealand

Ballot showing parties, 2011 general election

The first political party in New Zealand was founded in 1891, and its main rival was founded in 1909—New Zealand had a de facto two-party system from that point until the adoption of MMP in 1996. Since then New Zealand has been a multi-party system, with at least five parties elected in every election since. No party was able to govern without support from other groups from 1996 until 2020, making coalition government standard.[21]

Historically the two largest, and oldest, parties are the New Zealand Labour Party (centre-left, formed in 1916) and the New Zealand National Party (centre-right, formed in 1936).[22] Other parties to be represented in Parliament, based on provisional results from the October 2020 general election, are ACT New Zealand (right-wing, classical-liberal), the Green Party (left-wing, environmentalist), and the Māori Party (indigenous rights-based).[23]

Parties must register with the Electoral Commission in order to contest the party vote in an election.[24]

 Summary of the 17 October 2020 election for the House of Representatives[25]

Party		Party vote				Electorate vote sum				Total seats	+/-
		Votes	%	Change (pp)	Seats	Votes	%	Change (pp)	Seats
	Labour	1,443,545	50.01	13.12	19	1,357,501	48.07	10.19	46	65	19
	National	738,275	25.58	18.87	10	963,845	34.13	9.92	23	33	23
	Green	226,757	7.86	1.59	9	162,245	5.74	1.17	1	10	2
	ACT	219,031	7.59	7.08	9	97,697	3.46	2.45	1	10	9
	NZ First	75,020	2.60	4.60	0	30,209	1.07	4.38	0	0	9
	Opportunities	43,449	1.51	0.94	0	25,181	0.89	0.14	0	0
	New Conservative	42,613	1.48	1.24	0	49,598	1.76	1.52	0	0
	Māori	33,630	1.17	0.01	1	60,837	2.15	0.04	1	2	2
	Advance NZ	28,429	0.99	new	0	25,054	0.89	new	0	0	new
	Legalise Cannabis	13,329	0.46	0.15	0	8,044	0.28	0.12	0	0
	ONE	8,121	0.28	new	0	6,830	0.24	new	0	0	new
	Vision NZ	4,237	0.15	new	0	2,139	0.08	new	0	0	new
	Outdoors	3,256	0.11	0.05	0	7,982	0.28	0.23	0	0
	TEA	2,414	0.08	new	0	2,764	0.10	new	0	0	new
	Sustainable NZ	1,880	0.07	new	0	2,421	0.09	new	0	0	new
	Social Credit	1,520	0.05	0.02	0	2,699	0.11	0.09	0	0
	Heartland	914	0.03	new	0	8,462	0.30	new	0	0	new
	Unregistered parties	—	—	—	—	3,391	0.12	0.08	0	0
	Independent	—	—	—	—	7,299	0.26	0.24	0	0
Valid votes		2,886,420	98.88	0.34		2,824,198	96.75	0.58
Informal votes		21,372	0.73	0.32		57,138	1.96	0.80
Disallowed votes		11,281	1.04	0.65		37,737	2.66	1.37
Total		2,919,073	100		48	2,919,073	100		72	120
Eligible voters and Turnout		3,549,580	82.24	2.49		3,549,580	82.24	2.49

Manuscript copy of the Treaty of Waitangi (in Māori)

After the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a colonial Governor and his small staff acted on behalf of the British government based on the British political system.[75] Whereas Māori systems had dominated prior to 1840 governors attempting to introduce British systems met with mixed success in Māori communities. More isolated Māori were little influenced by the Government. Most influences were felt in and around Russell, the first capital, and Auckland, the second capital.

The first voting rights in New Zealand were legislated in 1852 as the New Zealand Constitution Act for the 1853 elections and reflected British practice.[75] Initially only property owners could vote, but by the late 1850s 75% of British males over 21 were eligible to vote compared to 20% in England and 12% in Scotland. Around 100 Māori chiefs voted in the 1853 election.[76]

During the 1850s provincial-based government was the norm. It was abolished in 1876.[75] Politics was initially dominated by conservative and wealthy "wool lords" who owned multiple sheep farms, mainly in Canterbury. During the gold rush era starting 1858 suffrage was extended to all British gold miners who owned a 1-pound mining license. The conservatives had been influenced by the militant action of gold miners in Victoria at Eureka. Many gold miners had moved to the New Zealand fields bringing their radical ideas. The extended franchise was modelled on the Victorian system. In 1863 the mining franchise was extended to goldfield business owners. By 1873 of the 41,500 registered voters 47% were gold field miners or owners.

After the brief Land War period ending in 1864, Parliament moved to extend the franchise to more Māori. Donald McLean introduced a bill for four temporary Māori electorates and extended the franchise to all Māori men over 21 in 1867. As such, Māori were universally franchised 12 years prior to European men.[77]

In 1879 an economic depression hit, resulting in poverty and many people, especially miners, returning to Australia. Between 1879 and 1881 Government was concerned at the activities of Māori activists based on confiscated land at Parihaka. Activists destroyed settlers' farm fences and ploughed up roads and land[78] which incensed local farmers. Arrests followed but the activities persisted. Fears grew among settlers that the resistance campaign was a prelude to armed conflict.[79] The government itself was puzzled as to why the land had been confiscated and offered a huge 25,000-acre reserve to the activists, provided they stopped the destruction.[80] Commissioners set up to investigate the issue said that the activities "could fairly be called hostile".[80] A power struggle ensued resulting in the arrest of all the prominent leaders by a large government force in 1881. Historian Hazel Riseborough describes the event as a conflict over who had authority or mana—the Government or the Parihaka protestors.[81]

Richard Seddon's statue stands outside Parliament buildings in Wellington.

In 1882 the export of meat in the first refrigerated ship started a period of sustained economic export-led growth. This period is notable for the influence of new social ideas and movements such as the Fabians and the creation in 1890 of the first political party, the Liberals. Their leader, former gold miner Richard Seddon from Lancashire, was Premier from 1893 to 1906. The Liberals introduced new taxes to break the influence of the wealthy conservative sheep farm owners. They also purchased more land from Māori.[82] (By 1910, Māori in parts of the North Island retained very little land, and the amount of Māori land would decrease precipitously as a result of government purchases.[83])

The early 20th century saw the rise of the trade union movement and labour parties (see Socialism in New Zealand § Unions and workers' parties), which represented organised workers. The West Coast town of Blackball is often regarded as the birthplace of the labour movement in New Zealand,[84] as it was the location of the founding of one of the main political organisations which became part of the New Zealand Labour Party.

Māori political affairs have been developing through legislation[85] such as the Resource Management Act 1991 and the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 and many more.[85] Since colonisation in the 1800s, Māori have had their customary laws oppressed, with the imposition of a Westminster democracy and political style. As reparations from the colonial war and general discrepancies during colonisation, the New Zealand Government has formally apologised to those iwi affected, through settlements and legislation. In the 1960s Māori Politics Relations began to exhibit more positivity. The legislature enacted a law to help Māori retrieve back their land, not hinder them, through the Māori Affairs Amendment Act 1967.[86] Since then, this progressive change in attitude has materialised as legislation to protect the natural environment or Taonga, and the courts by establishing treaty principles that always have to be considered when deciding laws in the courts.[87] Moreover, the Māori Lands Act 2016 was printed both in te reo Māori and English—the act itself affirms the equal legal status of te reo Māori.

Kate Sheppard is the country's most famous suffragist.

Women's suffrage was granted after about two decades of campaigning by women such as Kate Sheppard and Mary Ann Müller and organisations such as the New Zealand branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. On 19 September 1893 the governor, Lord Glasgow, signed a new Electoral Act into law.[88] As a result, New Zealand became the first self-governing nation in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.[14] Women first voted in the 1893 election, with a high 85% turnout (compared to 70% of men).[89]

Women were not eligible to be elected to the House of Representatives until 1919 though, when three women, including Ellen Melville stood. The first woman to win an election (to the seat held by her late husband) was Elizabeth McCombs in 1933.[88] Mabel Howard became the first female cabinet minister in 1947, being appointed to the First Labour Government.[90]

New Zealand was the first country in the world in which all the highest offices were occupied by women, between March 2005 and August 2006: the Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Speaker of the House Margaret Wilson, and Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias.[91]

The right-leaning National Party and the left-leaning Labour Party have dominated New Zealand political life since a Labour government came to power in 1935. During fourteen years in office (1935–1949), the Labour Party implemented a broad array of social and economic legislation, including comprehensive social security, a large scale public works programme, a forty-hour working week, and compulsory unionism.[92][93] The National Party won control of the government in 1949, accepting most of Labour's welfare measures. Except for two brief periods of Labour governments in 1957–1960 and 1972–1975, National held power until 1984.[93]

The greatest challenge to the first and later Labour governments' policies on the welfare state and a regulated economy that combined state and private enterprise came from the Labour Party itself. After regaining control in 1984, the fourth Labour government instituted a series of radical market-oriented reforms. It privatised state assets and reduced the role of the state in the economy.[94] It also instituted a number of other more left-wing reforms, such as allowing the Waitangi Tribunal to hear claims of breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi to be made back to 1840.[95] In 1987, the government introduced the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act, banning visits by nuclear powered ships; the implementation of a nuclear-free zone brought about New Zealand's suspension from the ANZUS security alliance with the United States and Australia.[96]

In October 1990, the National Party again formed a government, for the first of three three-year terms. The new National government largely advanced the free-market reforms of the preceding government. In 1996, New Zealand inaugurated the new electoral system (MMP) to elect its Parliament.[97] The system was expected (among numerous other goals) to increase representation of smaller parties in Parliament and appears to have done so in the MMP elections to date. Between 1996 and 2020, neither National nor Labour had an absolute majority in Parliament, and for all but two of those years a minority government ruled (however, every government has been led by one or other of the two main parties).[98]

MMP parliaments have been markedly more diverse, with greater representation of women, ethnic minorities and other minority groups.[99] In 1996, Tim Barnett was the first of several New Zealand MPs to be elected as an openly gay person.[100] In 1999, Georgina Beyer became the world's first openly transgender MP.[101]

After nine years in office, the National Party lost the November 1999 election. Labour under Helen Clark out-polled National, and formed a coalition government with the left-wing Alliance. The coalition partners pioneered "agree to disagree" procedures to manage policy differences.[102] The minority government often relied on support from the Green Party to pass legislation. Labour retained power in the 27 July 2002 election, forming a coalition with Jim Anderton's new party, the Progressive Party, and reaching an agreement for support with the United Future party. Helen Clark remained Prime Minister. In early 2004, Labour came under attack for its policies on the ownership of the foreshore and seabed,[103] eventually culminating in the establishment of a new break-away party, the Māori Party.[104] Following the 2005 general election on 17 September 2005, negotiations between parties culminated in Helen Clark announcing a third consecutive term of Labour-led government. The Labour Party again formed a coalition with Jim Anderton's Progressive Party, with confidence and supply from Winston Peters' New Zealand First and Peter Dunne's United Future.[105]

After the general election in November 2008, the National Party moved quickly to form a minority government with ACT, the Māori Party and United Future. This arrangement allowed National to decrease its reliance on the right-leaning ACT party, whose policies are sometimes controversial with the greater New Zealand public. In 2008, John Key became Prime Minister, with Bill English his deputy. This arrangement conformed to a tradition of having a north-south split in the major parties' leadership, as Key's residence is in Auckland and English's electorate is in the South Island. On 12 December 2016, English was elected as leader, and thus Prime Minister, by the National Party caucus after Key's unexpected resignation a week earlier. Paula Bennett (member for Upper Harbour) was elected Deputy Prime Minister, thus continuing the tradition.[106] However this north–south arrangement ceased with the next government.

Following the 2017 general election National retained its plurality in the House of Representatives, while Labour greatly increased its proportion of the vote and number of seats. In a first under the MMP system, Labour formed a minority government after securing a coalition arrangement with New Zealand First. On 26 October 2017,[107] Jacinda Ardern, Labour leader, was sworn in as Prime Minister. The Labour government also agreed a confidence-and-supply arrangement with the Green Party.[38] In the 2020 general election Labour gained an outright majority of seats in Parliament, sufficient to govern alone – a first under the MMP system.[108] Labour's coalition partner New Zealand First lost its representation in Parliament.[109] Ardern's Labour government was sworn in for a second term on 6 November 2020.[37]