The Christian Coalition was an Evangelical Christianpolitical party operating in New Zealand. It was an alliance of the now-defunct Christian Heritage Party and the Christian Democrats, New Zealand's two theologically conservative Christian parties. The Christian Coalition did not meet with the success that it hoped for, and was eventually dissolved.
The Coalition was established for the purpose of contesting the 1996 election, which was the first to be held using the new mixed member proportional (MMP) voting system. Under MMP, it would not be necessary for the party to win any electorate seats – it merely needed to gain more than five percent of the national vote. The party was led by the Christian Democrat's leader Graeme Lee and the Christian Heritage leader Graham Capill.
In terms of policy, the Coalition generally pursued goals located somewhere between those of the Christian Democrats and Christian Heritage. At times, there appeared to be dispute between the two groups, with the Christian Democrats pursuing a more moderate path and Christian Heritage insisting upon a hard line. There were also complaints from the Christian Democrats that Christian Heritage was dominating the Coalition, and that Graham Capill (leader of Christian Heritage and Co-leader of the Coalition as a whole) was running the party "autocratically".
Despite the internal differences within the party, however, the Coalition steadily rose in the polls. As the election drew closer, some polls showed the Coalition passing the critical five percent threshold. As the result, the party came under intense media scrutiny and was criticized by its opponents. Rather than assisting the party, however, the increased media coverage appeared to damage its chances, with many people expressing worry about the more extreme elements of the party. The Coalition claimed that the media coverage about it was biased, saying that the news media set out to "falsely" portray them as extremist. Opponents of the Coalition, however, said that the intense media scrutiny penetrated an artificial layer of reasonableness that the Coalition had adopted, revealing the party's allegedly true character. Whatever the case, the party's polling dropped below the five percent threshold once again.
In the election itself, the Christian Coalition gained 4.33% of the vote, ranking sixth. It would have needed around 13,000 more votes to enter parliament. None of the Coalition's thirty-seven electoral constituency candidates were successful.
In May 1997, the Christian Coalition disbanded, with the Christian Democrats and Christian Heritage going their own separate ways. The Christian Democrats later "secularised" themselves, removing the explicitly religious nature of their party while keeping the same policy outlook. The resultant party, Future New Zealand, merged with the United Party to form the current United Future New Zealand. Ironically, the latter split in 2007, with disgruntled fundamentalist ex-UFNZ members forming a more intransigent entity, The Kiwi Party.
Christian Heritage New Zealand and Destiny New Zealand also tried to form a second "Christian Coalition" in 2004, but were unsuccessful. In October 2006, CHNZ Leader Ewen McQueen announced the closure of CHNZ after ex-CHNZ leader Graham Capill had been jailed on multiple counts of pedophilia. Destiny New Zealand did not prove politically viable, nor did its successor, the Family Party of New Zealand.
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote which a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to any representation in a legislature. This limit can operate in various ways, e.g. in party-list proportional representation systems where an electoral threshold requires that a party must receive a specified minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or in a particular electoral district, to obtain any seats in the legislature. In single transferable vote not only the first choice but also the next-indicated choices determine the electoral threshold.
Mixed-member proportional representation is a mixed electoral system in which voters get two votes: one to decide the representative for their single-seat constituency, and one for a political party. Seats in the legislature are filled first by the successful constituency candidates, and second, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received. The constituency representatives are usually elected using first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) but the Scandinavian countries have a long history of using both multi-member districts and nationally-based compensatory top-up seats.
The Christian Heritage Party of New Zealand was a New Zealand political party espousing Christian values and conservative views on social policy. Although it never won seats in an election, it came close to doing so in 1996 as part of the Christian Coalition and briefly had a member in Parliament.
Electoral reform in New Zealand has, in recent years, become a political issue as major changes have been made to both parliamentary and local government electoral systems.
The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, and produced a parliament considerably more diverse than previous elections. It saw the National Party, led by Jim Bolger, retain its position in government, but only after protracted negotiations with the smaller New Zealand First party to form a coalition. New Zealand First's position as "kingmaker", able to place either of the two major parties into government, was a significant election outcome.
Ewen McQueen is a New Zealand writer and social commentator who blogs at RenewNZ. From 2008 to 2018 he was involved in the National Party in the Epsom electorate. Prior to that was the leader of Christian Heritage NZ. McQueen has had opinion pieces published in newspapers around New Zealand and on the Stuff website. These include articles on family values issues, the Treaty of Waitangi, and New Zealand's Christian history.
Graham John Capill is a former New Zealand Christian leader, politician and convicted rapist.
This article discusses Christian politics in New Zealand.
The Christian Democrat Party of New Zealand was a Christian socially conservative political party established in 1995. It contested the 1996 general election as part of the Christian Coalition with the Christian Heritage Party.
The New Zealand Conservative Party was a short-lived political party in New Zealand. It was founded by a dissident National Party MP, Ross Meurant.
Merepeka Raukawa-Tait is a New Zealand politician and former chief executive of the Women's Refuge organisation of New Zealand. She is currently a councilor at large for the Rotorua District Council. She previously stood as a candidate for Parliament, serving briefly as deputy leader of the small Christian Heritage Party.
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Epsom is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. As of the 2017 general election, its member of parliament is David Seymour.
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The 2011 New Zealand voting system referendum was a referendum on whether to keep the existing mixed member proportional (MMP) voting system, or to change to another voting system, for electing Members of Parliament to New Zealand's House of Representatives. It was held on 26 November 2011 in conjunction with the 2011 general election.
The 2014 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 20 September 2014 to determine the membership of the 51st New Zealand Parliament.
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Vision NZ is a nationalist political party in New Zealand led by Hannah Tamaki, the co-leader of the fundamentalist Christian movement Destiny Church. The party was announced in May 2019. It contested the 2020 New Zealand general election both for electorate seats and the party list vote, receiving 0.1% of the party vote and winning no seats.
The next New Zealand general election to determine the composition of the 54th Parliament of New Zealand will be held no later than 13 January 2024, after the currently elected 53rd Parliament is dissolved or expires.
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