Progressives gone

March 19th, 2012 at 1:20 pm by David Farrar

Page 1009 of the 15 March NZ Gazette reveals that the Progressive Party has officially disbanded, in that it has had its registration as a registered political party cancelled.

I’m a bit surprised the Electoral Commission hasn’t announced this on their website, or updated their list of parties. Normally I find out from their website, not from obscure Gazette notices.

While the Alliance had a distinct place on the political spectrum, I never worked out what the Progressives stood for, except to have Jim Anderton as Leader.

Tags: Electoral Commission, Progressives

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2012 at 1:20 pm and is filed under NZ Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

14 Responses to “Progressives gone”

metcalph (1,039) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
To me, they always were Jim Anderton’s Personality Cult.
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RRM (7,234) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
I got the impression that “progressive” was a name chosen because no-one else was using the word. It was never really clear what “progress” he was for.

Surely something like Jim Anderton’s Addington Workers Party of the 1970s would have been more realistic…?
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Dave Stringer (161) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
David,

don’t the pay and allowances for a party leader who is also a cabinet minister (as uncle Jim was,) exceed those of just a cabinet minister?

[DPF: No. In Opposition party leaders get paid more, but if a Minister you get just the Ministerial salary]
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East Wellington Superhero (1,151) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 1:52 pm
Oh no no. They are not gone.

They’ve just shape-shifted. They’re still among us and still want to spend our money and tell us how to live.
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Richard29 (347) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Being the leader of a political party (however small) makes you eligible for exemption to the 5% threshold for additional MP’s plus I believe you get more parliamentary funding as a party leader than you do as an independent electoral MP. It’s good ol’ self interest…

One of my preferred MMP reforms is that the 5% exemption rule is dropped and that any MP who’s party gets less than 5% is just treated as an independent electorate MP and their electorate is removed from the total before proportionality is calculated i.e. the 120 maximum is really a maximum, if the Maori party win 3 electorates then proportionality is reduced correspondingly rather than the country getting ‘top up’ MP’s.

The immediate effects of this would be a reduction in MP spend, Peter Dunne, Hone and the Maori MP’s could drop the facade and just run as the independents that they are. The change would mean that parties like the Greens who have no electorates would lose slightly (they would get say 11% of 117 seats rather than 11% of 123 seats by party vote allocation) but it’s not too major – in the extremely unlikely scenario that 100% of the electorates went to independents the outcome would still be more proportional than the Supplementary Member system.
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thor42 (474) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Good riddance to the REgressives. It’s about time.
Now the big problem is the Mana, Winston First and Green Parties.
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lcmortensen (38) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
The PDF register has been updated (http://www.elections.org.nz/files/12_March_2012_Currently_registered_1.pdf) – maybe someone has forgotten to do the rest.
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Put it away (2,887) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
One time there was a rat shuffling around in the ceiling, the thing spontaneously died before I had to get any traps or poison. I feel much the same about the demise of the “progressives”.
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Chthoniid (1,912) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
What exactly, was progressive about the Progressive Party?
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DJP6-25 (1,100) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Clthoniid 2:37 pm. It became progressively less relevant after November 2008. By the way, I guess many posters are missing the Friday photos. Is there any chance of a resumption if you have the time and resources please?

cheers

David Prosser
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Mirror-me (7) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
“What exactly, was progressive about the Progressive Party?”

I’d like to know that too, because it didn’t seem obvious.
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iMP (1,313) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
The Progressive Party was only ever just the Wigram Labour voters under a different name so Jimbo could get Leadership funding.
As soon as he was gone, they all voted Megan Woods Labour, who herself had been a ‘Progressive” earlier. ?? A complete electoral farce and frankly, an open Fraud.
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RF (719) Says:
March 19th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Megan Woods… She will not like that title. It was Dr. Woods when she was running for mayor. Your typical power seeking flip flopper
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Shazzadude (353) Says:
March 20th, 2012 at 10:22 am
“As soon as he was gone, they all voted Megan Woods Labour,”

Not entirely true, the seat went from safe Jim to marginal Megan.

Jim Anderton also managed to attract around 20% of the National vote in the electorate, on top of the Labour/Green voters.
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