Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/politics/Archive 2

Naming of Government

Should it be "<Prime Minister name> <Party name> Government" (eg. "Bolger National Government") or "<number> <Party name> Government" (eg. "Fourth Labour Government") or something else? What about coalitions?

I have copied debate on this from the Rogernomics page: --Helenalex 05:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I support making those articles. They really are needed, and Australia has them for each of their governments. The series by Margaret Clark on political leaders would be a good source, and Ian Grant's Public Lives as well. There will need to be some discussion on how to deal with the coalition governments - I would suggest

The Bolger National Government and National-led Coalition Government

The Fifth Labour Government in Coalition

NB, National governmen--Lholden 07:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)ts have tended to be referred to as "The Bolger National Government" whereas Labour governments have tended to be "The Fourth Labour Government". --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 22:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had also been wondering about what to do with coalitions. I think you're right in that we need to sort of treat a series of coalitions led by one party as a government, ie now back to 1999 as the fifth Labour government rather than three or more seperate governments. There is a similar issue for governments before the advent of party politics in about 1890. Before this time 'ministries' were made up of a loose collection of individual MPs temporarily united behind a leader (the Vogel Ministry etc). These could last anywhere from a few days to the best part of a decade. My inclination is to just start the government series in 1890 and deal with the ministries seperately.

In reference to naming, I think we should be consistent one way or the other, ie name them all after their main leader, with a slash in cases of two major leaders, ie the Savage / Fraser government, or all numbered. James Belich numbers all his governments in Paradise Reforged. Personally I'm not sure which way to go. The fourth Labour government is the only one which has a basically invariable name in terms of what people call it, and 'the Lange government' sounds kind of weird. On the other hand in the early 20th century parties changed their names quite a bit and it could get confusing, whereas things like 'the Ward government' are pretty straight forward. Either way it should be consistent and the other name should direct people to the page, ie if we choose numbering than a search for 'Muldoon government' should lead people directly to 'third National government' and vice versa. --Helenalex 01:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at the list below, numbering looks like it would work well... the party name changes I'm thinking of must have occurred when the party in question was in opposition. --Helenalex 05:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Australia has the articles linked off Australian Commonwealth ministries, but they just list people and positions. There is also the subcats under Category:National cabinets for Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. - SimonLyall 06:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would be more inclined to go for 'the <leader> government' as opposed to the 'fifth National government' idea Brian | (Talk) 03:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a quick example here. --Lholden 07:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it really should be (e.g.) "The First Liberal Ministry" --Lholden 07:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks pretty good so far. There needs to be a brief section for the elections in between when they won and when they lost - not too much detail since elections should have pages of their own, but just enough for people to see how they fit into the context of what the govt was doing. Other than that I can't see any issues, although some will probably pop up once things get more detailed.

I think the list of Premiers and PMs settles the question of what to call the governments - we can't call it the 'Ballance/Seddon/Hall-Jones/Ward/Mackenzie Government'. And I would lean towards calling it the Liberal Government rather than the Liberal Ministry. I'm pretty sure thats what people usually call it, and it fits in with the rest of them. --Helenalex 08:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've created the first article - the First Liberal Government of New Zealand, and as you can see below, the Governments of New Zealand article. --Lholden 05:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I knew all it would take was a rainy weekend :) Will try and get stuff done on this once I've finished rewriting the History of New Zealand page. --Helenalex 05:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Basic Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand page done. --Helenalex 03:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A very basic Third National Government of New Zealand page is up. --Helenalex 21:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fourth National Government of New Zealand. Could other people start pages too? --Helenalex 11:01, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What needs to be included?

Prime Minister
Cabinet members
Major legislation/policy
Election results
Coalition agreements (if applicable)

Legislation and policy should probably be subdivided the same way for each govt, perhaps:

Economic
State services (health, education, welfare etc)
Infrastructure (rail, roads, energy)
Constitutional
Race relations
NZ in the world (trade, foreign relations, wars, national identity)
Social and cultural (abortion and other sex-related stuff, alcohol, censorship, the arts etc)

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that wouldn't fit into any of these categories. I'm not sure if the 'NZ in the world' category should be subdivided or not. In some eras (4th Labour, for example), all this went together, but in others it probably didn't so much.

There should also be a section on the 'politics in the narrow sense' side of things, for example major dissension within parties, tone of debate, major issues/concerns that weren't reflected in legsislation and so forth. I have no idea what this would be called. --Helenalex 05:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New Zealand politicians

Is the above a good title for an article on MPs - youngest = Marilyn Waring?? - longest serving = Rex Mason?? etc etc. I don't think I should call it Trivia on MPs! Hugo999 (talk) 21:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New Zealand politicians (you had a spelling mistake in your entry below, Hugo999) exists and is a redirect to List of New Zealand politicians. Personally, I can't quite see the point on the list (what is the real difference to a category, other than that the list is nowhere near as complete?), and the suggested new page wouldn't strike me as overly important. But if you feel it's warranted, go for it and use the redirect as the article's page. Schwede 66 08:08, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Historic Electorates

I have created stubs for most of them, although some not yet done now appear on the navbox at the bottom of these pages as redlinks. The following electorates need a box of past MPs like Wellington Country (at present they are shown as Under Construction): Christchurch (New Zealand electorate), St Albans (New Zealand electorate), Temuka (New Zealand electorate), Wellington (New Zealand electorate), Wellington Suburbs (New Zealand electorate), Westland (New Zealand electorate) Hugo999 (talk) 09:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well done for getting stubs up for all the electorates! I'm happy to help. What would be helpful for me is to have a complete list of MPs for an electorate. Hugo999, if you drop the missing names and years onto the talk page, I'll tidy things up. I'd be interested to start with things local for me. I've watchlisted the electorates in the Christchurch area. The box on Wellington Country looks good, but what kind of box do you have in mind for multi-member electorates like Christchurch (New Zealand electorate)? Schwede 66 05:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For multimember electorates see Auckland; not by me, rather complicated. I think all the 20th century MPs and back to c1896 now have their own page by now? Also a few 19c MPs with redlinks say on the New Zealand by-elections page though like Isaac Wilson (New Zealand) some were just 2 or 3 years on the back-benches. Quite a few 19c MPs to do still, though probably not needed until the NZ Governments or Parliaments pages in 19c extended, and there a quite a number of pages in 20c to do first! Also as proposed above I would like to start the New Zealand politicians page with details of longest/shortest serving MPs etc; title OK? Hugo999 (talk) 02:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC) PS; have added obit details to activist Terry Heffernan.[reply]

I'm working myself through the Canterbury electorates. Christchurch (New Zealand electorate) is now in pretty good shape, I would say.

My reply to the New Zealand politicians suggestion is with the entry above.Schwede 66 08:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on NZ govt working group

I've started a discussion on the NZ govt working group on the WPNZ talk page, as I've raised questions about adding parameters to that template. Please contribute there if that interests you. Schwede 66 01:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That item has been resolved. Thanks, Adabow, for all the hard work. Schwede 66 01:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Naming conventions

The naming convention for by-elections appears to be electorate by-election, yyyy. That's fine and I've been adding to the list as I'm working myself through the early Canterbury election history. I've now come across the case of two by-elections being held in the same electorate and year. Please see the redlinks on Christchurch Country for 1860. Any suggestions or strong feelings what the eventual article names should be (not that those articles will be written anytime soon, given the scarcity of source material, but we might as well sort the names now). Schwede 66 01:44, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems good. I reformatted the titles so that there is a space before the (1) and (2). Another way of titling them would be "'blahblah by-election, [month] yyyy"

eg: "Wellington by-election, March 1785"

Adabow (talk) 11:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another case of this in Akaroa in 1874, where they were redlinked as electorate by-election, yyyy (#st/nd) and that seems to be even better. Ok? I've been adding by-elections to New Zealand by-elections and the list is getting quite long. Schwede 66 22:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By-election box

I have developed a by-election box series here, based on {{MMP election box}}. Please make comments and changes. Is is suitable for use? I think something is needed because contesting list MPs need to be marked, and the currently used {{election box}} doesn't do this, and it is not of the same uniform as {{MMP election box}}. Please have your input on this topic. Thanks, Adabow (talk) 05:17, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That appears to make sense to me. That said, I haven't done a modern by-election page yet and thus wouldn't be aware where the fish-hooks might be. Schwede 66 07:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved per discussion below. GTBacchus^(talk) 19:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/governments → Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/politics — Can we rename this sub-project to a more appropriate name? This generalises the projects topics, and if a politics paramter is added to the Template:WPNZ it would fit in more nicely with this sub-project. Adabow (talk) 02:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support

As nominator Adabow (talk)
Broadening it makes sense. WP:AUP is the equivalent on the other side of the Tasman. Schwede 66 05:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Limiting it to govt only is a bit too narrow. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 00:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above. (I've come here after seeing the WP:NZ notice). --Avenue (talk) 11:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Comments

shouldn't this have been discussed at WP:NZ before opening a WP:RM request? 70.29.208.247 (talk) 05:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted a comment there, inviting participation. Schwede 66 00:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Can you help with a triple DYK nomination?

I'm expanding the article on John Evans Brown, and it would be great if others could chip in and you'll get DYK credits in return. Please see the talk page - there are some good sources listed that can be worked in.

The aim is to submit a triple DYK about Brown and his three brothers in law that were all MPs in the New Zealand Parliament. Two of the articles are new (from today and yesterday), whereas the page on Garrick has been around for a few weeks. My suggested DYK submission is:

... that the New Zealand Members of Parliament Francis James Garrick, John Thomas Peacock, John Evans Brown and Henry Richard Webb were brothers in law? Schwede 66 06:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help. The item has been on DYK.

Scope of the project

It's probably useful to have a discussion on the scope of the project. I've put the following note on a user's talk page:

I see you are doing a lot of WPNZ assessments at the moment. I don't know whether you've seen that for the last few days, we've had a new politics parameter for this template. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_New_Zealand/politics#Tasks and Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/politics/assessing for a bit more background. But in a nutshell, if it's not too much trouble, it would be great if you could include "|politics=yes|politics-importance=" in the WPNZ code on the relevant talk pages. Of course, it would be great if you could assess the politics-importance while you are at it (which will mostly not differ from the general WPNZ importance), but that might be less important than getting the parameter included in the first place. Thanks for your help. Feel free to enquire with me or Adabow if you have any queries. And thanks for doing all the hard work!

The response came back as follows:

Thanks for the notice on my talk page. I'll review the articles I've assessed so far and add the politics parameter to any relevant ones (a few politicians mostly). Just one question on scope: the executive and legislative arms of the government are clearly indicated in the scope of the task force, but does it also include things such as the judiciary, Acts of Parliament and government-run organisations? So far I've come across articles like Chief Justice of New Zealand and Crown entity, and I wasn't sure if they fell within the scope. I'll probably have a ~~few~~ lot more nitpicking questions as I assess more articles – just a heads up :).

So, what shall the scope be? Schwede 66 02:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having thought more about this, I suggest that the scope is everything that is covered in the adjacent politics navigation box. Schwede 66 08:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree in general. I think the scope could also include historical equivalents (e.g. Provinces of New Zealand), local body politics (e.g. Mayors in New Zealand), and relevant opinion polls. Perhaps a few of the geographical topics don't belong (North Island, South Island, Stewart Island/Rakiura). Another thing that strikes me is the absence of anything specifically Maori (except Maori parties in Parliament). --Avenue (talk) 11:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I suggest you add the relevant categories to the list. As far as assessing things Maori, I've already done Category:Treaty of Waitangi. Maybe we need to amend the nav box. Schwede 66 19:34, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, would Māori politics warrant a separate section in the navbox? If so, we could include the following under a heading of "Māori politics": Māori seats, Māori King Movement, Māori Parliament (I'm surprised this is still a redlink ... might have to start an article on this), Treaty of Waitangi (claims and settlements). If not, then perhaps Māori politics could be added to the General section.

Following from the original question, the proposed scope would apparently include the judiciary and government-run organisations. But I'm still unclear as to whether or not Acts of Parliament would also be included. My guess would be yes, but a second opinion would be useful. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 00:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say yes to Acts of Parliament, as they are the product of politics. My initial reaction would be to not have a separate section for Maori politics in the navbox, as keeping it separate as opposed to integrated will no doubt be seen as violating NPOV by some. But like you, I'd like to obtain broader input on this question. Schwede 66 00:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Māori politics to the General section of the infobox should be safe enough :P. I'll add it if there are no serious objections in a couple of days. Also, you're probably good to publish the scope information onto the project page. Cheers again. – Liveste (talk • edits) 03:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a quick go at the scope. Please add to it. It also needs wikilinks. Schwede 66 06:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Liveste, do you still have this on your 'to do list'? I think this could be quite a useful addition. Schwede 66 09:58, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My bad. I've added it now. Still leaves plenty of tasks on my 'to do list' ... sigh. – Liveste (talk • edits) 10:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User box

Schwede 66 wants you to join WikiProject NZ politics.

There's now a user box on the project page. There is also some code that can be posted on somebody's talk page to invite them. I've had to undo a recent edit, as it resulted in two boxes being created when inviting somebody. The invite code needs further tweaking, as it displays the invited user as a member, rather than the invite text. Schwede 66 22:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the userbox so that the member category doesn't display when inviting someone. The invitation instructions on the project page also included three tildes, which I had to replace because for some reason the template couldn't handle it. Feel free to suggest alternative wording – the replacement text I added was more of a stop-gap solution. – Liveste (talk • edits) 03:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Category govt stub

I'm proposing to delete this category, and transfer the pages to Category:New Zealand politics stubs. Please refer to the WikiProject Stub sorting talk page if you have an opinion on this and discuss it there. Schwede 66 18:28, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Minister of Finance

Regarding the Minister of Finance (New Zealand), I've queried why the list starts with Dillon Bell and ignores the two prior Colonial Treasurers. Either editors don't have this page on their watch list, or they don't know the answer either. I suspect it's just an oversight that the first two guys are missing, and that we have to renumber our finance ministers as a consequence. If somebody in this taskforce knows anything about this, could you please leave your comment on the article's talk page? Schwede 66 05:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I left a note on Vardion's talk page, as they are the main contributor to the list, but unfortunately they are not active much on Wikipedia any more. Adabow (talk) 10:22, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist

Can you please add George Wood (New Zealand) to your watchlist? It would seem that somebody close to that person is editing the article. Schwede 66 06:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]