The Gregg Institute on Foreign Relations
National Leaders: New Zealand
John LANGLEY (1942-2005)
Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989
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Langley was swept into power as a result of dissatisfaction with the National government, and owing to the fiscal situation he inherited, deviated sharply from his Labour predecessors. Under him and his immediate successor, Labour embraced free-market positions on several issues, causing the Fourth Labour government's economic policies to be described as "Rogernomics" after Minister of Finance Roger Scott. Langley's term in office saw the floating of the New Zealand dollar, slashing of both state spending and top tax rates and removing industry subsidies. Under his leadership, New Zealand formally removed the last vestiges of British colonial rule from the government with the Constitution Act of 1986, decriminalized male homosexuality, and made Maori a co-official language of New Zealand and, made the nation as a whole a nuclear-free zone. This brought him into conflict with the United States under D. Wire Newman and resulted in New Zealand's partial suspension from the ANZUS alliance.
Langley would resign in 1989 amidst the fracturing of Labour's coalition, retiring from politics in the ensuing 1990 election.
Dave PECKHAM (1951-2015)
Prime Minister from 1989 to 1990
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The man picked by the Labour Party to succeed Langley, Peckham had previously served in his predecessor's cabinet as Minister of Justice. One of the youngest prime ministers in New Zealand's history, Peckham's term was brief, mostly preoccupied with attempting to heal the split between Labourites supportive of the Fourth Labour Government's economic policies and traditional Labour supporters who favored a more social democratic system. Peckham did not succeed, and lost the 1990 election in a landslide to the Nationals in the worst performance up to that point since the party won the 1935 election. He remained Labour leader until he resigned following the 1993 elections and was eventually appointed to be New Zealand's ambassador to the United States from 2010 until his death in 2015.
Dame Kate BAYNES (born 1943)
Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997
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Kate Baynes made history as the first woman to become prime minister of New Zealand following her party's defeat of the governing Labourites in 1990. Although campaigning against "Rogernomics", the new government was forced to bail out the Bank of New Zealand shortly after taking office and as a result, largely continued the fiscal policies of their immediate predecessors. Baynes presided over New Zealand at the end of the Cold War and saw the creation of the New Zealand honors system to replace the British one previously used in 1996. Most notably, her tenure saw the switch from the traditional first-past-the-post (FPTP) method of electing members of Parliament to mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) in 1993 after a nationwide referendum came back in favor of MMP. The 1993 election, the last held under FPTP, marks the last time one party has won a majority of seats in Parliament.
The Nationals were forced to go into coalition and confidence and supply agreements with right-wing splinter parties created in anticipation of the switch to MMP in 1996. Following that election, she made a coalition agreement with the New Zealand First Party, which had opposed the spending cuts made by both her and the previous Labour government. Disgruntlement by members of her caucus at the power given to New Zealand First MPs saw her lose the confidence of her party's leadership and she resigned in 1997. She was made a Dame of the Order of New Zealand and ambassador to the United States in 1998, retiring in 2002.
Harry McIVER (born 1945)
Prime Minister from 1997 to 1999
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McIver was elected to lead the National Party after Baynes' resignation and oversaw the disintegration of the alliance with New Zealand First in 1998. After New Zealand First withdrew from the coalition, he formed a coalition with two parties, formed by dissident New Zealand First MPs, to remain in power through the remainder of the 45th Parliament. McIver's tenure was relatively uneventful compared to his predecessor, with his most notable achievements were lowering the drinking age from 20 to 18 and becoming the first prime minister to attend a gay pride parade (the 1999 Hero Parade in Auckland). He failed to win a term of his own in 1999, with Labour becoming the largest party and forming a left-wing coalition government. McIver remained National leader until being toppled in 2001 and retired from Parliament in 2002.
Graham WEST (born 1944)
Prime Minister from 1999 to 2008
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The left-wing coalition that won the 1999 elections brought West to power, the first of three such elections he would win. The first post-Rogernomics Labour prime minister, West oversaw the creation of several new programs, including the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, a sovereign wealth fund for pensions to those aged 65 and older, and public, interest-free student loans. His government also increased the minimum wage five percent annually, introduced 14-week parental leave, and legalized civil unions for same-sex couples in 2004. The Fifth Labour government also saw New Zealand become signatory to several free trade deals, including becoming the first developed nation to sign such an agreement with the People's Republic of China in 2008. West's tenure also saw New Zealand troops deployed to East Timor and Kazakhstan in 2006, with the latter mostly acting as logistical support for American forces.
Voter fatigue and the beginning of the Great Recession resulted in Labour's loss in the 2008 election, and West's retirement from politics. In 2011, he served as a member of the three-man Provisional Governing Council of the Holy City of Jerusalem alongside former South African president Frederick Hymans and former British prime minister Ricky Meyer, becoming the first (and so far only) native New Zealander to be a head of state. Unlike his colleagues, West survived the Syrian attack on the inauguration ceremony of President Ben Sawahili in December of that year.
Kevin TE HARE (born 1960)
Prime Minister from 2008 to 2017
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Kevin Te Hare's election marked a major milestone for New Zealand, as he became the first Maori and first non-white person to serve as prime minister in the country's history. Taking power in confidence and supply agreements with the libertarian ACT Party and (from 2011) the centrist United Future Party, Te Hare's government saw a rightwards shift economically. Under his premiership, tax rates were cut while the goods and sales tax (GST) was raised to help offset the economic downturn he had inherited. Socially, the Fifth National Government saw the restoration of titular honors, including knighthoods and damehoods, that had been abolished by Labour in 2000, the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2013, and an unsuccessful push by the prime minister to change the country's flag that was defeated at a referendum. Despite pressure from some in his party, Te Hare did not commit New Zealand combat troops to support the "ABC" (American-Britain-China) intervention in Qumar during the 2016 crisis and subsequent occupation, instead sending humanitarian aid to the Qumari people.
The 2017 election saw the Nationals remain the largest party, but their existing coalition fell below the necessary 61 seats to form a government, with their United Future partners not winning a single seat. Te Hare and the Nationals attempted to sign a coalition agreement with New Zealand First, but the populist, nationalist party instead formed one with Labour, ending the Fifth National Government. Te Hare briefly continued on as National leader before retiring in 2018 and resigning from Parliament.
Kylie BROWNLEE (born 1977)
Prime Minister from 2017 onward
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Incumbent prime minister Kylie Brownlee came to power in 2017 as a result of a coalition agreement with New Zealand First, supplemented by a confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party. She leads the first government in New Zealand not to include the party with the most seats (Nationals) and only the second elected head of government (after former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto) to give birth while in office, taking maternity leave after her daughter's birth in December 2018 (NZ First leader Sterling Pollard served as acting prime minister, becoming the person not from either National or Labour to lead the country since 1935). The Sixth Labour Government intends to halve child poverty in New Zealand by 2027, decriminalize abortion, and has scheduled a referendum on the legalization of recreational cannabis to coincide with the next general election in 2020.
Current polling for the next election (scheduled for 2020) has Brownlee trouncing National leader Dan Phipps by nearly 40 percent in "preferred prime minister" polls, although Labour maintains only a small lead over the Nationals in party polling.
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Cast
Jonathan Hardy as John Langley
(new character)
Jon Gadsby as Dave Peckham
(new character)
Lisa Harrow as Dame Kate Baynes
(new character)
David McPhail as Harry McIver
(new character)
John Rhys-Davies as Graham West
Temuera Morrison as Kevin Te Hare
Melanie Lynskey as Kylie Brownlee
