Here´s some facts I learned today. I will return with a more interesting post later.

New Zealands head of state is Queen Elisabeth II, represented in New Zealand by the governor general. The head of government on the other hand is the Prime Minister. New Zealand has no official constitution altough they have a sort of framework constitution consisting of various documents such as the treaty of Waitangi, certain acts of the United Kingdom and New Zealand parliaments and also some constitutional conventions. There have some times been proposals for a codified constitution, but as of yet there haven´t been any serious tries to adopt one.

The New Zealand monarchy has been separated from the Brittish monarchy since The Statute of Westminister Adoption Act 1947, and since then all Elisabeth II´s official business in New Zealand is done in the name of the Queen of New Zealand and not the Queen of the United Kingdom. As mentioned above all actions in the name of the Queen of New Zealand are performed by the Governor-general who is appointed by Elisabeth II on recomendation from New Zealands Prime Minister. The Governor-generals powers are in reality small and mostly symbolic, he formally has the power to chose and dismiss Prime Ministers and to desolve parliament. He also formally gets to sign legislations in to laws after they have been aproved bu parliament. The Governor-general is a member of the Executive Council(a formell committee consisting of all the ministers of the crown). All members of the Executive Committee have to be members of parliament and many of them are also in the Cabinet.

The Cabinet is the most important policy-making body and are led by the Prime Minister who is also the parliamentary leader for the governing party or coalition , known as the head of Government. The Cabinet is responsible to the Parliament from wich the cabinet gets its menmbers. The parliament normally consists of 120 members, but this number can differ depending on over/underhangs. Currently several of the seats are reserved for members elected on a special Maori roll, but Maori people can choose to vote or run for non-reserved seats, many Maori has entered parliament this way. Elections for parliaments are held every three years but can be helld more often if called for. Every person over 18 has the right to wote and New Zealand was the first country in the whole world who allowed women to vote(YAY!).

Currently the Prime Minister of New Zealand is John Key who is the leader of the National Party wich replaced Helen Klark in November 2008. The opposing party is the Labour Party wich is led by Phil Goff.

In New Zealand regions have been created by the central government, rather than the other way around(smaller regions creating the central government). The regions are granted power by the Parliament, and those powers are comperativly few when compared to other contries, examples of that is the fact that police and education is run by the central government. New Zealand consists of sixteen regions, and is also divided into 73 territorial authorities some of wich are called cities but most of them are districts. Every region and territorial authority is governed by a council directly elected by the people of that region, city or district.

New Zealands very first political party was formed in 1891 while it´s main rival wasn´t founded until 1909. From that time all the way until 1996(when there was a change in electoral system) New Zealand had a two party system. Since 1996 New Zealand has had a milti party system(currently eight parties are represented in parliament), where the two main parties never has gained over 50 percent and thus has been forced to form coalition governments.

The two largest parties are Labour Party and the National Party, labour being progressive while the National party is conservatiove. Other parties represented in parliament are ATC(free market), the Greens(left-wing enviromentalist), the Progressive Party(left of centre), United Future(family values) and the Maori party(ethnic).

The two oldest parties; Labour and National has dominated New Zealand politics since 1935 when a Labour govenment came to power. During it´s forteen years in office(1935-1949) the Labour party made many social and economic legislations come true, such as comprehensive social security, a public works programme on a large scale, forty hour working week, a minimum basic wage and compulsory unionism. In 1949 the National party won control and they adopted many of the welfare measures that had been instituted by the Labour party. National held the the power until 1984 with only two brief periods of Labour government in between(1957-1960, 1972-1975).

In 1984 Labour regained power and instituted a series of marketoriented reforms as an awnser to New Zealands growing external debt. They also made a anti-nuclear legislation that brought about New Zealands suspension from ANZUS security alliance with USA and Australia. They also instituted a number of left-wing reforms, for example allowing a Waitangi tribunal to hear claims of breaches to the treaty of Waitangi to be made back to 1840. Labour reinstated compulsory unionism and created new government agencies to help a social and enviromental agenda.

The National party formed a new government in October 1990, the first for three three-year terms. In 1996 New Zealand changed electoral system to Mixed Member Propotional(MMP) wich they now use to elect their parliament. The purpose of the new system was to increase representation from smaller parties in parliament, wich it has done in the wotes to this date.

In the election of November 1999 National lost to Labour who under Helen Clark formed a coallition minority government together with the left-wing Alliance. The new government often relied on the Green party for support in passing legislations. Labour kept it´s power in the election of July 2002 and a new coalition was formed with an agreement of support from the United Future party. Helen Clark remained Prime Minister. After the election on September 17 2005 Helen Clark could announce a third consecutive term of Labour government.

New Zealand seems to be having a nack for beeing first in the world with things regarding women and politics, because besides New Zealand being first to grant women the right to wote, they were also the forst country in the world to have all the highest offices occupied by women, between March 2005 and August 2006 this were the case.

After the election in November 2008 Labours three-term streak was over and the National party formed a minority government together with the ATC party and the Maori party.

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