The Elective Executive
1909-1911: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal)
Executive: Sir Joseph Ward, James Carroll, John A. Millar, James McGowan, John Findlay, Robert McNab, George Fowlds, Alexander Hogg (Liberal)
1911: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal)
Executive: Sir Joseph Ward, James Carroll, John A. Millar, John Findlay, Roderick McKenzie, George Laurenson, David Buddo, Thomas Mackenzie (Liberal)
1911-1914: John A. Millar (Liberal)
Executive: John A. Millar, Sir Joseph Ward, James Carroll, John Findlay, Roderick McKenzie, George Laurenson, David Buddo, Thomas Mackenzie (Liberal)
1914-1915: William Massey (Reform)
Executive: William Massey, Francis Bell, James Allen, Alexander Herdman, Heaton Rhodes, Francis Fisher, William Herries, William Fraser (Reform)
1915-1919: William Massey (Reform)
Executive: William Massey, Francis Bell, James Allen, William Herries (Reform), Sir Joseph Ward, George Warren Russell, William MacDonald, Josiah Hanan (Liberal)
1919: William Massey (Reform)
Executive: William Massey, Francis Bell, James Allen, William Herries, Heaton Rhodes, William Fraser, James Parr, William Nosworthy (Reform)
1919-1922: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal)
Executive: William Massey, Francis Bell, Heaton Rhodes (Reform), Sir Joseph Ward, Thomas Wilford, William MacDonald (Liberal), James McCombs (Labour), Charles Statham (Independent)
1920: William MacDonald (Lib) dies, replaced by Apirana Ngata (Lib)
1922-1925: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal)
Executive: William Massey, Francis Bell, William Downie Stewart (Reform), Sir Joseph Ward, Thomas Wilford (Liberal), Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage (Labour), Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal)
1925: William Massey (Ref) dies, replaced by Maui Pomare (Ref)
1925-1928: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal)
Executive: William Downie Stewart, William Nosworthy, James Parr, Maui Pomare (Reform), Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage (Labour), Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal), Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal)
1926: James Parr (Ref) appointed High Commissioner, replaced by Richard Bollard (Ref)
1928-1930: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal)
Executive: William Downie Stewart, Sir William Nosworthy (Reform), Sir Joseph Ward, Sir Apirana Ngata (Liberal), Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage (Labour), Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal), Harry Atmore (Independent Liberal)
1930: Sir Joseph Ward (Lib) dies, replaced by Bill Veitch (Lib)
1930-1931: Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal)
Executive: William Downie Stewart, Sir William Nosworthy (Reform), Sir Apirana Ngata, Bill Veitch (Liberal), Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage (Labour), Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal), Harry Atmore (Independent Liberal)
1931-1934: Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal)
Executive: Harry Holland, Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser (Labour), William Downie Stewart, Alexander McLeod (Reform), Bill Veitch (Liberal), Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal), Harry Atmore (Independent Liberal)
1933: Harry Holland (Lab) dies, replaced by Walter Nash (Lab)
1934-1935: Harry Atmore (Independent Liberal)
Executive: Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser, Walter Nash, John A. Lee (Labour), Keith Holyoake (Reform), George Forbes (Liberal), Gordon Coates (Independent Liberal), Harry Atmore (Independent Liberal)
The elective executive was a typically Liberal reform, being based on the democratic ideal of the Cabinet being reliant upon the confidence of the people of New Zealand - said people being entirely identifiable with the Liberal Party, and the MPs pertaining thereunto. Late in the long Liberal government, the annual attempts by backbenchers to get the reform passed finally wore down the majority, and - beginning after the 1908 election - the first elective Cabinet was chosen. Members of the House of Representatives voted on 7 positions, with the top 7 vote-getters entering Cabinet and choosing a Prime Minister from among their number, while the Legislative Council elected a single Minister. Despite the hopes of the backbenchers who had promoted the reform, Ward carefully selected an official ticket and ruthlessly whipped dissident Liberals to vote for his candidates in order to prevent a fluke Opposition member getting in.
The radical Liberals, however, got their revenge. By combining with the opposition Reform Party, they reacted against the obvious oligarchical stitch-up by passing a new reform in the next parliament. This time, the vote on the Executive would be open to all voters, and held concurrently with the next general election. Ironically, in the event, the number of radical Liberals elected to the Cabinet in this manner actually decreased. Even worse, the Dominion was now in the absurd situation where the House had fallen narrowly to the Reform Party, while the Liberals had equally narrowly held onto every seat on the Executive. Joseph Ward resigned immediately, being replaced by John A. Millar, who had desperately wanted to be Prime Minister. However, the experience of leading a Government without the confidence of either House of the General Assembly was not what he had had in mind.
In 1914, the electorate finally rectified their error of three years before, and the final terms of the deadlocked, do-nothing Liberal Government were put behind them. Or so they thought: after entering the First World War, new Prime Minister Bill Massey did the honourable thing and invited the Liberals into a National Government for the duration. He would have liked to expand the Cabinet (the work was now too much for 8 people, thus requiring the appointment of increasing numbers of undersecretaries as time went on) but statute prevented this, and instead he pressured half of his loyal followers to resign - casual vacancies were filled by a vote of both Houses to avoid the expense of a national by-election. The experiment with Coalition ended as soon as the war was over, but a mixture of Liberal self-seeking and the idealistic reformism of Reformer Francis Bell resulted in the passage of electoral reform for both the Legislative Council and the Executive. The latter would be elected by national-level STV, thus resulting in a reasonably proportional outcome which would still allow for the selection of the best men by the people at large.
The next decade saw a series of three-party governments, all led by Sir Joseph Ward as the compromise candidate between Reform and Labour - and all the while, the Liberal Party was declining into irrelevance and spinning off Independents at an alarming rate. This was a decade of pusillanimous compromise and missed opportunities, symbolised by the fact that both Ward and Massey were so comfortable in their arrangement that they died in the harness - and Massey's replacement as Reform leader was wheelchair-bound due to arthritis. Even the Labour Party, which opposed a system which would have forced them into permanent co-operation with the forces of reaction, became gradually tamed as even its boldest orators, Holland and Savage, grew accustomed to seeking limited progress along institutionally entrenched battle-lines. Their main flurry of activity was in putting up Bob Semple as a forlorn-hope candidate when a casual vacancy sprang up in 1926 - an attention-seeking gesture, as by convention these replacements were unopposed.
The Elective Executive system reached its nadir at the time of the Great Depression, when the big, established names who had the public profile to be elected to a consensus-driven Cabinet proved unequal to the task of finding quick and effective solutions to a cataclysm for which quietly prosperous New Zealand was unprepared. The new Prime Minister, Gordon Coates, was a centre-right Independent, who himself favoured moderately statist solutions to the crisis, but people like Veitch and Downie Stewart dug in to ensure his compliance in passing their arid laissez-faire policies, while Labour and another Independent Liberal, Atmore, began to dabble in Social Credit.
Finally, after the 1934 election, Labour had a majority in the House and four out of eight seats in the Cabinet on a pledge of - among other things - abolishing the Elective Executive. This was especially urgent, as the inconsiderate electorate had filled one of those seats with the maverick monetary reformer Jack Lee, with whom Labour Leader Michael Joseph Savage had a torrid relationship. By contrast, Labour never got round to abolishing the relatively benign Legislative Council - or, in fact, delivering on a great many of their manifesto promises. Their leaders had been inured to moderation and indolence.
With the support of their friendly Independent, Harry Atmore (who was allowed to be a decorative Prime Minister for a short while), Labour pushed through a return to the status quo ante and - at long last - achieved the ostensible goal of the original proponents of the idea: a Government responsible to the electorate as mediated through a democratic majority in the House. The standard of government in New Zealand does not seem to have notably improved as a result of this.