New Zealand General Elections
(27 November 1999)
The New Zealand General elections on 27 November 1999 has produced a majority for the left-wing parties and has ended over nine years of rule by the right-of-centre National Party.
Results:
The Labour Party has formed a minority government in coalition with the far-left Alliance Party. They will also rely on the Greens Party for confidence votes. In a 120 member parliament, Labour has 49 MPs and Alliance has 10 MPs, leaving the government a couple of votes short of an absolute majority. On the cross benches, the Greens have 7 MPs and the nationalist New Zealand First Party has 5 MPs. On the right of centre, the National Party has 39 MPs, while the free market ACT Party has 9 MPs. There is also one MP from the "United" party, a middle of the road group.
The new Prime Minister Helen Clark was a Minister in the last failed Labour government. The Deputy Prime Minister is Jim Anderton, leader of the Alliance Party, which is formed around the remnants of the old Labour-left faction. The Labour Party itself remains a very sectional left wing grouping. In the last parliament, around 40% of Labour's caucus was comprised of former trade union officials. Over 35% were academics who are big on theories and small on experience of how the economy or business really works.
New policies announced by this left-wing government will return considerable power to the trade unions. The Employment Contracts Act will be repealed, returning industrial control to the trade unions and central bureaucracies. The Education Review Office will be abolished, removing rigour and high standards which the teacher unions dislike. An industrial accidents insurance body will be renationalised and run on an unsustainable basis again. The "Work for the Dole" program will be abolished, removing any reciprocal obligation on able-bodied welfare recipients to return something to the community.
Commentators have attributed the defeat partly to a desire for a change after a long period of National Party rule. The National government had also been badly embarrassed by its coalition partner, New Zealand first, involving several cases of incompetence by its MPs. Also, during the election, one Minister was relieved of his office after a small scandal. Commentators have speculated that the strong economic conditions may have had ironic effects, making voters less concerned about economic insecurity and more prepared to gamble on a different government.
The defeated National Part leader Jenny Shipley looks unlikely to be challenged for her party's leadership in the near future. She has indicated a desire to lead the party into the next election.
Electoral System:
New Zealand has a unicameral parliament, with 120 members of parliament elected every three years. The system of election is Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), first introduced in the October 1996 election. Previously New Zealand had operated a simple first past the post system, with all members elected from electorates.
Today, under MMP, 67 members are elected from electorates on a first-past-the-post basis, while the remaining 53 members are elected in a proportional representation ballot. Each voter casts two votes: one tick for an individual candidate in their local electorate, and one tick on a separate ballot paper for their preferred political party. Proportional representation members are elected from lists of candidates nominated by each party. Parties must either obtain 5% of the vote in order to become entitled to proportional representation seats, or must win at least one electorate seat.
Voters with Maori ethnicity may opt to cast their electorate vote in either their local geographic electorate or in one of six Maori geographic electorates (the 67 electorate seats are divided between 61 general electorates and 6 Maori electorates).
Previous Governments:
Since 1936, when the National Party was formed, Government has alternated between the Labour and National Parties. Labour has acted as the political wing of the union movement, while the National Party has been mainly representative of rural and business constituents. Since 1936, the National Party has held government for a much longer period than Labour.
In 1984, a Labour government was elected, with Roger Douglas as its Finance Minister. To the surprise of its own supporters, this government made major tax cuts, opened up major parts of the economy to competition and liberalised trade. However colleagues of Roger Douglas quickly succumbed to reform fatigue and called for a "tea break."
A National Party government was then elected in 1990 in a major landslide, with Ruth Richardson appointed as Finance Minister and acting as the driving force for reform. This government made major reform strides which cut welfare, liberalised the labour market and privatised public utilities. While the rest of the world went into recession in the early 1990s, New Zealand's economy grew strongly.
When MMP was introduced in the 1996 election, National formed a coalition with the New Zealand First Party, a party with nationalist and protectionist tendencies. The coalition dissolved mid-term and National continued as a minority government until the 1999 election. Since the introduction of MMP, voting for minor parties has jumped considerably, making it almost inevitable that major parties cannot govern with outright majorities.