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New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy and is an independent member of the Commonwealth. As in Britain, there is no written constitution. The New Zealand Crown is separate from the British Crown, but is vested in the same person, Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen is represented by a Governor-General who performs several now ceremonial roles, including summoning and adjourning Parliament, giving royal assent to legislation, and making appointments.
The country has progressed from Crown Colony (1840) and Dominion (1907) to independence (1947). Britain actually granted full internal and external autonomy in the Statue of West Minister as early as 1931, but New Zealand did not fully accept it until the Adoption Act of 1947. The Adoption Act, however, merely formalized a situation that had existed for many years. New Zealand has to be one of the few countries to take more than 15 years to formally accept an offer of independence from a colonial power, demonstrating the continuing ties between the two countries. Unlike Australia, there is still no serious thought being given to severing the remaining ties with Britain and forming a republic, but such a step may be just a matter of time.
New Zealand's British heritage is evident in its Westminster style of parliamentary democracy. Since 1950, however, the Parliament has consisted of only one chamber, the House of Representatives. The House is composed of 97 members, 4 of which must be Maoris elected on a separate roll. The electorate is broad-based, composed of almost every permanent resident 18 years and older, including non-citizens. New Zealand was one of the first Western democracy to adopt a secret ballot. Executive authority is vested in the 20-member cabinet headed by the Prime Minister. All cabinet ministers must be members of Parliament and are collectively responsible to it.
The two major parties since World War II have been National and Labour and recent elections have produced Governments with only small majorities. The New Zealand Democratic, the New Zealand, and other smaller parties have shown some strength in recent elections. The influence of these parties, however, has been limited by the selection of MPs by a plurality of voters. The new ????? (MMP) voting system which is now being implemented will mean that smaller parties will become more important in future elections and the domination by the two major parties will decline.
New Zealand has three types of local government. Territorial authorities are the councils administering counties, boroughs, and districts which attend to local needs such as roads, drainage, sewage, street lighting, garbage collection, and public transport. The 85 counties provide for the primary needs of the more widely scattered rural populations. The larger urban areas are administered by the 118 borough organizations. District councils are local authorities with mixed urban and rural populations. Local governments are headed by mayors. Coordination of local government at the regional level is being introduced and many county, borough, and town district governments are being replaced by new amalgamated districts. Special purpose bodies carry out particular tasks in given areas, such as transportation, hospitals, and public utilities. Regional government is a more recent development to carry out regional planning and civil defense. Currently there are 22 regions, two (Auckland and Wellington) are under directly elected regional councils with authority to tax. The other regions are under united councils.
The Labour and National Parties have dominated New Zealand politics since the land-mark 1935 election. Labour ruled from 1935-1949, interrupted by a war-time government of national unity, and was able to enacted one of the world's most expansive social welfare systems. The National Party dominated post-war governments. National won the election of 1949 and with the exception of two brief periods (1957-60 and 1972-75), held power until 1984. Despite this long period of conservative Government, the National Party did not challenge the basic precepts of the welfare state established by Labour and in several instances enacted welfare measures advocated by Labour--demonstrating the broad support for the welfare system shown by a broad spectrum of New Zealand voters. The National Party adopted an import substitution approach to industrialization and intervened extensively in the late 1970s and early 1980s to address the country's growing economic problems.
The protection of the small New Zealand market, however, had the unintended side effect of preventing the development of companies capable of competing in the more important international market. The economic difficulties placed labour in the ironical position of having to divest state assets and adopt fiscally conservative policies curtailing the social welfare system. These policies were sharply criticized by trade unions and other important Labour constituencies. New Zealand which was a world leader in building a social welfare system became one of the first industrial countries to launch free market reforms curtailing that system. New Zealand experienced a divisive electoral campaign in 1990, culminating in the narrow victory of the conservative National Party after 8 years of Labour rule. The left-leaning Labour Party was hurt by the economic decline of the late 1980s and the alienation of some of its traditional constituencies because of the social welfare cuts. Increasing numbers of New Zealanders, however, have come to view the free market reforms as necessary for economic growth and the pairing back, but no dismantling, of the welfare system as necessary because the country simply could not afford the cost.
Recently, New Zealand replaced the previous 'first past the post' electoral system with a new mixed member system of proportional representation. There are now several mainstream political parties - National and Labour, who were the 'traditional' parties along with more recent political parties including New Zeland First and the Alliance. The current government is a coalition between National and New Zealand First.
