Democratic issues in the break-up of the Fourth Labour Government and the rise of the Alliance

Abstract

Most of the work which has been published or broadcast to date dealing with the place of the 4th NZLP Government in New Zealand political and socio-economic history has generally focused on the key parliamentary personalities who dominated the debate and the headlines throughout the turbulent 1984 - 1990 period. Doubtless the forthcoming contribution of Dr Michael Bassett, who is to the New Zealand revolution what Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon, was to the English, will continue in this vein. I believe that, while recognising the importance of the key personalities within the Cabinet and caucus, it is also necessary to note the contribution of the NZLP outside of parliament, the national organisation, and the grassroots branch and affiliated membership, to developments within the NZLP during this period. Most analysis assumes that this wing of the NZLP was merely swept along helplessly in the wake of Rogernomics and did not participate in any significant manner to the course of events. In fact, as the narrative will relate, the tightly focused campaign by one tendency within the grassroots membership posed the most significant challenge to the authority of Cabinet in its history, and would have succeeded had the NZLP organisation not been paralysed by a fatal lack of resolve. It is my intention in the course of this thesis to outline the history and motivation of the grassroots Left faction within the NZLP which during this period waged its own battle against the Rogernomics agenda and, ultimately convinced that it had lost, bolted from the NZLP altogether and set up the NLP, which provided the organisational and ideological basis for the Alliance.