New Zealand First

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{{Infobox New Zealand Political Party|name_english = New Zealand First Party |name_maori = Aotearoa Tuatahi |party_logo = ] |party_wikicolourid = NZF |leader = [Winston Peters |president = [Dail Jones |deputy = [Peter Brown (politician) |mps = 7 |foundation = |ideology = [Nationalism, [Conservatism, [Populism (disputed) |international = Not Affiliated |colours = Black |headquarters = Parliament Buildings [Wellington |website = http://www.nzfirst.org.nz www.nzfirst.org.nz -->New Zealand First is a political party in New Zealand. Commentators dispute the appropriate classification of the party on the traditional political spectrum, but New Zealanders might arguably associate it with advocacy of senior citizens' benefits, opposition to open-door immigration, and opposition to policies that distinguish race.

The party's founder, Winston Peters, is a former New Zealand National Party member, splitting with his former party in 1992 and founding New Zealand First in 1993. He continues to lead the party. His authority in the party figures significantly, and many people do not believe that New Zealand First would survive without him.

Policies In the New Zealand general election, 2002, New Zealand First focused on three primary policies:

reducing immigration (especially immigration by Asians), with the aim of preserving New Zealand's culture.

attempting to bring crime under control by increasing judicial sentences and increasing police presence.

reducing payments related to the settlements process for the Treaty of Waitangi.

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

The Maori vote The New Zealand First Party has a part-Maori leader, once held all the then available Maori seats, and continues to receive significant support from voters registered in Maori seats. But as a Party, New Zealand First does not support the retention of the Maori seats and has declared that it will not stand candidates in the Maori seats in the future. It did not stand candidates in the Maori seats in the New Zealand general election, 2002 or in the New Zealand general election, 2005.

History 1993 election New Zealand First emerged as a political grouping in 1993, shortly before the New Zealand general election 1993. Peters, the Member of Parliament for the seat of Tauranga, New Zealand and a former Minister of Maori Affairs, had left the New Zealand National Party after disputes with its leadership, but Tauranga voters had re-elected him in a Tauranga by-election 1993 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. This did much to counter the perception of New Zealand First as merely a personality-driven vehicle for Peters.

1996 election With the switch to the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system for the New Zealand general election 1996, 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 put New Zealand First in a powerful position just three years after its formation. Neither of the two traditional major parties (National and New Zealand Labour Party) had enough seats to govern alone, and only New Zealand First had enough seats to become a realistic coalition-partner for either. This placed the relatively new party in a position where it could effectively choose the next prime minister of New Zealand.

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 harshly attacked his former National colleagues during the campaign, and appeared to promise that he would not even consider going into coalition with them. Many voters who cast their electorate ballot for New Zealand First candidates also gave their party vote to Labour.

Coalition with National 1996- 1998 However, to the surprise of the electorate, which had apparently voted for New Zealand First in order to get rid of National, Peters decided to enter a coalition with National, enabling and becoming part of the third term of the Fourth National Government of New Zealand. 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 National Party 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 concessions from National.

Whatever the case, New Zealand First exacted a high price from incumbent Prime Minister Jim Bolger in return for allowing him to stay in power. Winston Peters would serve as Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, and would also hold the specially-created office of Treasurer (senior to the Minister of Finance (New Zealand)). 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 Bolger, who had sacked Peters from a former National cabinet, the two, who had signed off on a detailed coalition agreement, 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 Transport Minister Jenny Shipley gained enough support within the National caucus to force Bolger's resignation and become 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 Parliamentary opposition than in Government.

On 14 August 1998, Shipley sacked Peters from Cabinet. 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.

Return to opposition, 1998 Peters immediately broke off the coalition with National. However, several other MPs, unwilling to follow Peters out of government, tried to replace Peters with Henare. This caucus-room coup failed, and 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. Until 1999, however, they provided National with enough support to continue on without the rump New Zealand First.

1999 General Election In the New Zealand general election 1999 the voters gave New Zealand First a severe mauling. Some voters had apparently not forgiven Peters for going into coalition with National after being led to believe that a vote for him would help get rid of National. The party gained only 4% of the vote, and would not have received any seats in Parliament had Peters not held onto his electorate seat of Tauranga. (Under New Zealand's MMP rules, a party must either win an electorate seat or 5% of the vote to qualify for representation.) Peters held his Tauranga seat by a mere 63 votes, and New Zealand First received (by proportionality) only five seats in total.

2002 General Election By the New Zealand general election 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 won 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 New Zealand 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 New Zealand, 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 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 Motion of no confidence against it. However, he also said he would not support any government that included the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand within the Cabinet.

2005 General Election In the New Zealand general election, 2005, however, the smaller political parties (including New Zealand First) suffered a severe mauling. Though it remained the third-largest party in the house, New Zealand First took only 5.72 percent of the vote, a considerable loss from 2002, and just barely enough to cross the MMP proportionality quota. In addition, Peters narrowly lost his previously safe seat of Tauranga by 730 votes to National's Bob Clarkson, and became a list MP.

New Zealand First as of 2007 has seven MPs, all elected on the party list:

Winston Peters

Peter Brown (politician)

Brian Donnelly

Ron Mark

Doug Woolerton

Barbara Stewart

Pita Paraone

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 Minister of Foreign Affairs (New Zealand) (outside New Zealand Cabinet) for 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 Bob Clarkson. The case alleged that Clarkson had spent more than the legal limit allowed for campaign budgets during elections in New Zealand. This legal bid ultimately failed, with a majority of the judges in the case declaring that Clarkson had not overspent.

Office-holders

Parliamentary leader:

Winston Peters, 1993 -

Deputy parliamentary leader:

Tau Henare, 1993 - 1998
Peter Brown (politician), 1998 -

Party President:

Doug Woolerton, 1993 - 2005
Dail Jones, 2005 -