29th_New_Zealand_Parliament

29th New Zealand Parliament

29th New Zealand Parliament

Term of the Parliament of New Zealand


The 29th New Zealand Parliament was a term of the Parliament of New Zealand. It opened in 1950, following the 1949 general election. It was dissolved in 1951 in preparation for the 1951 general election. The governing Labour Party had been defeated in the election by the National Party. This marked the end of the First Labour government and the beginning of the First National government.

Quick Facts Overview, Legislative body ...
Opening of 29th NZ Parliament in 1950, with Serjeant-at-Arms, Group Captain Alexander Manson carrying the mace, followed by Speaker Matthew Oram

Additionally, this Parliament saw the final meeting of the Upper House; the Legislative Council, which was abolished on 1 December 1950, making the New Zealand Parliament a unicameral legislative body.

1949 general election

The 1949 general election was held on Tuesday, 29 November in the Māori electorates and on Wednesday, 30 November in the general electorates, respectively.[1] A total of 80 MPs were elected; 49 represented North Island electorates, 27 represented South Island electorates, and the remaining four represented Māori electorates; this was the same distribution used since the 1946 election.[2] 1,113,852 voters were enrolled and the official turnout at the election was 93.5%.[1]

Sessions

The 29th Parliament sat for two sessions, and was prorogued on 18 July 1951.[3]

More information Session, Opened ...

Ministries

The National Party under Sidney Holland won the 1949 election, defeating Labour's second Fraser Ministry. Holland remained in power until 1957, when he stepped down due to ill health.[4]

Historical context

The National Government appointed 25 new members to the New Zealand Legislative Council (the so-called Suicide Squad), so that the Legislative Council Abolition Bill could be passed. With that legislation, the Legislative Council voted itself out of existence, and New Zealand has been unicameral since the last meeting of the Upper House on 1 December 1950.[5]

Members

Overview

The table below shows the number of MPs in each party following the 1949 election and at dissolution:

More information Affiliation, Members ...

Notes

  • The Working Government majority is calculated as all Government MPs less all other parties.

Initial MPs

The table below shows the results of the 1949 general election:

Key

  Labour   National

More information Electorate, Incumbent ...

Table footnotes:

  1. Matiu Ratana, the previous holder of the Western Maori electorate, died on 7 October 1949. His wife Iriaka Rātana stood for election instead.

By-elections during 29th Parliament

There was one by-election during the term of the 29th Parliament.

More information Electorate and by-election, Date ...

Notes

  1. "General elections 1853–2005 - dates & turnout". Elections New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 3 December 2012.
  2. Wilson 1985, p. 173.
  3. Wilson 1985, p. 141.
  4. Wilson 1985, pp. 86–87.
  5. "Sound: the end of the Legislative Council". Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 28 January 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  6. "The General Election, 1949". National Library. 1950. pp. 1–5, 8. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
  7. Norton 1988, p. 197.
  8. Wilson 1985, p. 198.
  9. Norton 1988, p. 228.
  10. Norton 1988, p. 419.
  11. Norton 1988, p. 331.

References

  • Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
  • Norton, Clifford (1988). New Zealand Parliamentary Election Results 1946–1987: Occasional Publications No 1, Department of Political Science. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington. ISBN 0-475-11200-8.
  • Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First published in 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article 29th_New_Zealand_Parliament, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.