Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
With New Zealand’s 11th election under the MMP proportional system due in November, it’s easy to take the influence of minor parties for granted. But just over 40 years ago, things were very different.
In 1984, with the conservative National government of Robert Muldoon seeking a fourth term, the major obstacle for any opposition party was the first-past-the-post electoral system itself.
It was winner-takes-all, and a minority of the vote could be rewarded with a majority of seats in parliament. Minor parties had little if any hope of success. Enter maverick property investor Bob Jones.
His New Zealand Party was a rarity in the country’s political history, going from conception to climax to collapse in just a few years.
No other political party had achieved so much electoral impact so swiftly, and yet without a single candidate obtaining a parliamentary seat. Much of this sudden success can be attributed to Jones.
I had known Jones (who died last year aged 85) for about 15 years when, in 2024, he suggested I write a history of the party. Such a book had not yet been produced, he believed, “because most political history books are written by leftish academics”.
I eventually agreed to write the book under one condition: that he not pay me a cent for it. This prevented anyone exercising influence over the content – not least Jones himself.
There is no doubt his indomitable will propelled the party to a level of popular support that would have been unimaginable without his involvement, to the point where he became probably the most famous politician in New Zealand never to be elected to parliament.
Jones and his party were effectively one and the same. Asked during the 1984 election campaign for his opinion of the New Zealand Party, Muldoon astutely, if acerbically, replied:
It’s a Bob Jones party, and it revolves totally around Bob Jones. If he were taken out, there’d be nothing left.
In the preceding year, however, Jones had worked hard to make the New Zealand Party a genuine political movement, with candidates, committees and conferences all contributing to the organisation.
Unavoidably, though, Jones continued to exercise a gravitational force on its ideology. His commitments to constitutional reform, homosexual and prostitution law reform, the abolition of the defence forces, and (most importantly) the pursuit of radical free-market policies served as cornerstones of the party’s creed.
‘It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done’
But Jones and the New Zealand Party were caught off guard in June 1984 when Muldoon announced a snap election to be held the following month. It was to be one of the major pivot points in the nation’s history.
Another Muldoon win and the country would have been further mired in the swamp of state regulation. A Muldoon defeat, on the other hand, might usher in a government with very different ideological approaches to the economy and society.
In the event, that is certainly what happened when the victorious Labour government heaped the protectionist policies of the outgoing Muldoon regime on a pyre, and then charged ahead with a range of rapid and radical reforms.
One key question that remains from that election, however, is to what extent the New Zealand Party contributed to National’s downfall.
Certainly, the Muldoon who won the 1975 general election had been the supreme political pugilist of that decade, introducing what Geoffrey Palmer (a later Labour prime minister) described as “a new and alien political style”.
By the 1984 campaign, though, Muldoon looked more punch-drunk than threatening, and sometimes appeared at speeches and interviews almost like a caricature of his former self.
The result was that some National voters were roaming around in search of an alternative, which is where the New Zealand Party came in.
The 1984 campaign was an extremely rigorous experience for Jones. The frenetic pace of leading a national political crusade in a very short period against formidable adversaries unavoidably took its toll. Of the long hours and drudgery behind the scenes, he said:
I hated it. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. People might think that I enjoyed it. I never enjoyed it.
Mission accomplished
The campaign schedule was punishingly relentless. Jones, who normally devoted so much of his daily routine to reading and reflecting, now found himself hurtling across the country daily, with countless appointments and activities, under perpetual public and media scrutiny.
“It made me sick,” was his feeling about it. At the same, his approach to fighting National remained resolute: “We’ll slaughter the bastards” was his mantra going into the campaign.
But as the voting figures firmed up on election night, for many New Zealand Party candidates the euphoria of the previous month of campaigning evaporated.
At modest events held in the various “electorate headquarters” peppered around the country – anything from church halls to boat clubs to candidates’ own living rooms – a gloom descended.
Earnest faith in the party’s policies and prospects were now confronted by the stark will of the voters. When the election results were announced, they fell swiftly, brutally and unequally.
Despite securing roughly one out of every eight votes cast – 12% of the national vote – the New Zealand Party did not manage to win a single seat in parliament. But it certainly had a corrosive effect on support for National in some seats.
It is difficult to say with certainty which marginal seats went from National to Labour as a result, and it’s equally possible they would have swung that way regardless. But the emergence of an ideological challenge to Muldoonism from the right, not just the left, can’t be underestimated.
Either way, Jones reacted with emotional ambivalence. He was deprived of electoral victory, yet he was far from downcast by the results.
Along with the rest of the nation, he had witnessed the toppling of his political nemesis. In one evening, Muldoon had fallen from invincibility to impotence, and a radically new era in the country’s society and economy was about to begin.
Jones bowed out of politics shortly afterwards with a sense of mission accomplished. Within 30 years, New Zealand adopted a new electoral system that would see the rise of smaller parties and a more representative parliament.
‘Like a Revolution’: The Untold Story of Bob Jones and the New Zealand Party – Paul Moon (Upstart Press)
Paul Moon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/09/09/well-slaughter-the-bastards-how-bob-jones-and-the-new-zealand-party-changed-politics-in-1984/