MEDIA RELEASE
Wednesday 24 August 2005
Chief Electoral Office
Ministry of Justice

More Political Parties Seeking Party Vote In 2005 General Election

Nineteen registered political parties are seeking the party vote in the 2005 General Election, the Chief Electoral Officer David Henry announced today.
This compares with 14 parties at the 2002 General Election.

The 19 parties have submitted a total of 667 candidates on their party lists. This compares to 523 list candidates in 2002, an increase of 27 percent.

The registered parties seeking the party vote are:

- Act New Zealand
- Alliance
- Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
- Christian Heritage NZ
- Democrats for Social Credit
- Destiny New Zealand
- Direct Democracy Party
- Green Party
- Jim Anderton’s Progressive
- Labour Party
- Libertarianz
- Maori Party
- National Party
- New Zealand Family Rights Protection Party
- New Zealand First Party
- 99 MP Party
- OneNZ Party
- The Republic of New Zealand Party
- United Future New Zealand

There are six recently registered parties seeking the party vote for the first time in 2005. These are:

- Destiny New Zealand
- Direct Democracy Party
- Maori Party
- New Zealand Family Rights Protection Party
- 99 MP Party
- The Republic of New Zealand Party

There are 597 electorate candidates seeking the electorate vote in the 69 electorates. (This compares to 593 electorate candidates in 2002.)

560 of those candidates represent registered parties and 37 candidates are independents or represent unregistered parties.

A full list of electorate candidates for each electorate and the party lists are available from the elections website www.elections.org.nz/electorate-information.html.

Attached are the number of list candidates and the number of electorate candidates representing those parties seeking the party vote.

ENDS

Party Number of List Candidates Number of Electorate Candidates

Act New Zealand 59 56
Alliance 30 16
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party 13 6
Christian Heritage NZ 6 5
Democrats for Social Credit 29 5
Destiny New Zealand 42 39
Direct Democracy Party 32 32
Green Party 57 52
Jim Anderton’s Progressive 51 52
Labour Party 75* 69
Libertarianz 28 11
Mąori Party 51 42
National Party 65 62
New Zealand Family Rights Protection Party 18 7
New Zealand First Party 40 40
99 MP Party 2 0
OneNZ Party 6 1
The Republic of New Zealand Party 6 3
United Future New Zealand 57 62
Total 667 560

* maximum number on the published list is 65

Gordon Campbell:
The Waihopai Three Acquittal (and East Jerusalem)

The acquittal of the Waihopai Three for their attack on the Waihopai spy base is as welcome as it is surprising. To succeed in court, one would have thought they would need to have proved a direct connection between the base near Blenheim and the war atrocities inside Iraq and/or the renditions occurring elsewhere – possible, but no simple matter – and moreover, that the property damage done was more than a symbolic act i.e. that the actions taken by the protesters went some way towards preventing, or mitigating the evil being committed.

While no one knows what goes on in the hearts of jurors, the motive behind the decision to acquit is likely to have been based on social grounds, as much as on points of law... More>>