New Zealand First
New Zealand First is a political party in New Zealand. The party is known for having a core constituency of mainly people with grey hair and often ending up in the kingmaker position due to New Zealand's mixed member proportional system, where parties that cross a 5% threshold receive representation in Parliament. The party was in coalition with the centre-left Labour Party
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History
New Zealand First was first formed when Winston Peters
At the 1996 general election, when MMP was first introduced, the party proved rather popular, winning 13% of the vote and 17 seats in Parliament, but the party proved especially successful among Māori voters. It broke the Labour stronghold over the Māori electorates, winning all of the seats at the 1996 election. Peters held his seat, and the party's 5 Māori electorate candidates- Tau Henare, Rana Waitai, Tuku Morgan, Tuariki Delamere and Tu Wyllie were all headed to Parliament- the so-called Tight Five, after the five rugby forwards in a scrum. New Zealand First supported the National Party to form the Fourth National Government
Support for New Zealand First collapsed in 1999, and Winston Peters only held Tauranga by 63 votes, and as mentioned earlier, they lost all the Māori seats.[7] The party didn't even cross the required 5% threshold, but as Peters won Tauranga, this qualified them for seats- albeit only 5 of them. As Shipley's National government was turfed out, Helen Clark was elected Prime Minister with the support of the Alliance and Green parties, and New Zealand First sat in opposition- or more accurately, on the crossbench- for the next 3 years. In 2002, after an exceptionally bad performance by the National Party,[note 2] New Zealand First cracked 5%, winning 10% of the vote and 13 seats.[8] Helen Clark was returned again with the support of the Progressives and United Future.
In 2005, after the National Party elected a racist
At the 2008 election, when National elected John Key
But were they really gone?
After a weak performance for Labour in 2011, and amidst the so-called Tea tape scandal
At the 2017 election, after the Green vote collapsed and Prime Minister John Key was replaced by his deputy, Bill English (who had a stellar track record in winning elections), New Zealand First did worse than last time, but not too badly, winning 7.2% of the vote, and falling to 9 seats.[26] Winston Peters also lost Northland to National candidate Matt King.[27] 2 other crossbench parties- the Māori Party and United Future- lost seats at this election, leaving only New Zealand First, the Greens, and the 1-seat ACT Party on the crossbench. New Zealand First was left as kingmaker- support a National-led government, or a Labour-Greens government. They ultimately chose the latter, forming a coalition government with Labour with the Greens in confidence and supply.
In the 2020 election New Zealand First lost all its seats and is no longer represented in parliament.
Referendums
New Zealand First really, really, really likes referendums. Like, a lot. New Zealand First in 2019 wanted a referendum on abortion,[28] supported a referendum on cannabis legalisation,[29] wanted a referendum on the Māori seats (but then reversed on it),[30] and also wanted a referendum on reducing the number of MPs to 100.[31]
Homophobia and transphobia
New Zealand First, with a voter base of primarily old people, has unsurprisingly shown a bit of homophobia and transphobia over the years. They voted for a 2005 bill to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman (ruled to be inconsistent with New Zealand's bill of rights)[32][33][34] and voted against gay marriage.[35] More recently, New Zealand First MP and Minister for Internal Affairs deferred a bill in regards to gender self-identification to allow for more public consultation, citing "problems caused by the select committee process."[36][37][note 4]
Notes
- But they'd only hold them all until 2004
File:Wikipedia's W.svg . - For the record, the person who led them into that massive loss
File:Wikipedia's W.svg was promptly turfed out, never to be seen again. Wait, he was the Prime Minister?File:Wikipedia's W.svg - They couldn't even outpoll the Civilian Party, a joke outfit that wanted to declare independence from Hamilton.[22] Yet still more serious than the Conservatives and ACT.[23]
- Transphobic "feminist" group Speak Up For Women also complained about this bill.[38]
References
- http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/66748067/timeline-winston-peters-and-northland
- www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/election-2011/6045338/Winston-Peters-aims-to-lead-the-opposition
- http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_1999/e9/html/cand_66.html
- http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/CFE7CD80-A4DA-4E6D-98AA-08B49734E80A/214/Waiariki1.pdf
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_1999/e9/html/cand_67.html
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94776411/winston-peters-delivers-bottomline-binding-referendum-on-abolishing-maori-seats
- http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_1999/e9/html/e9_partI.html
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2002/partystatus.html
- http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0401/S00220.htm
- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3550537
- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3547313
- https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2016/09/don-brash-backs-winston-peters-to-end-maori-separatism.html
- http://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/electorate-52.html
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/partystatus.html
- https://archive.today/20120907200130/http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10357120
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2008/partystatus.html
- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-election-2008/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501799&objectid=10541945
- https://web.archive.org/web/20120201110834/http://www.3news.co.nz/Key-may-face-more-teapot-tape-accusations/tabid/419/articleID/232874/Default.aspx
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2011/partystatus.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20130209055631/http://www.3news.co.nz/Horan-admits-144-TAB-calls/tabid/1607/articleID/279879/Default.aspx
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/250964/brendan-horan-launches-new-party
- http://www.3news.co.nz/Party-calls-for-free-ice-cream-and-llamas/tabid/1607/articleID/345580/Default.aspx
- https://www.webcitation.org/6QDDiV5OC
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2014/partystatus.html
- http://www.elections.org.nz/news-media/northland-election-official-results
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/
- https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/electorate-details-35.html
- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12256174
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/83173728/nz-first-are-on-their-own-calling-for-a-referendum-on-decriminalising-cannabis
- http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/winston-peters-hints-at-u-turn-on-maori-seat-referendum.html
- https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94776411/winston-peters-delivers-bottomline-binding-referendum-on-abolishing-maori-seats
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160313220031/http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/legislation/bills/00DBHOH_BILL6695_1/marriage-gender-clarification-amendment-bill
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160229232900/http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/debates/debates/48HansD_20051207_00001276/marriage-gender-clarification-amendment-bill-%E2%80%94-first
- http://votes.wotfun.com/bill/42
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150924134543/http://www.stuff.co.nz/data/8564068/Marriage-equality-bill-How-MPs-voted
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/383375/transgender-and-non-binary-communities-disappointed-at-bill-deferral
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/383342/births-deaths-and-marriages-bill-deferred-to-allow-more-public-consultation
- https://speakupforwomen.nz/letter-to-tracey-martin/