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The Social Credit Party was established as the Social Credit Political League. It was founded on 10 January 1953, and grew out of the earlier Social Credit Association. The party's first leader was Wilfrid Owen, a businessman. Much of the early activity in the party involved formulating policy and promoting social credit theories to the public.
Beetham and party president Alan Shaw said the new party would offer an alternative to interventionist and free-market policies by resurrecting original social credit economic ideas. At its launch the party said it intended to contest every electorate at the 1990 election and already had 45 members lined up to contest electorates. [ 1 ]
In 1970, a bitter dispute at the party's annual conference saw Cracknell lose the Social Credit Party's leadership to his deputy, the more confrontational John O'Brien. The 1970 conference was described as "the most vivid example of political bloodletting in public" since John A. Lee had been expelled at the 1940 Labour party conference. [ 13 ]
The 1954 New Zealand general election was a nationwide vote to determine the shape of the New Zealand Parliament's 31st term. It saw the governing National Party remain in office, but with a slightly reduced majority. It also saw the debut of the new Social Credit Party, which won more than eleven percent of the vote but failed to win a seat.
His first campaigning was for former Whangarei mayor Joyce Ryan, later becoming chairman of Social Credit's Whangarei Branch. [2] He stood in the Whangarei electorate in 1984 for Social Credit and again in 1987 for the Democrat Party (a renamed Social Credit). [3] After the 1984 election he was Social Credit's spokesman on industrial relations. [4]
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The Movement evolved into the New Zealand Social Credit Political League and Marks polled highly, though not enough to take the seat. When not running for Parliament, he served on the League's national committee and was made a life member in 1968. Marks deservedly takes credit for establishing the Social Credit movement as a force in Wanganui.
Soon after being elected he began advocating to change the name of the Social Credit Party to the New Zealand Democratic Party in an effort to rejuvenate following a huge drop in support between the 1981 and 1984 elections. [5] In 1985 Knapp resigned as deputy leader of the party and Morrison stood to replace him.