New Zealand First

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New Zealand First
Logo of the New Zealand First party
WinstonPetersEuropa.jpg
Party leader Brent Catchpole (Party President)
Party leader Winston Peters (Leader)
Secretary General Anne Martin
Deputy Chairman Ron Mark
founding July 18, 1993
Place of foundation Alexander Park Raceway, Auckland
Headquarters Albany ,
North Shore City ,
Auckland
Alignment Right-wing populism ,
nationalism
Colours) black
House of Representatives
9/120
Website www.nzfirst.org.nz

New Zealand First ( NZ First for short) is a populist and nationalist party in New Zealand . It was founded in 1993 by Winston Peters , a former National Party politician, and is very closely associated with himself in public.

Because of her nationalist and anti-immigration positions, she is often placed on the right in the political spectrum . Other observers see her in the political center, because she agreed to form a coalition with both the conservative National Party and the Social Democratic Labor Party . NZ First has been a junior partner in a Labor-led government since 2017.

Political ideas

New Zealand First claims to put the national interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders first. To this end, the immigration of foreigners must be stopped and the education of the natives improved. At the same time, the party declares the elimination of unemployment to be its top priority. She criticizes the inefficiency of the welfare state : savings in the social sector are intended to counter-finance tax breaks. An anti-corruption commission is also called for, although party chairman Winston Peters himself was involved in a party donation scandal in 2008. Downsizing Parliament and halving the cost of external government advisors are on the party's agenda. Education is understood as an investment and the promotion of public health as an essential investment in human resources .

history

After the then National Party politician Winston Peters was successively expelled from the cabinet as Minister of Māori Affairs in October 1991 due to a lack of cooperation , a year later he was no longer allowed to attend parliamentary group meetings and in March 1993 was also excluded from running for parliamentary elections , Peters resigned his mandate, won a by-election for the constituency of Tauranga , ran as an independent candidate and finally won the constituency. This created the basis for him to found a new party and raise funds.

With a few prominent party members from the National Party , Peters founded the New Zealand First party on July 18, 1993 in Auckland . With populist and nationalist tones, Peters and his party won 8.4% of the votes and thus 2 seats in parliament in the subsequent parliamentary election. The party benefited from the 1993 decision to switch to a mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system (personalized proportional representation), which was first used in the 1996 general election. The previously applicable majority voting system had severely restricted the chances of success for smaller parties. Since then, NZ First has been represented in Parliament with the exception of 2008 to 2011.

NZ First has repeatedly played the role of "kingmaker" when neither the National Party nor the Labor Party could achieve an absolute majority. As a junior partner, NZ First was in a coalition with the National Party from 1996 to 1998, with Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer (a post created especially for him in the coalition agreement) and Tau Henare as Minister for Maori Affairs .

From 2005 to 2008, NZ First had a tolerance agreement (but no formal coalition agreement) with the Labor Party; Peters was Secretary of State at the time, but was not officially a member of Helen Clark's cabinet . Since 2017, NZ First has once again been a government partner of Labor under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern , this time in a real coalition that is also tolerated by the Greens . Since then, Winston Peters has once again been Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and Minister for State Enterprises, now as a full member of the Cabinet. Moreover, it is Tracey Martin Interior Minister and Shane Jones Minister for Infrastructure.

Parliamentary elections

General Election Share of votes Direct mandates Mandates via list Total seats role
1993 8.4% 0 2 2 opposition
1996 13.4% 6th 11 17th Coalition with National (until 1998)
1999 4.3% 1 4th 5 opposition
2002 10.4% 1 12 13 opposition
2005 5.7% 0 7th 7th Tolerating Labor
2008 4.7% 0 0 0 opposition
2011 6.8% 0 8th 8th opposition
2014 8.7% 0 11 11 opposition
2017 7.2% 0 9 9 Coalition with Labor

Sources: Election New Zealand

See also

literature

  • Martin Hames : Winston First - The Unauthorized Account of Winston Peters' Career . Random House New Zealand Ltd , Auckland 1995, ISBN 1-86941-257-5 (English).

Web links

  • Homepage. New Zealand First , accessed December 6, 2011 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Fran O'Sullivan : Donations wrangle obscures the real Peters scandal . New Zealand Herald - Online Edition , August 23, 2008, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on December 6, 2011 (English, original website no longer available).
  2. ^ Hans-Georg Betz: Against the System. Radical Right-Wing Populism's Challenge to Liberal Democracy. In: Jens Rydgren: Movements of Exclusion. Radical Right-wing Populism in the Western World. Nova Science, New York 2005, pp. 25-40.
  3. ^ Pippa Norris: Radical Right. Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 2005, pp. 69-70.
  4. ^ Brian Donnelly: The New Zealand First Campaign. In: Jonathan Boston et al.: New Zealand Votes. The General Election of 2002. Victoria University Press, Wellington 2003, pp. 118-122, at p. 119.
  5. ↑ Jonathan Boston: Institutional Change in a Small Democracy. New Zealand's Experience of Electoral Reform. In F. Leslie Seidle, David C. Docherty: Reforming Parliamentary Democracy. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal et al. 2003, pp. 25-55, at p. 34.
  6. ^ Juliet Roper, Christina Holtz-Bacha, Gianpietro Mazzoleni: The Politics of Representation. Election Campaigning and Proportional Representation. Peter Lang, New York et al. 2004, p. 40.
  7. ^ Jack Vowles: New Zealand. The Consoliation of Reform? In: Michael Gallagher, Paul Mitchell: The Politics of Electoral Systems. Oxfor University Press, Oxford / New York 2005, p. 304.
  8. ^ NZ First party history - 2: Fourth National Govt & expulsion . Liberation , November 18, 2008, accessed December 6, 2011 .
  9. ^ NZ First party history - 4: The launch . Liberation , November 19, 2008, accessed December 6, 2011 .
  10. ^ General elections 1996-2005 - seats won by party . Electoral Commission New Zealand , September 9, 2013, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  11. ^ General elections 1996-2005 - seats won by party . Elections New Zealand , accessed December 6, 2011 .
  12. ^ Results of the 2008 General Election . Elections New Zealand , January 29, 2013, accessed December 30, 2015 .
  13. ^ Election Results and Electoral Information . Television New Zealand (TVNZ) , November 26, 2011, accessed December 6, 2011 .