New Zealand

New Zealand The country was settled by the Maori around 900 ad. White settlement began to grow when the country was declared a British colony on 21 May 1840, after the conclusion of the Treaty of Waitangi. With poor mineral resources, its prospects as an independent, viable country were secured by the invention of refrigeration. This transformed it into an important exporter of agricultural products, which have remained the backbone of its economy, despite the growth of the manufacturing sector in recent decades.

Refrigeration led to the first sustained economic boom, beginning in 1890, which enabled Seddon's Liberal Party government to enact the first series of social reforms such as industrial arbitration and old-age pensions. In addition, by 1893 universal suffrage had been introduced, making New Zealand the first country with equal suffrage. Especially under Ward, the Liberals gradually started to lose their support among the urban labouring classes, who became increasingly attracted by the labour movement. Exploiting this weakness, the Reform Party came to power in 1912 under Massey, who steered the country through World War I, though from 1915 in coalition with Ward. In both world wars, New Zealand was the only Dominion where the introduction of conscription caused relatively little internal debate. World War I brought a period of prosperity to the country, so that the economic difficulties of the 1920s and of the Great Depression in the 1930s were all the harder.

The interwar period, therefore, was one of fundamental social and political transition. The growing hardship, and the awkward and unsympathetic responses of the Reform and United Party governments under Forbes and Coates, led to the first convincing victory of the Labour Party in 1935. Led by Savage, it created a welfare state, which remained the basis of the New Zealand policy until the 1980s. In the interwar period, Maori grievances began to be addressed with some sympathy by the government. This was partly through the efforts of the Young Maori Movement under Ngata, Buck, and Pomare, and partly in appreciation of the considerable Maori war effort. During this period, New Zealand's international status changed. Having been declared a British Dominion in 1907, its actual independence was recognized by the Statute of Westminster of 1931, despite the fact that it had not desired this result and its parliament did not ratify the statute until 1947.

Fraser's austere wartime policies and his cautious economic approach after World War II caused dissent within Labour, and led to a victory by the National Party under Holland in 1949, inaugurating the subsequent conservative trend in New Zealand politics. Labour's welfare state was not challenged, but was indeed expanded, while greater emphasis was put upon market forces in the economy. Labour briefly returned to power under Nash in 1957, before Holyoake continued the National Party's political domination in 1960. A short but significant interlude of Labour Party government occurred in 1972, when Kirk reversed many previous foreign policy decisions, through the withdrawal of troops from the Vietnam War and a commitment to anti-nuclear policies.

A watershed for the country's economy occurred in 1973 with the UK's entry into the European Community (European integration). Even though New Zealand continued to receive some preferential treatment in the UK market, tariffs were now raised against its products in what had always been its most important market. In 1945, 70 per cent of its exports had gone to Britain, and in 1973 the figure was still over 65 per cent. The diversification of trade after 1973 meant that in 1989 Japan had advanced to be New Zealand's biggest market for exports (18 per cent), while the UK was fourth, taking 7 per cent of the country's exports. None the less, the necessary adjustment was painful, and economic difficulties increased through the worldwide depression which began with the 1973 oil price shock.

In response to these difficulties, the roles of Labour and the National Party in the 1970s and 1980s appeared reversed, as Muldoon's National Party tried to overcome economic difficulties through state intervention, while Lange's Labour government from 1984 introduced liberal market reforms as well as cuts to social welfare benefits. These transformations caused fundamental shifts in attitudes and in the nature of the country, apparent in the 1990s. New Zealand's change of attitude and commitment towards its historical link with Britain was epitomized by Bolger's support for the abolition of the monarchy, which was still shared with Britain. Moreover, after 150 years there appeared to be a new, clear recognition of Maori rights, as both Bolger and the Queen apologized for the wrongs committed to them. Finally, convinced that New Zealand could no longer afford its comprehensive welfare state, Bolger introduced the world's first ‘post-welfare’ state, whereby comprehensive benefits were abolished, and state grants were given only to the very poorest sections of society. As a result, although the overall tax burden did not decline significantly, public deficit was substantially reduced, inflation almost vanished, and employment rose. At the same time the crime rate shot up, so that the role of the state, reduced in the provision of social welfare, increased in areas of crime prevention and punishment.

The 1996 elections manifested a fundamental shift, as they were the first held under a new system of mixed proportional representation. This ensured that smaller parties, which had secured up to a third of the vote, could now enter the House of Representatives. In diversifying parliamentary representation away from a two-party system, it made consensus politics and coalition building an inevitable staple of New Zealand politics. In 1996 Bolger continued to govern in a fragile coalition with the centrist New Zealand First Party. He was removed as National Party leader by Shipley, who proved un successful at pacifying her coalition partner or at reversing her party's slide in the opinion polls. The following election of 1999 saw a swing to the centre left, as Labour, led by Helen Clark, returned to power, in a coalition with the Alliance. The new government moved to restore some of the social benefits abandoned under the previous government. It also became more involved in the economy, through the establishment of a government people's bank as a sub sidiary of New Zealand Post, and the re- nationalization of Air New Zealand following the post-September 11 crisis in the airline industry. Clark was returned in the 2002 elections, but she continued to rely on the informal support of other left-leaning parties, notably the Greens and the United Future Party, while the National Party was badly affected by the growth of special-interest parties in New Zealand's fragmented party system.

Table 15. New Zealand Premiers (Prime Ministers after 1907)

Richard J. Seddon	1893–1906
Joseph Ward	1906–12
William Ferguson Massey	1912–25
Joseph Gordon Coates	1925–8
Joseph Ward	1928–30
Gerge Willian Forbes	1930–5
Michael Joseph Savage	1935–40
Peter Fraser	1940–9
Sidney Holland	1949–57
Keith Jacka Holyoake	1957
Walter Nash	1957–60
Keith Jacka Holyoake	1960–72
John Ross Marshall	1972
Norman Kirk	1972–4
Wallace Rowling	1974–5
Robert Muldoon	1975–84
David Lange	1984–9
Geoffrey Palmer	1989–90
Mike Moore	1990
Jim Bolger	1990–97
Jenny Shipley	1997–99
Helen Clark	1999–