[1] Brian Talboys came very close to not being Prime Minister, but signed letters from most of caucus and a fit of aspiration drove him to accept the proposal put to him by a grouping of senior Cabinet members (the "Colonels") for a vote to replace Muldoon. But despite winning a comfortable 31-19 margin in caucus, Talboys did not prove to be the uniting figure the Colonels had hoped for, with civil war breaking out in the National Party between the supporters of Rob Muldoon and the postwar social and economic Consensus and those who felt the need to respond to the growing pressures for reform. Although well-regarded as an individual, Talboys could not rally the same popular support as Muldoon, and suffered greatly at the polls due to perceptions of a disorganised party and Muldoon's own sabotage of his replacement. Cancelling a rugby tour in election year probably didn't help matters, either.
[2] Coming from behind to succeed a dead Labour Prime Minister, losing the post to Rob Muldoon within 18 months and despite winning the popular vote the second time, and finally romping home in 1981 over a disorganised National Party, Bill Rowling has earned a place as the true comeback kid. Like Talboys, though, he had little chance to rest on his laurels, as Labour faced the conundrum of how to appease the desire of its base to preserve the Consensus while overhauling the moribund New Zealand economy. Reform was the watchword of Rowling's second ministry, but spoken very softly; life under the Fourth Labour Government would later be compared to living in a house which was being redecorated one room at a time, the familiar slowly giving way to the new.
[3] Out of context, I am unsure whether the Alpha Party ever actually existed, beyond a mention Jones made of it in his 1978 essay collection New Zealand the way I want it (or: The Little Yellow Book of Bob Jones Thought if you're feeling unkind). He spoke of them as an Auckland-based libertarian movement who stood for the more economically and socially free society he wanted to see; here, outraged at both parties' creeping incrementalism, he hitches his horse to the Alpha wagon. Much like OTL, it doesn't work out, and arguably does even less to send a message.
[4] McLay, as one of the Colonels who knocked Muldoon off his perch, was a natural successor to Talboys, and he limped into the barn in 1987 when New Zealand decided Rowling was too much of a Seventies throwback no matter how much he talked about the bright new day New Zealand was entering. He was promptly hit in the face with Black Tuesday and the loss of nearly half of the value of the New Zealand Stock Exchange. The remainder of McLay's short term was nasty and brutish, as the radicals in caucus seized the opportunity to privatise broad swathes of the state sector and sold off in full what Rowling had only sold in part. Fairly or not, National was blamed for the hurt, and 1990 was an abject disaster.
[5] From the dizzying heights of four seats and almost a quarter of the vote in 1981, Social Credit had a long and painful comedown as its appeal as a protest vote against the two big parties waned. Bruce Beetham was able to cling to the leadership, de facto remaking the party into the Bruce Beetham Party ft. Social Credit. Despite constant tensions with his caucus, Beetham clung to the leadership and his seat in Rangitīkei until he was narrowly defeated in 1990. Beetham's health declined precipitously thereafter, and he died before the end of 1991.
[6] Mike Moore wanted to make one thing very clear: proportional representation was a mistake. He didn't get to choose, however, thanks to Rowling's 1987 promise for a referendum on the electoral system and the voters' insistence on going through with the damn thing. Otherwise, Moore's time was a success as the longest-serving Labour PM since 1949 and taking credit for the economic growth of the 1990s. His mimicking of the 'triangulation' approach taken by the Democrats in the U.S. kept Labour buoyant in the polls, though his distinctly neoliberal economic approach caused some friction with traditional Labour supporters who felt the pain which came with continued deregulation (even if it wasn't at the breakneck pace of the Fourth National Government). These voters drifted towards Jim Anderton's People's Labour Party, which pulled in close to a tenth of the vote in 1993 and pulled Labour into a coalition in 1996. While fears of Anderton holding veto power over the Government caused some concerns, it was his own party which would prove his undoing.
[7] The first MP in New Zealand to break with his party and retain his seat under the banner of a new one, Winston Peters launched the trend of disgruntled backbenchers hauling off and starting their own parties, either relying on a single electorate or (particularly after 1996) catering to just over 4% of New Zealanders. An acolyte of Rob Muldoon who stuck with him through the 1980s, Peters was able to draw support from National voters who wanted to send a message to the party but couldn't stomach voting for Labour. His strong presence and public profile got him an eighth of the vote in 1993, but he could not convince the voters that the New Zealand Party was not just the Winston Peters Party, and the more convincing alternatives (and a cross-party campaign to unseat Peters in Tauranga) available elsewhere saw the party fail to cross the 4% threshold.
[8] Social Credit had bounced back in East Coast Bays in 1990 thanks to National's nationwide wipeout and the decision to stake the last of its political capital on electoral reform. Its single seat in the 43rd Parliament gave the SoCreds just enough political sunlight to stay in the public consciousness as the MMP era approached despite an ill-advised rebrand in 1992, and they banded together with Jim Anderton (more on that below) in 1995.
[9] The last hurrah of deep-green politics in New Zealand was a drawn-out affair, with the Green Party never capturing an electorate but managing to tread water around 4% for most of the 2000s. The party would not long outlive its founder, and despite finally entering government in 2008 lost its support to other parties who offered more to their disparate left, right, radical, and reflexively anti-government constituencies.
[10] Jim Anderton sensed an opportunity to break through to the big leagues, and cobbled together a motley crew of
[11] A former policeman from the Waikato, "Big Ross" Meurant took Winston's formula of pandering to those left behind by the post-Consensus era and sprinted for the tryline, accumulating a base of farmers, small-business-owners, law-and-order social conservatives, economic Muldoonists, the elderly, middle-class environmentalists who liked the idea of the countryside but didn't want to live there, and nationalists who distrusted foreigners. Meurant's Rural League devoured most of the New Zealand Party's voteshare in 1996, and its annexation of the less-insane supporters of Christian Heritage launched it into a third-place position for most of the MMP era. While Meurant would eventually be retired from Country's leadership in 2003 for threatening to sink the Government over marriage reform, his replacements have upheld his proud tradition of making embarrassing statements and sticking by them in order to fire up the base.
[12] There was a window in the mid-1990s for economic liberals who distrusted Labour and were dismayed with the softly-softly approach National had taken in the wake of the 1987-1990 disaster, and Derek Quigley, one of the conspirators who unseated Muldoon, leapt through it. The party has been a perpetual partner in National Governments, though its share of the vote has steadily dwindled to within spitting distance of the threshold.
[13] An abortive effort to "pull a Winston" with the religious vote, Christian Heritage failed to break the barrier as other parties with broader appeal crowded them out. The overwhelming majority of their voters defected to Country, National, or even Labour in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations against the leader, and the party died an ignominious death.
[14] "Ambitious, but rubbish" was the epitaph for New Zealand's first female Prime Minister. Tarred with the same brush of disloyalty as Talboys and suffering from similar divisions within Government (though her extremely forceful personality kept even Jim Anderton in line), Clark's brief tenure was doomed by the Asian financial crisis, third-term fatigue, and more than a little sexism. While she clung on to the leadership and Labour rallied in 2002, Clark ultimately failed to replicate Rowling's success.
[15] Morrie Williamson was not the likeliest candidate for the premiership, but in 1997 he was the best National could dredge up. Then Clark knifed Moore, the polls were turned upside down, and National had broken through to the other side. Leading as a compassionate conservative, Williamson presented a blokey, approachable image which appealed to middle New Zealand, with a refreshingly blunt and outspoken manner that arguably won him the 2002 election when Ross Meurant, the kingmaker in the hung Parliament that emerged, referred to him as "the only true-blue New Zealander on offer." Gay marriage and prostitution were passed (albeit by narrow margins) as the PM resolved to "drag New Zealand into the twenty-first century", winning over a great many Opposition supporters with his remarks in favour of marriage reform. This earned him enemies on the right of his Government, however, and his term ended in the same abrupt manner as Moore's.
[16] Erupting from the twitching corpse of the Progressive Coalition like a scene from Alien, E Tu! was an attempt to drag the Old Left into the new millennium by harnessing the growing energy of political Maoridom. A Ngapuhi trade unionist was selected as leader, and the party's lacklustre showing in the Labour-dominated Maori seats was offset by the following it retained from the unions. The party has carved out a niche based on these two groups and maintained a stable position in the polls, though it has seen some reversal of fortuned under accusations of being "Brown Labour" - or, as a National MP once referred to it, "a loose confederation of iwi agitators, eco-nutters, and students too disreputable even for Young Labour."
[17] Social Credit also emerged from the wreckage of the Progressive Coalition, though it would wander the wilderness throughout the 2000s in a desperate search for a purpose as it wrestled with E Tu! and the Greens for votes. After 2008 they would increasingly position themselves as the "economic sovereigntist" opposition to neoliberal globalism, harnessing discontent and siphoning votes from Labour in the wake of Trevor Mallard's poor showing. This has led to some less-than-desirable elements joining, with allegations of anti-Semitism rising from the grave to haunt the party.
[18] A talkback radio host who was blunt to the point of embarrassment, Paul Henry was made Prime Minister by the right of the National Party, who believed that Williamson's small-c conservatism was just Labour by a different name. Henry lacked the gravitas of Talboys, the firm grip of Clark, or the charisma of a fully-rounded human being; Morrie Williamson could gaffe and laugh it off, but when Paul Henry tried to do the same he offended an entire nation and jeopardised trade negotiations with India. His defeat was unsurprising and Henry promptly resigned from politics to go back on radio, though he would make headlines within a few years for abusing his ministerial travel privileges.
[19] Mallard was Labour's answer to Jim McLay, elected in a hospital pass election which saw his Government sunk by an economic crisis. While he did about as well as could be reasonably expected, particularly with two unruly coalition partners to be wrangled, the Christchurch earthquakes and National's coalescence around their new leader ensured the Sixth Labour Government would go the way of the Third.
[20] Adams was the breath of fresh air the National Party needed in 2011; young, female, well-spoken and a brilliant counterpoint to Mallard's image as clapped-out and exhausted. Spearheading the recovery from the Christchurch earthquake, Adams benefitted from the positive outcomes of programmes Labour had set in motion, as well as the economic recovery driven by an export boom and free-trade deal with China. The only cloud on the horizon as the 2017 election approached was the weakening position of Big Ross and National's other little friends, but that wasn't a big problem, right? Right?
[21] Between disillusionment with Adams' social permissiveness and the presence of a mad millionaire to bankroll them, Christian conservatism was back with the CommonSense Party who, while dogged by a sex scandal surrounding their leader in 2015, have established themselves as a presence on the right of New Zealand politics for the foreseeable future.
[22] The 2017 election was a mess. National's historic partners had seen their voteshares collapse, with Chester Borrows literally driving his car into a line of protestors and getting a minor fine for it, Paul Goldsmith barely treading water as Bob Jones conducted the political equivalent of a hit-and-run guerrilla campaign from Tamaki which depleted Reform's libertarian constituency, and both the SoCreds and CommonSense nosing over the 4% threshold - in the latter case, by about six hundred votes. While Adams cobbled together a rainbow coalition, the Opposition smells blood in the water as rumours of a vote of no confidence emanate from backbench leakers on a fortnightly basis, and the National Party is being called "tired-looking" even by its own media partisans.
As Labour's bright young thing Jamie Shaw moves from strength to strength and the National-"led" Government comes apart at the seams, it looks exceedingly unlikely that Adams' government will make it even halfway through its third term.