New Zealand Conservative Party

The New Zealand Conservative Party (originally known as Right of Centre) was a short-lived political party in New Zealand. It was founded by a dissident National Party MP, Ross Meurant.

Meurant had led the New Zealand Police's high-profile "Red Squad" during the controversial 1981 Springbok Tour. He became a National Party MP in 1987 and won re-election as such in 1990 and in 1993. Meurant often clashed with the leadership of the National Party over Maori policy, and was regarded as one of the leading dissidents within the National caucus at the time. Eventually, in September 1994, Meurant decided to break away from National and to establish his own party, adopting the name "Right of Centre" (or "ROC"). The acronym represented Meurant's right-wing economic philosophy of privatisation of government assets.

The new party was originally conceived by former National MPs Rob Munro (formerly a lieutenant-colonel in the New Zealand Army), lawyer Graham Reeves, and Meurant. Munro and Reeves had lost their National seats in 1993. Meurant remained in Parliament but was an implacable critic of Prime Minister Jim Bolger. To some extent the new party represented an opportunity for the former MPs to re-enter parliament. However, as the 1996 general election loomed, Munro retreated to obscurity and Reeves returned to the National Party fold to contest the unwinnable Tukituki electorate seat for National.

Meurant held the view that the new MMP formula for delivering parliamentary seats precluded any single party from achieving an outright majority (except in the most exceptional circumstances). Misguidedly, he anticipated that Prime Minister Bolger and his trusted aide, Finance Minister Bill Birch, (now Sir William Birch), would recognise the mathematical inevitability of the MMP formula and embrace Meurant and the former National party conspirators, in a post-election coalition.

But Meurant had mis-read the animosity Bolger had for him that, in the final analysis, condemned Meurant's party to oblivion. Though history did vindicate Meurant's belief that the MMP formula would not deliver an outright winning party at the polls. In fact, in 1996, the Bolger government finally accepted the inevitability of Meurant's claim and reached a pact with ACT, the second political party to be formed under MMP. ACT had been formed by former Labour Finance Minister Roger Douglas (now Sir Roger Douglas). National withdrew its candidate from the Wellington Central electorate to ensure ACT's candidate, Richard Prebble, would succeed in the election. This provided ACT with an electorate MP to offset its failure (as happened with all minor parties in the first general election under MMP (including the Christian Coalition) to reach the 5% threshold of votes to qualify as a political party with "List MPs" in parliament. This manoeuvre enabled Bolger to cobble together a coalition with ACT personalities whom he preferred to Meurant.

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