Alliance (New Zealand political party)
The Alliance was a left-wing political party in New Zealand. It was formed at the end of 1991 by the linking of four smaller parties. The Alliance positioned itself as a democratic socialist alternative to the centre-left New Zealand Labour Party. It was influential throughout the 1990s, but suffered a major setback after its founder and leader, Jim Anderton, left the party in 2002, taking with him several of its members of parliament (MPs). After the remaining MPs lost their seats in the 2002 general election, some commentators predicted the demise of the party.
Alliance
1 December 1991
26 May 2015
Staunch Alliance
The Alliance stood candidates in the 2005 general election but won less than 1% of the party vote. It contested Auckland City Council elections under the City Vision banner, in concert with the New Zealand Labour Party and Green Party. The Alliance ran 15 electorate candidates and a total of 30 candidates on the party list in the 2008 general election, increasing its party vote marginally from that in 2005. It was deregistered (can no longer contest for the party vote) at its own request on 26 May 2015.[3][4]
Policies[edit]
A democratic socialist party, the Alliance supported free education, free healthcare, full employment and the maintenance of the welfare state.[1] Its policy platform emphasized women's rights, environmentalism, and Māori rights. It supported New Zealand's nuclear-free policy and opposed military interventionism, particularly during the war in Afghanistan. The Alliance supported proportional representation for elections.[5]
The Alliance advocated a progressive tax, which would mean a higher tax rate for wealthier people and a lower rate for poorer people. It also supported the removal of the Goods and Services Tax, seeing the tax as unfair because the amount paid does not vary according to the purchaser's ability to afford it; it advocated replacing this with a financial transaction tax, or Tobin tax.
History[edit]
Foundation[edit]
The Alliance was formed at the end of 1991 as an alliance of four parties.[6] The largest of the four was the NewLabour Party (not associated with the later New Labour movement in the UK), established by former Labour Party politician Jim Anderton. The oldest was the Democratic Party (originally known as the Social Credit Political League, and dedicated to Social Credit policies). The others were Mana Motuhake (a Māori party) and the Greens (an environmentalist party).[7][8]
Until his departure from Labour in 1989, Anderton had been the most vocal Labour MP in his criticism of his party's new direction. Led by Roger Douglas, the Minister of Finance, Labour had adopted radical policies of economic liberalisation, free trade, and privatisation of state assets – sharply in contrast both with the party's background and its campaign promises. This was deeply unpopular both with a section of the public and with ordinary members, but Douglas and his allies, without effective constraint by Prime Minister David Lange, pressed on with the reforms. Anderton, despite heavy pressure from the party authorities, refused to vote in favour of the measures, and eventually quit the party. He contested the 1990 election under the banner of NewLabour, a party he quickly established. He successfully retained his electorate seat, becoming the first MP to leave a party and not lose their position in the next elections.
NewLabour, the Democrats, and Mana Motuhake, all of which opposed the platform set out by Douglas, gradually began to work together to fight their common political opposition. The Greens, who had policies and electoral support, but not party organisation, also took notice. Initially, this co-operation was limited, but expanded after a joint candidate was successful in an Auckland local-body election. In two concurrent by-elections on the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) in November 1991 the parties coalesced around a single candidate in each race; Bruce Jesson of NewLabour in the Panmure Ward and Ruth Norman from the Greens in the Glenfield Ward. Both were successful giving a huge boost in confidence and publicity to the incipient party.[9]