New Zealand - Politics
In a modern society in which government assumes a central place it is easy to take it for granted that Parliament provides the jousting ground for ‘continuous election campaigns’ that allow governments to demonstrate their prowess and Oppositions to put forward an alternative and to examine and criticise current policy. The recent adoption of mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) as New Zealand’s electoral system has broadened this combative atmosphere between contending groups so that a range of parties touts their wares, but it has not deflected the long-term trend towards the electorate and away from the arena of the chamber in which the country’s representatives are gathered.
The reforms to the New Zealand Parliament of the 1980s and 1990s shifted the balance between executive and legislature away from the former. The parliamentary reforms of the 1980s and 1990s shifted the balance to Parliament by giving the Speaker the responsibility for expenditure on services to Parliament and by enhancing the role of select committees. Through much of the twentieth century the executive had dominated. MMP has undermined the sense of assurance of governments that an unproblematic majority would emerge out of elections and that this would be sustained through a full parliamentary term. Mustering support in Parliament and finding the means to put through legislation have become much more salient.
The traditionally conservative National Party and left-leaning Labour Party have dominated New Zealand political life since a Labour government came to power in 1935. During its first 14 years in office, the Labour Party implemented a broad array of social and economic legislation, including comprehensive social security, a large-scale public works program, a 40-hour workweek, a minimum basic wage, and compulsory unionism.
The National Party won control of the government in 1949 and adopted many welfare measures instituted by the Labour Party. Except for two brief periods of Labour governments in 1957-60 and 1972-75, National held power until 1984. After regaining control in 1984, the Labour government instituted a series of radical market-oriented reforms in response to New Zealand's mounting external debt. It also enacted anti-nuclear legislation that effectively brought about New Zealand's suspension from the ANZUS security alliance with the United States and Australia.
In October 1990, the National Party again formed the government, for the first of three 3-year terms. In 1996, New Zealand inaugurated a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system to elect its parliament. The system was designed to increase representation of smaller parties in parliament and appears to have done so in the MMP elections to date. Since 1996, neither the National nor the Labour Party has had an absolute majority in parliament, and for all but one of those years, the government has been a minority one.
The Labour Party won elections in November 1999 and again in July 2002. In 2002 Labour formed a coalition, minority government with the Progressive Coalition, a left-wing party holding two seats in parliament. The government relied on support from the centrist United Future Party to pass legislation. New Zealand's Prime Minister since 1999, Helen Clark, came from the left wing of the New Zealand Labour Party. She has also been a leader of the anti-nuclear movement. New Zealand became a nuclear free zone in 1987. New Zealand had been an outspoken critic of French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Pastnuclear differences between the United States and New Zealand have beenexacerbated in recent years by other policy differences. Clark did not help bilateral relations with the United States when she stated that the Iraq war would not have occurred under a Democrat-led American government.
Following a narrow victory in the September 2005 general elections, Labour formed a coalition with the one-seat Progressive Party. The government also entered into limited support agreements with the United Future New Zealand and NZ First Parties, whose leaders were respectively given the Revenue and Foreign Affairs ministerial positions outside of the cabinet. This gave Labour an effective one-seat majority with which to pass legislation in parliament. Labour also secured an assurance from the Green Party that it would abstain from a vote of confidence against the government. The 2005 elections saw the new Maori Party win four out of the seven reserved Maori seats. The additional seat in the 121-member parliament was the result of an overhang from 2005 elections. There were two independent members of parliament (MPs): a former Labour Party MP and a former United Future New Zealand MP, both of whom left their respective parties in 2007.
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