New Zealand general election, 2005

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The 2005 New Zealand general election was held on 17 September 2005. No single party won a majority in the one-house New Zealand Parliament, but the Labour Party of Prime Minister Helen Clark secured two more seats than its closest rival, the National Party of Dr Don Brash. Most of the minor parties polled poorly, losing votes and seats, but the new Māori Party took four electorate seats, including three from Labour.

Brash deferred conceding the election until 1 October 2005 when the inclusion of special votes caused National's seats drop from 49 to 48.

The election saw a strong recovery by National - gaining 21 more seats than at the 2002 election, when it suffered its worst result ever. Despite this resurgence, National failed to displace Labour as the largest party in Parliament. National's gains were at the expense of smaller parties, while Labour won only two seats fewer than in 2002.

On 17 October, Clark announced a new coalition agreement that saw the return of her minority government coalition with the Progressive Party, with confidence and supply support from New Zealand First and United Future. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and United Future leader Peter Dunne will become ministers of the Crown, though outside Cabinet. Peters will become Minister of Foreign Affairs while Dunne will become Minister of Revenue. The Green Party, which had already thrown its weight behind Labour before the election, received no cabinet post (see below), but gained several concessions on energy and transport.

Official election results table

For further details of results (including results by constituency) see New Zealand general election, 2005: in depth results

Analysis of results

Going into the election, Labour was assured of the support of the Greens (6 seats, down three from 2002) and Progressives (one seat, down one). This bloc of 57 seats left Clark four short of the 61 needed for a majority in the 121-seat Parliament (decreased from the expected 122 because the final results gave Māori only one overhang seat after it appeared to win two overhang seats on election night). On October 5 the Māori Party began a series of hui to decide who to support. That same day it was reported [1] that a formal coalition between Labour and Māori had already been ruled out during a meeting beween Helen Clark and Māori co-leader Tariana Turia on October 3. Māori Party leaders have also held discussions with National leaders, but Māori was thought to be more likely to give confidence-supply support to a Labour-led government because its supporters heavily backed Labour in the party vote.

Had Turia opted to join a coalition, Clark would have had sufficient support to govern without support from other parties. As a result, Labour needed the support of New Zealand First (7 seats, down 6) and United Future (3 seats, down five) to form a government. New Zealand First said it would support, or at least abstain from opposing in confidence motions, the party with the most seats. It has been reported that Clark has sought a positive New Zealand First committment rather than abstention, and that Labour may have gone so far as offering Peters a ministerial post [2]. United Future, who supported the previous Labour-Progressive minority government in confidence and supply, said it would talk first to the party with the most seats about a support or coalition arrangement. Both New Zealand First and United Future said they would not support a Labour-led coalition with Greens in Cabinet posts. However, United Future indicated it could support a government where the Greens gave supply and confidence votes [3]. This suggested a return of the current Labour-Progressive minority government as the most likely outcome.

The only feasible scenario for Brash to become prime minister would have been in a centre-right coalition with United Future and ACT (two seats, down seven). However, such a coalition would have required the confidence and supply votes of both New Zealand First and the Māori Party. This would have run counter to Peters' promise to deal with the biggest party. It would have also been very difficult for Turia to justify supporting National after her supporters' strong support for Labour in the party vote.

Possible government setups

Background

Image:NZ election billboards.jpg

The 2002 election saw the governing Labour Party retain office. However, its junior coalition partner, the Alliance, collapsed, leaving Labour to form a coalition with the new Progressive Coalition, formed by former Alliance leader Jim Anderton. The coalition then obtained an agreement of support ("confidence and supply") from United Future, enabling it to form a stable minority government. The National Party, Labour's main opponents, suffered a considerable defeat, winning only 21% of the vote.

The collapse of National's vote led to the replacement of leader Bill English with parliamentary newcomer Don Brash on 28 October 2003. Brash began an aggressive campaign against the Labour-dominated government. A major boost to this campaign came with his "Orewa speech" (27 January 2004), in which he attacked the Labour-dominated government for giving "special treatment" to the Māori population, particularly over the foreshore and seabed controversy. This resulted in a surge of support for the National Party, although most polls indicate that this subsequently subsided. National also announced it would not stand candidates in the Māori seats, with some smaller parties following suit.

The foreshore and seabed controversy also resulted in the creation of the Māori Party. The Māori Party hoped to break Labour's traditional (and current) dominance in the Māori seats, as New Zealand First did in the 1996 election.

A number of minor parties contested the election. These included Destiny New Zealand (the political branch of the Destiny Church) and the Direct Democracy Party.

Issues

The National party campaigned on the platform of (National Party Press Release):

• Taxation - cutting taxes significantly
• Removing references to the Treaty of Waitangi in existing legislation, resolve all treaty claims amicably by 2010 and removing the racially selected Maori Seats from parliament.
• Making Student Loan repayments and $5000 of pre-school childcare costs tax deductable
• To "rework" the New Zealand Resource Management Act to make development easier
• "Removing excessive bureaucracy" in the Education system, in particular by overhauling the NCEA, and by re-introducting "Bulk Funding" of schools.
• Abolishing early parole for violent criminals. Currently, most prisoners are eligible for parole after serving one third of their sentence.
• A return to "market rents" for state housing tenants, including a system of paying housing subsidies (for the poorest tenants) directly to private landlords.
• Part public/private ownership of the public health system
• A "work for the dole" scheme

The Labour Party campaigned on the platform of (Labour web site):

• Student loans - interest would be written off if the person stays in New Zealand
• Health - a number of extra public hospital operations were pledged
• Treaty of Waitangi - accept no lodgements for treaty claims after September 1 2008
• Increasing Rates rebates
• A "kiwisaver" program, aimed at getting first homeowners into their own homes
• Sponsor 5,000 new apprenticeships
• Increase community police force numbers by 250.
• A "welfare for families" tax relief/benefit program aimed at poor/middle income families

Polls

A series of opinion polls published in June 2005 indicated that the National Party had moved ahead of Labour for the first time since June 2004. Commentators speculated that a prominent billboard campaign may have contributed to this. Others said the National party had peaked too early. The polls released throughout July showed once more an upward trend for Labour, with Labour polling about 6% above National. The release by the National Party of a series of tax reform proposals in August increased its ratings in the polls.

These polls cannot be directly compared to each other.

The significant differences between most of these polls cannot be explained by any political event over the period between them. They showed either volatility in the electorate or flaws in the polling methods. In the later polls, the issue of National's knowledge of Exclusive Brethren pamphlets appeared not to have reduced party support.

Candidates

For lists of candidates in the 2005 election see:

• Candidates grouped by electorate
• Candidates grouped by party
• Party lists

Voting

Postal voting for New Zealanders abroad began on 31 August. Ballot voting was held on September 17, from 9AM to 7PM. A provisional result was released at 12.05AM September 18.

Funding

New Zealand operates on a system whereby the Electoral Commission allocates funding for television and radio advertising. Parties must use their own money for all other forms of advertising, but may not use any of their own money for television or radio advertising.

*Must register for funding
Source: Electoral Commission

External links

• Elections New Zealand, joint website of the Electoral Enrolment Centre, Chief Electoral Office, and Electoral Commission.
• 2005 General Election Results from Chief Electoral Office, Ministry of Justice
• New Zealand Herald Election 2005 website
• Stuff.co.nz Election 2005 website
• Scoop Election 2005 website
• Scoop Election 2005 campaign diary