Why the Left Stumbled in New Zealand
“It was a coincidence that the New Zealand election fell on the same night as Australia’s ‘Voice’ referendum to recognise its indigenous population. But it is no accident that New Zealand’s Labour party and…
Tag Archives: Labour Party
New Zealand Swings to the Centre Right in Post-Ardern Era
New Zealand’s Labour party has suffered a humbling defeat after early election results suggested a halving of its parliamentary seats compared with Jacinda Ardern’s triumph in 2020, Nic Fildes writes from Sydney for the…
Labour Giant Michael Cullen Committed to NZ
Sir Michael Cullen, Helen Clark’s deputy prime minister and the father of New Zealand superannuation, has died in Whakatāne aged 76, Ben McKay reports for a story published in The Canberra Times. Prime Minister Jacinda…
Labour Elects Hungarian-Kiwi Claire Szabó
“A truly surprising story from New Zealand. The ruling Labour Party has elected Claire Szabó as its new president. New Zealand-born Szabó is also a Hungarian citizen, her father served as Hungary’s Honorary Consul…
New Zealand Is a Haven of Liberal Politics
“Unlike most other countries, New Zealand’s parliament appears to have realised that no one’s going to get anywhere by pretending to agree with, or make bargains with, Donald Trump,” freelance journalist Matteo di Maio…
The New Politics Of NZ – National Wins 46%
“New Zealand politics seldom grabs international attention. That changed six weeks ago when Jacinda Ardern, the 37-year-old female deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party, was gifted the party leadership and a mission to…
Politician Jacinda Ardern Enjoys Rapid Rise
Jacinda Ardern took over as New Zealand’s opposition leader just last week, but already she has prompted a flood of donations, taken a stance for women in the workplace and transformed what had been…
NZ Could Become One of First Countries to Introduce Citizen’s Wage
Andrew Little, leader of the Labour Party said his party was considering the idea of scrapping benefits and introducing a basic citizens’ income, as reported in The Independent. “Citizens’ income also known as…
Prime Minister John Key Wins Third Term
Prime Minister John Key will lead New Zealand for a third consecutive term after the National Party won 48 per cent of the vote in this year’s election. Official results show Key’s party will likely…
Big Visions for UNDP’s Leading Woman
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, currently administrator of the United Nations Development Program, features in CNN’s monthly column, “Leading Women”, which connects readers to “extraordinary women of our time.” Almost a decade before…
Harvard University Farm Purchase Draws Mixed Reaction
Harvard University’s decision to buy a 1300-hectare Otago dairy farm drew mixed reactions from New Zealand politicians. Winston Peters, New Zealand First’s Leader, criticised New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office’s approval of the purchase. But…
Green MP Apologies for NZ Climate Change Failure
New Zealand Green MP Kennedy Graham has apologised to Pacific leaders on behalf of New Zealanders who disagreed with their government’s decision not to sign the Copenhagen Agreement on reducing carbon emissions and alleviating…
Labour Party Leader David Shearer Speaks At 2012 Labour Conference
David Shearer launches ‘Kiwibuild” – Labour’s plan to build 100,000 homes in 10 years.
Pioneering MP
Whetu Trikatene-Sullivan, New Zealand’s longest serving female MP has died in Wellington, aged 79. Trikatene-Sullivan, of Ngai Tahu, was Labour MP for Southern Maori for 29 years, from 1967 till 1996. She famously travelled…
All in Good Time
New Zealand switched to proportional representation in 1993 and since then no single political party has been able to command a majority. New Zealanders have come to regard elections as a two-phase affair: first,…
Looking at Labour
Former New Zealand Rhodes Scholar and Vice Chancellor of Waikato University Bryan Gould writes in the Guardian that “barring a miracle, and miracles seem likely to be in short supply, Labour will lose…
Key In Clark Out
8 November 2008 – National Party leader John Key, 47, has ousted Labour’s Helen Clark from office and a nine-year term, with a mantra of change. Prime Minister Helen Clark conceded defeat. Clark, 58,…
Anti-nuke Politician Remembered
New Zealand politician Fraser Colman, remembered for travelling to Mururoa Atoll in 1973 to draw attention to French nuclear testing in the Pacific has died, aged 83. Colman sailed on board the…
End of Ancestral Visa
A new points-based immigration system could end the door-opening power of the ancestral visa. Many New Zealanders and other Commonwealth citizens have relied on having British grandparents to allow them to settle in the EU. Under…
Government Formed
Just over a month after election night, Helen Clark has formed a government and been sworn in as Prime Minister, making her the first Labour Party leader to form a government in three successive terms. Following…
Prussia of the Pacific?
A Guardian columnist points out an eerie similarity between the recent elections in NZ and Germany. Both were held on the same weekend and both delivered a spectacularly close finish between the two dominant centre-right and centre-left…
Third Way Talking Points
PM Helen Clark discusses republicanism, Iraq, same-sex marriages, prostitution reform, and The Lord of the Rings in a forum with BBC News Online’s Talking Point. Clark was in London attending Tony Blair’s ‘Third Way’ summit – a gathering…
“In a Faraway Land …”
“… the left prospers.” According to British Labour MP Austin Mitchell (author of The Half-gallon quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise) writing in the ‘Observations’ section of the New Statesman. “New Zealand stands out in the blue horizon”. says…
“Gale From the Sea” Laid to Rest
More than 6ft tall, handsome and with the build of a rugby lock forward (which he was), John Platts-Mills blew into the English House of Commons as Labour MP in 1945 “like a gale…
The Person is Political
Voters across the political spectrum have convinced Georgina Beyers not to quit politics after she said she was stepping down. “The fact that a transsexual, a former sex worker and a Labour candidate could win the historically…
Small Country with a Big Attitude
“Recent history shows that the New Zealand government, especially with Clark’s own Labour Party at the helm, has not shied away from David and Goliath-like confrontations. The feisty nation arguably made its first proper international splash…
Into Left-field
Labour hits 50%, Helen Clark does a pb of 36%. “The government is the only game in town,” says Clark.
Never Say Die
One of Briton’s most popular MPs before being expelled from the Labour party for communist sympathies, New Zealand-born John Platt-Mills is still a practicing lawyer at 94. “Is there anything else he wants to achieve? ‘Yes, I’d…
John Bull (& Kiwi)
Michael Wills’ mother was a New Zealander, and his father an Austrian. Today he is charged with putting British patriotism on New Labour’s agenda.
New Zealand weaned spin-king appointed to Buckingham Palace
We are amused – a colonial has been given the job of putting spin on the damming corgi stories (head of public relations for HM the Q). Currently head of communications for British Airways,…
Bryan Gould: Best Belletrist on the Left
The New Statesman’s literary editor uses his position to weigh up the relative literary merits of the Tory MPs compared to their Labour counterparts, and finds that the Tories are up at halftime, “with the exception…
Kiwi Chosen to Restore Sparkle to Britain’s Millennium Crown
Kiwi Former head of British pay-TV operator BSkyB, Sam Chisholm, has been appointed the new head of the much hyped, but troubled, Millennium Dome. Despite anger from Labour backbenchers at its public cost, Chisholm insists he will look to…
The Future is Kiwi
“Helen Clark met Tony Blair in Downing Street last month. Apparently he asked her lots of questions about her flying start in government: let’s hope he was taking notes”. New Zealand’s Labour government looked upon as role-model…
