Something a little different, although still - alas - political.
List of Alliance MPs
The victory of Al Gore in 2000 brought to an end the short-lived post-Cold-War orthodoxy that America was the world's policeman: bent on kicking the shit out of non-white people. Instead, peaceful transitions of power were achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of his second term and the world began to work together to combat the threat of climate change.
The impact of this on New Zealand was the growth in confidence of the Left, which had already won power in 1999. Supporting the Labour government was the Alliance coalition of parties - namely the leftist NewLabour Party, the Democrats for Social Credit, the Maori rights party Mana Motuhake, and until 2002 the remnants of the utterly pointless Liberal Party. The Alliance had included the Green Party until 1997, but at that point the Green MPs elected on the Alliance ticket 'waka-jumped' to form their own independent party and failed to enter Parliament in 1999, receiving a tragic 4.96%. Another 10,000 party votes, or another 12 votes in the Coromandel electorate, would have seen them through.
Now that the Alliance were in coalition with a Labour government and holding several ministerial positions, internal battles became fiercer. The Leader, Jim Anderton of NewLabour, rapidly gained a reputation as Helen Clark's lapdog, and this angered the more doctrinaire leftists. Perhaps if the Government had been led into some sort of retread of the Gulf War or a similar exercise in Middle East imperialism, the Alliance would have split asunder, but as it was, the only major result of the civil war was that a few of the thinner-skinned MPs retired in 2002. Despite the ructions and the inevitable loss of popularity due to forming part of a Government, Jim Anderton's approachable charm in the debates resulted in the loss of only two seats. Now, however, the balance of power in caucus was more on the side of the hard-liners (Laila Harre of NewLabour, Willie Jackson of Mana Motuhake and Matt McCarten, who went from NewLabour to Mana Motuhake in 2004, being the party's heavy-hitters, versus a collection of oddities and nonentities) and after 2002 the Alliance voted merely to give Labour supply and confidence, without chaining themselves with a coalition.
This essentially ended Anderton's ministerial career and he resigned from the leadership and from Parliament in 2005. He was replaced in the Wigram electorate by his protege Megan Woods and as Leader by Laila Harre, who had the backing of a new convert to the Alliance - former Labour Minister Tariana Turia. During the early 2000s, the issue of Maori rights had become more and more divisive and more and more emotive, with National Leader Don Brash attacking Maori in his Orewa Speech. Labour were also engaged in alienating their hitherto monolithic Maori support base with the Seabed and Foreshore controversy, and Turia defected to Mana Motuhake in 2004, going on to stand in a by-election for her own seat. She brought a cadre of Maori activists and voters with her, which thoroughly changed the balance of the party. The initial dominance of the white, working class NewLabour supporters had been weathered away by fatigue and Anderton's support of Labour, and now - partly by increased membership, partly by superior talent - the head honchos were now Mana Motuhake.
This is not to say that the Alliance was now solely a vehicle for supporters of Maori sovereignty. Matt McCarten, the Party President as well as an MP, was clear that his primary focus was on the class disparity between Maori and middle class Pakeha, not on enriching tribal elites for the sake of it. But this was the source of much of their popularity, which explains why Harre and the (white, middle class) members of the Democrats for Social Credit were progressively sidelined. Harre resigned as Leader as a sort of fait accompli in 2007, two years after getting rid of Jim Anderton and a year before retiring to go into local politics, and was followed by Tariana Turia. One of her strategic masterstrokes was to invite the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party to join the Alliance, a move which increased the Alliance's vote while also gaining several quality people such as Metiria Turei. In 2008, despite the fall of Phil Goff's Labour-led government to John Key, the Alliance came out smiling, having gained two seats, including a third electorate - Te Tai Tokerau.
During the Fifth National Government, a string of pale, male and stale Labour leaders threw the diverse Alliance caucus into a better light, thus helping their electoral prospects. Mama Tere Strickland was New Zealand's second trans MP, while the Maori caucus could always be relied upon for a barn-storming speech - even Matt McCarten, who had struggled with a stammer since childhood and yet was always listened to. The internal pressures of the Alliance were moving against Mana Motuhake, though: simply because of an aging caucus. Most Mana Motuhake MPs had been activists for decades and some were moving into the ambit of the hierarchical tribal interests that McCarten had tried to avoid. As such, a lot of young progressives moved to Legalise Cannabis instead as the cause du jour. This eventually enabled Metiria Turei to oust Turia as leader in 2013, and she went on to win a record high number of votes and seats in 2014.
In 2017, however, two things happened: Metiria Turei admitted to having been a benefit fraudster in the 1990s in an attempt to siphon off Labour voters, and Jacinda Ardern replaced David Parker as Labour Leader in the middle of the campaign. This stopped the Alliance surge in its tracks, with soft Alliance supporters going Labour. Additionally, most of the Legalise Cannabis Party betrayed their leader by defecting en masse to the Green Party, led now by multi-millionaire tax wonk Gareth Morgan. If it hadn't been for Jacindamania, it is quite possible that the Greens would have finally entered Parliament in 2017, but it was not to be. The Alliance, meanwhile fell down to just 7 seats and lost major players such as John Minto and Annette Sykes, as well as failing to elect rising stars like Curwen Rolinson.
On the plus side for the Alliance, the election of a Labour-United Future Government with the Alliance as a support partner means that Metiria Turei is able to present a referendum on legalising cannabis in her role as Health Minister, while Paula Gillon is bringing Social Credit economic ideas to the table as Associate Minister of Finance.