Helen Clark
From Open Encyclopedia
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| Term of office | December 5, 1999}}} – {{{term end|{{{term_end|present}}}}}} |
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| Successor | incumbent}}} |
| Born | February 26, 1950}}} {{{birth place|{{{birth_place|}}}}}} |
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- This article discusses the New Zealand Prime Minister. For other persons of the same name, see Helen Clark (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable Helen Elizabeth Clark (born February 26, 1950) has served as Prime Minister of New Zealand since December 1999. In [2005]] she started her third Prime-Ministerial term.
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Early life
Helen Clark grew up as the eldest of a four-girl farming family from the Waikato. Her mother worked as a primary-school teacher and her father, a farmer, supported the National Party at the time of the 1981 election. Clark received her education at Te Pahu Primary School, Epsom Girls' Grammar School in Auckland and the University of Auckland, where she studied politics and graduated with a MA(Hons). She studied abroad in 1976 on a New Zealand University Grants Committee scholarship.
She worked as a Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Auckland from 1973 until her election to Parliament in 1981. She married the sociologist Peter Davis (her partner of five years at that time) shortly before the 1981 election. Dr Davis currently works as a professor in medical sociology and heads the Sociology Department at the University of Auckland.
As a teenager she protested against the Vietnam War and campaigned against foreign military bases in New Zealand.
Labour Party involvement
Clark has worked actively in the New Zealand Labour Party for most of her life. She served as a member of the party's New Zealand executive from 1978 until September 1988 and again from April 1989. She has held the positions of president of the Labour Youth Council, executive member of the Party's Auckland Regional Council, secretary of the Labour Women's Council and member of the Policy Council.
She represented the New Zealand Labour Party at the congresses of the Socialist International and of the Socialist International Women in 1976, 1978, 1983 and 1986, at an Asia-Pacific Socialist Organisation Conference held in Sydney in 1981 and at the Socialist International Party Leaders' Meeting in Sydney in 1991.
Member of Parliament
First elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives in 1981, representing the Mt Albert electorate in Auckland, Helen Clark formed one of four women who entered Parliament in that election. She became only the second woman elected to an Auckland electorate and the seventeenth woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament. During her first term (1981 - 1984), she became a member of the Statutes Revision Committee. In her second term (1984 - 1987), she chaired the Select Committees on Foreign Affairs and Disarmament and Arms Control, both of which combined with the Defence Select Committee in 1985 to form a single committee.
Clark served in the Labour cabinets of David Lange (1984 - 1989), Geoffrey Palmer (1989 - 1990) and Mike Moore (1990), first as Minister of Housing and as Minister of Conservation, then as Minister of Health and later as Deputy Prime Minister. She functioned as Leader of the Opposition during the National Party administrations of Jim Bolger (1990 - 1997) and Jenny Shipley (1997 - 1999).
Clark served as Minister of Conservation from August 1987 until January 1989 and as Minister of Housing from August 1987 until August 1989. She became Minister of Health in January 1989 and Minister of Labour and Deputy Prime Minister in August 1989. She chaired the Cabinet Social Equity Committee and became a member of the Cabinet Policy Committee, of the Cabinet Committee on Chief Executives, of the Cabinet Economic Development and Employment Committee, of the Cabinet Expenditure Review Committee, of the Cabinet State Agencies Committee, of the Cabinet Honours Appointments and Travel Committee and of the Cabinet Domestic and External Security Committee.
From October 1990 until December 1993, Clark functioned as Deputy Leader of the Opposition, as Opposition spokesperson for Health and Labour and as a member of the Social Services Select Committee and of the Labour Select Committee. Clark became Leader of the Opposition on 1 December 1993.
Prime Minister
When the New Zealand Labour Party came into office as part of a coalition following the 1999 election, Clark became the second female Prime Minister of New Zealand and the first to have won office at an election. (The previous Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley took office as the result of a mid-term party leadership challenge.)
Prior to the 2005 General Election, Clark held the positions of Prime Minister and of Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. She also had ministerial responsibility for the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and for Ministerial Services. Her particular areas of interest include social policy and international affairs.
As Leader of the Labour Party, Clark negotiated the formation of successive minority coalition governments. The first such coalition (1999 - 2002) linked the Labour Party with the Alliance party (1999). The coalition with the Alliance Party collapsed in 2002, with the ultimate result that Clark called an early election and then went into coalition with Jim Anderton's Progressive Party (2002, with parliamentary supply and confidence coming from United Future and a 'good faith' agreement with the Green Party). In 2005, following the election of that year, The Labour Party and the Progressive Party renewed their coalition, gaining supply and confidence support from both New Zealand First and United Future in exchange for giving the leaders of those parties ministerial positions outside Cabinet.
Helen Clark's achievements
Helen Clark's term as Prime Minister has seen New Zealand enjoy economic growth at levels unseen for many years. At the time of the 2005 election, New Zealand had the lowest unemployment of all industrial nations. Many people credited Clark with achieving stable government within what some people regarded as New Zealand's hitherto unwieldy Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system.
International relations
Image:Deputy Secretary of Defense.jpg New Zealand has, during Clark's terms of office, pursued what she and her supporters call an "independent foreign policy", evidenced by the retention of nuclear-free status (possibly at the cost of a free trade agreement with the USA) and a refusal to participate in the Iraq invasion without UN sanction.
Criticisms
Like many political leaders, Clark has occasionally received criticism for her conduct while in office.
In 2000, Labour MP Chris Carter investigated the background of one of Clark's Cabinet colleagues, Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels. Carter left a message on Peter Yelich's answering machine, asking for information about Samuels. When the media obtained and exposed the answering-machine message, Clark raised questions about Yelich's character. Yelich has a conviction for manslaughter: however, Clark incorrectly referred to him as a murderer, and Yelich sued Clark for defamation. An out-of-court settlement ensued. In a press release, Clark's former cabinet colleague turned political opponent and ACT leader Richard Prebble gave alleged details of the settlement: $20,000 for defamation and $35,000 to keep it confidential.
Clark signed a painting for a charity auction that one of her staff members had painted. After it emerged that she had not painted it ("Paintergate"), a staff member bought the painting back and destroyed it.
In 2000, the then Police Commissioner, Peter Doone, resigned after he allegedly interfered to prevent the breath-testing of the driver of his car. It later (2005) emerged that Clark had authorised the release to the media of information, apparently in order to discredit Mr Doone. These events led Clark's political opponents to accuse her of arrogance and an abuse of her position.
The authorities once caught Clark's motorcade driving at excessive speed. Police, Diplomatic Protection Squad and Ministerial Services staff had facilitated a high-speed motorcade between Waimate and Christchurch Airport (reaching speeds of up to 172 km/h) so Clark could attend a rugby match in Wellington. Two police drivers eventually received convictions for driving offences. In December 2005 an appeal quashed the conviction of a civilian driver. Clark distanced herself from the matter, saying that while busy working in the back seat she had no influence or role in the decision to speed and did not realise the speed of the vehicle. However, one witness, testifying in court, described Clark as looking around and enjoying the trip.
Over the last few months some people have begun to criticise Clark for alleged double standards: standing by some of her ministers (notably David Benson-Pope) when they faced allegations of improper behaviour, while others (such as Lianne Dalziel and Taito Phillip Field) received less Prime-Ministerial support.
See also
External links
- Prime Minister of New Zealand
- New Zealand Labour Party
- {{{2|{{{name|Helen Clark}}}}}} at the Internet Movie Database
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| Prime Minister of New Zealand | Image:New zealand coa.png | |||
| Preceded by: Jenny Shipley | (1999–) | Succeeded by: (Incumbent) | ||
| Sewell | Fox | Stafford | Domett | Whitaker | Weld | Waterhouse | Vogel | Pollen | Atkinson | Grey | Hall | Stout | Ballance | Seddon | Hall-Jones | Ward | Mackenzie | Massey | Bell | Coates | Forbes | Savage | Fraser | Holland | Nash | Holyoake | Marshall | Kirk | Rowling | Muldoon | Lange | Palmer | Moore | Bolger | Shipley | Clark | ||||
{{Persondata |NAME=Clark, Helen Elizabeth |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= |SHORT DESCRIPTION=Prime Minister of New Zealand, politician, academic |DATE OF BIRTH=February 26, 1950 |PLACE OF BIRTH=Hamilton, New Zealand |DATE OF DEATH= |PLACE OF DEATH= }}
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