Aotearoa IV - The Political Landscape Quiz

Answer: Wyoming

The granting of women's suffrage in New Zealand appears to have been more or less a political accident. In fact, it should have been granted some years before, since it always passed the Lower House with ease, but then was rejected by the Upper House (the Legislative Council, a very conservative body). In 1893 the bill again easily passed the Lower House. This time the women behind the female suffrage movement organised a major campaign to influence the members of the Legistlative Council. By the time of the vote, there was one vote - by a Liberal Councillor, in favour - in it. Richard Seddon, the bombastic and self-opinionated Prime Minister, peremptorily ordered the Councillor to change his vote. This he did, but "King Dick's" demand annoyed two other members of the Council so much that they changed their votes to spite him. The bill passed, 20 - 18.

Despite this, women were not allowed to stand for Parliament until 1919 and it wasn't until 1933 that the first female Member of Parliament was elected.

Answer: 1997

Mrs Shipley apparently believed that Jim Bolger allowed the Government's coalition partners, New Zealand First - and, in particular, its leader, Winston Peters - too much influence, and managed to get a majority of National Party MPs to agree with her. Mr Bolger saw the writing on the wall and resigned on his return.

However, Mrs Shipley had problems holding the party together following her elevation to the top job, and the National Party appeared to implode, handing Labour a relatively easy win at the 1999 election.

She was, in turn, ousted as leader by Bill English in 2001 and soon retired from Parliament.

Answer: Rogernomics

Roger Douglas' plan to revitalise the New Zealand economy came after years of economic stagnation which was really the end result of New Zealand gradually losing access to its European market for meat and dairy products. He floated the currency, sold off state-owned businesses and set out to make government more efficient.

He also opened up the New Zealand market, long closely regulated, to virtually unfettered international competition. Many who voted for Labour in 1984 must have regretted it bitterly; unemployment rose sharply as government-owned businesses were sold and shed staff.

The opening up of the New Zealand market resulted in many small and even larger businesses, long protected by prohibitive import tariffs, going to the wall.

Many who cheered Roger Douglas on in 1984 became implacable foes in subsequent years; and many who had resisted him early on became ardent supporters. Rogernomics was probably the most fundamental shake-up that New Zealand has experienced since World War II.

Answer: Wallace

Poor Bill Rowling! Elevated to the premiership unexpectedly over the head of Hugh Watt, the Deputy Prime Minister, he found the hugely popular Norman Kirk a very hard act to follow. Mild-mannered and non-confrontational, at least in public, he was treated with derision and contempt by the new National Leader of the Opposition, Robert Muldoon. Mr Muldoon liked nothing better than a verbal knock-em-down-and-drag-em-out fight in the House. He also hated not getting a rise out of Bill Rowling. He once said of the PM that "You could see the cold shivers running around his body looking for a spine to run up. Unsuccessfully."

Bill Rowling and Labour lost the next election, but he was held in such high regard within his party that he retained the leadership for some time following the Government's defeat. He later became New Zealand's ambassador to the US and did an extremely competent job of minimising the impact of Labour's anti-nuclear legislation on New Zealand - United States relations.

Answer: The Black Budget

Nordmeyer, a Presbyterian minister before entering politics, was known for his strong puritanical views, and it was assumed that the unprecedented tax increases on many "luxuries", including tobacco and alcohol, were a form of social engineering. Much as he would probably have liked to have done this, his rationale for the tax hikes was purely economic.

However, the New Zealand electorate thought otherwise, and it is believed by many that Labour's loss to National at the 1960 election was a direct result of the Black Budget. Nordmeyer went on to lead the Labour Party for some years before he was ousted by Norman Kirk.

Answer: Michael Joseph Savage

John Ballance was the Liberal Prime Minister who preceded "King Dick" Seddon, dying in 1893. If he had lived it is highly likely that women's suffrage would not have been enacted. George Forbes led the five-year coalition government which preceded the 1935 Labour Government, and Peter Fraser succeeded Michael Joseph Savage as Prime Minister when Savage died in office in 1940. Of them all, Peter Fraser was probably the man who did the most for New Zealand, managing to hold the country together throughout World War II.

Answer: Winebox Inquiry

It was called the "Winebox Inquiry" because Winston Peters brought the first set of papers relating to his allegations against the IRD and the SFO to Parliament in a wine box. Two inquiries and a number of court actions followed, which resulted in the substance of his allegations being shown to be false. However, some minor errors in the handling of some aspects of tax matters were shown to have occurred. This was enough for both sides to claim some sort of victory. But it seems doubtful that there was really any victory at all, particularly not for the poor taxpayer who footed the bill for it all. The costs ran into the tens of millions of dollars!

The major issue about the Winebox Inquiry was that it brought the Government, business and some Government departments into disrepute. The whole situation became sleazy, with baseless accusations flying backwards and forwards between the protagonists and their supporters. It has probably had a long-term detrimental effect on New Zealand politics. Even now, over ten years after the original inquiry was concluded, echoes from the inquiry recur from time to time both inside Parliament and out.

Answer: Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party

The Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party did exist, however, in Australia.

Back in NZ, the McGillicuddy Serious Party contested every general election and many local body elections between 1984 and 1999. To their relief, none of the candidates was ever elected (although one candidate came a very distant second to Winston Peters in Tauranga - once).

The Imperial British Conservative Party was started up in Christchurch by The Wizard, who claimed that Christchurch needed some culture. Candidates were selected through games of musical chairs.

The Bill and Ben Party is yet another joke party.

Answer: A government MP threatened to vote against the government

Marilyn Waring, a first-term MP, disagreed with the stance that the National Government was taking on the nuclear-free issue, and announced that she would vote against the government when a bill proposed by the Labour opposition was put to the vote. Failing to browbeat her into submission, Muldoon, reputedly drunk, decided there and then that he would take the country to the polls. Since Ms Waring had not threatened to vote against the Government on supply, her threat to vote with Labour on the nuclear-free issue did not hamper the Government's ability to govern, it is still difficult to understand what benefit Muldoon thought he would get from holding an early election.

As it happened, the Labour Party won handily at the election on July 14, 1984.

It was effectively the end of Rob Muldoon's political career.

Answer: World Trade Organisation

Mike Moore was a popular figure in the Labour Party and was well-known for his interest in international trade, holding several trade and finance-related cabinet posts in the Fourth Labour Government from 1984 onwards. He became leader of the party and Prime Minister when Geoff Palmer resigned in September, 1990.

The position was a poisoned chalice, because Labour was never going to win the election that November. Despite the election loss, Moore stayed on as leader of the party until 1993, when he became Labour's Foreign Affairs spokesman.

In 1999 he resigned and took up the position as head of the WTO. Since then, he has written books, lectured and been a popular speaker.

Answer: False

The British monarch is the Head of State in New Zealand. The Governor-General is the monarch's representative and fulfills the day-to-day functions of the Head of State, but is only a representative. The Governor-General is nominated by the New Zealand government and appointed by the Queen on its advice. Typically, the Governor-General is a New Zealand citizen who has gained prominence in some field and is universally respected. Perhaps the best-loved Governor-General in recent years has been Dame Sylvia Cartwright.

Answer: Foreign Exchange

Key began his working life as an auditor, but moved to the foreign exchange area and became very successful at it. He ended that part of his career as a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the New York Federal Reserve Bank between 1999 and 2001 which demonstrates that he was well thought of by his peers.

Answer: An orchestrated litany of lies

The flight was a sightseeing trip, the fourteenth of its type. The route followed was from New Zealand to McMurdo Sound, some passes over various features in the area including a view of Mt Erebus, an active volcano some 12,448 feet high. Because of the navigational error that occurred, the plane, which had descended to 1,500 feet, flew onto a glacier on the slopes of Mt Erebus. At the time, the pilots believed they were over open water some 27 miles to the west. Justice Mahon concluded that the crash was caused by a change to waypoints in the plane's navigational computer by Air New Zealand which was not communicated to the pilots.

Although Justice Mahon's report was overturned, first by the NZ Court of Appeal and later by the Privy Council, many in the industry still believe that his conclusions were correct. As a result of the inquiry the way in which air accidents are investigated was thoroughly overhauled, so some good came out of it all.

Answer: Bruce Beetham

Wilfred Owen, John O'Brien and Vernon Cracknell were all leaders of the Social Credit Party prior to Bruce Beetham. For nearly two decades the Social Credit Party provided the only "third option" at New Zealand elections and attracted many votes, but, prior to the adoption of MMP (mixed member proportional) voting, never had more than two Members of Parliament at any one time. For several years, Bruce Beetham was an extremely active and lucid MP, attracting a lot of attention, particularly in the media. Unfortunately he had a heart attack in the early 1980s, which sapped quite a lot of his energy and following it he never really regained his place in the public eye.

Social Credit was forced into something of a back seat when other, newer political parties, such as the Values Party and the short-lived New Zealand Party appeared on the scene. Beetham became regarded as something of a dictator within his own party and was ousted shortly after the party was renamed The New Zealand Democratic Party.

The concept of Social Credit, first outlined by C.H. Douglas in 1924, is worth five minutes' study if you are interested in politico-economic theories!

Answer: The Values Party

The Alliance was formed in 1991 when Jim Anderton's New Labour Party struck a deal with the Greens, the Democrats and Mana Motuhake. The party was decidedly left-wing, despite being joined by two MPs who had defected from the National Party and formed the Liberal Party (not to be confused with the much earlier Liberal Party). For several years it had quite a lot of success under MMP, aligning itself with the Labour Party and with its MPs holding several cabinet posts during Labour's tenure as Goverment.

However it was not a natural alliance of like minds and internal tensions meant that it eventually split back into its constituent parts, some of which became defunct then or shortly thereafter.