New Zealand First

From Open Encyclopedia

Image:NewZealandFirstPartyLogo.png
Current New Zealand First logo

New Zealand First is a political party in New Zealand. Commentators dispute the appropriate classification of the party on the traditional political spectrum, but most voters would probably associate it with its controversial campaigns against immigration and against the Treaty of Waitangi.

Winston Peters, the founder of the Party, continues to lead the party. His authority in the party figures very significantly, and many people do not believe that New Zealand First would survive without him.

Image:Winston peters.jpg

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Policies

In the election campaign of 2002, New Zealand First focused on three primary policies:

reducing immigration
bringing crime under control and increasing judicial sentences
reducing payments related to the settlements process for the Treaty of Waitangi.

Many New Zealanders regard the party as opportunist, pursuing whichever issues it can gain votes from.

The Party espouses a mixture of economic policies. It opposes the privatisation of state assets (particularly to overseas buyers), which might align it with views generally found on the left of New Zealand politics. On the other hand, it favours reducing taxation (a policy typical of the New Zealand right) and tends to espouse quite conservative views on social issues. Rather than defining the party's precise position on the left-right spectrum, some commenatators simply label NZ First as "populist".

The policies of New Zealand First mirror the views of Winston Peters.

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History

New Zealand First emerged as a political grouping in 1993, shortly before the that year's general election. Peters, the MP for the seat of Tauranga and a former Minister of Maori Affairs, had left the National Party after disputes with its leadership, but Tauranga voters had re-elected him in a special by-election as an independent.

In the following general election Peters held onto Tauranga. Tau Henare, another New Zealand First candidate, won the Northern Maori seat, giving the party a total of two MPs.

With the switch to the MMP electoral system for the 1996 elections, smaller parties could gain a share of seats proportional to their share of the vote. This enabled New Zealand First to win 13% of the vote and 17 seats, including all five Maori seats. New Zealand First's five Maori MPs--Henare (the party's deputy leader), Tuku Morgan, Rana Waitai, Tu Wyllie and Tuariki Delamere--became known as the "Tight Five." The election result gave New Zealand First the balance of power just three years after its formation - neither of the two traditional major parties (National and Labour) had sufficient strength to form a government, leaving New Zealand First in a position where it could effectively choose the next prime minister.

New Zealand First entered into negotiations with both major parties. Before the election, most people (including many New Zealand First voters) had expected Peters to enter into coalition with Labour. In fact, he appeared to promise not to align with National. After seven weeks of negotiations with both parties, it came as a surprise when Peters decided to go into coalition with his former National colleagues after some of the electorate apparently voted for him in order to get rid of National. The most common explanation for this decision involved National's willingness to accept New Zealand First's demands (and/or Labour's refusal to do so). However, Michael Laws (a former MP who served as a New Zealand First campaign manager) claims that Peters had secretly decided to go with National significantly before this time, and that he merely used negotiations with Labour to encourage more incentives from National.

New Zealand First gained considerable concessions from National in exchange for this deal. Winston Peters would serve as Deputy Prime Minister, and would also hold the specially-created office of Treasurer (senior to the Minister of Finance). The National Party also made considerable concessions on policy.

Initially, New Zealand First had a relatively smooth coalition relationship with National. Despite early concerns about the ability of Peters to work with National leader Jim Bolger, who had sacked Peters from a former National cabinet, the two did not have major problems.

New Zealand First had graver concerns about the behaviour of some of its MPs, whom opponents accused of incompetence and extravagant spending. Many people came to the conclusion that the party's minor MPs had come into parliament merely to provide votes for Peters, and would not make any real contributions themselves. A particularly damaging scandal involved Morgan.

Gradually, however, the coalition tensions became more significant than problems of party discipline. This became increasingly the case after Jenny Shipley, a National Party Member of Parliament, gained enough support to force Bolger's resignation, and subsequently succeeded him as Prime Minister (8 December 1997). The tensions between the two parties also rose as New Zealand First adopted a more aggressive approach to promoting its policies (including those that National would not implement). This new attitude probably fed off New Zealand First's poor performance in opinion polls, which (to Peters) indicated that the party's success rested on its confrontational style. Many commentators believe that Peters performs better in Opposition than in Government.

On 14 August 1998, Shipley sacked Peters from his Cabinet positions. This occurred after an ongoing dispute about a relatively minor matter (the sale of the government's stake in Wellington International Airport). The issue itself appeared merely the outward manifestation of much deeper disagreement.

Peters immediately broke off the coalition with National. However, Henare and several other MPs, unwilling to follow Peters out of government, left New Zealand First. Most of these MPs joined Henare in forming a new party, Mauri Pacific, while others established themselves as independents. Many of these MPs had previously come under public scrutiny for their behaviour, and none gained re-election. Until 1999, however, they provided National with enough support to continue on without New Zealand First.

In the 1999 elections the voters gave New Zealand First a severe mauling. Some of the electorate had apparently not forgiven Peters for going into coalition with National after it had voted for him in order to get rid of National. The New Zealand First Party gained only 4% of the vote, and would not have qualified for for seats in Parliament under MMP rules had Peters not retained his local electorate. Peters held his Tauranga seat by a mere 63 votes, and New Zealand First only received five seats.

By the election of 2002, however, the party had rebuilt much of its support. This occurred largely due to Peters' three-point campaign against immigration, Treaty costs, and crime. The party won 10% of the vote - a considerable improvement on its previous performance (although still not as good as its performance in 1996), and New Zealand First gained thirteen seats in parliament. Winston Peters' campaign phrase "can we fix it? yes we can" gained much media attention, as the same line appears in theme music for the children's television programme Bob The Builder.

It appears that New Zealand First had hoped to play in 2002 a similar role to the one it had in 1996, where it found itself able to give power to either Labour or National depending on which offered the best deal. However, National's vote had collapsed to the extent that it could not form a government even with New Zealand First's support, depriving the party of its negotiating advantage. In the end, however, this proved irrelevant, as Labour refused to consider an alliance with New Zealand First in any case. Instead, Labour relied on support from the newly-significant United Future party. Peters appeared angry over this.

After the 2002 election, New Zealand First continued to promote its policies strongly. In light of National's decreased strength, New Zealand First attempted to gain more prominence in Opposition, frequently attacking the Labour Coalition government on a wide range of issues. Speculation has occurred on efforts to create a more united front linking New Zealand First, National, and ACT, but Peters has rejected this scenario, saying that the New Zealand voters will decide what alliances are necessary (even though New Zealand never votes directly on preferred coalitions). Unlike ACT, which pursues the role of the "natural" right-wing coalition partner to National, New Zealand First welcomes coalition with any major party, regardless of the political spectrum.

For a period in early 2004 New Zealand First experienced a brief decline in the polls after Don Brash became leader of the New Zealand National Party, a change which hugely revived National's previously fallen fortunes. The votes that had apparently previously switched to New Zealand First from National seemed to return to support Brash, and many commentators predicted that New Zealand First would lose a number of its seats in the next election. By 2005 however the proportions had changed again, and as the campaign for the September 2005 election got under way New Zealand First had again reached the 10% mark in political polling.

Pre-election polls put New Zealand First ahead of the other minor parties. Some thought it likely that in the event of a National minority, unless ACT's fortunes could dramatically improve; Brash would have to form a second coalition or seek a support agreement with New Zealand First to be able to form a Government. Peters announced (in his "Rotorua speech") that he would support the party that won the most seats, or at least abstain in no-confidence motions against it. However, he also said he will not support any government that included the Greens within the Cabinet.

In the 2005 elections, however, most of the smaller parties, including New Zealand First, suffered a severe mauling. Though it remained the third-largest party in the house, it took only 5.72 percent of the vote, a considerable loss from 2002. That total earned it only seven seats, six fewer than in 2002. In addition, Peters narrowly lost his previously safe constituency seat of Tauranga by 730 votes to Bob Clarkson, but continued in Parliament as a list MP.

Following the 2005 election, New Zealand First agreed to a supply and confidence agreement with the Labour Party (along with United Future) in return for policy concessions and the post of Foreign Minister for Winston Peters. Much of the New Zealand media criticised this move as a withdrawal from Peter's earlier position (outlined in his "Rotorua speech") that his party would sit on the crossbenches and thus stay out of government.

Soon after the 2005 election, Peters launched a legal challenge against the victorious National Party candidate in Tauranga, Bob Clarkson. The case alleged that Clarkson had spent more than the legal limit allowed for campaign budgets during general election in New Zealand. This legal bid ultimately failed, with a majority of the judges in the case declaring that Clarkson had not overspent.

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