Similarities and differences to 1966 election

The department of politics at the University of Otago celebrates 50 years of teaching and research this year. This is the ninth in a series of reflections on politics during the past 50 years. This month,  Janine Hayward  and  Chris Rudd  look back at New Zealand politics in 1966.

In the heat and aftermath of an election campaign, there is always the temptation to hark back to an era when politics was a simpler and more civilised affair than we see now. But was there really a golden era in politics? The 50th anniversary of the department of political studies at Otago is a good time to reflect on what electoral politics was like when the department was established 50 years ago in 1967. The country had just been to the polls in 1966 to re-elect National for the third term of what would be a four-term government. The 1966 election campaign was defined in part by debates about New Zealand’s participation in the Vietnam War. Keith Holyoake was returned as Prime Minister with Jack Marshall as his deputy. Labour Party leader Norman Kirk was the leader of the opposition and Social Credit won its first seat in Parliament — a rare achievement for a third party operating under first-past-the-post.

There were 80 MPs in Parliament, and voter turnout was nearly 87%, which was impressive in today’s terms but was down on the  more than 90% turnout at the previous election. Six women were elected to Parliament, including Ethel McMillan,  from the Dunedin North electorate. This was the largest number of women ever elected to Parliament. National won 44% of the vote, gaining 44 seats (55% of seats); Labour 41% of the vote and 35 seats (44% of seats). The most significant swing in the vote was towards Social Credit,  which won 14% of the vote, but only one electorate seat.

Television was in its infancy in 1966 and did not figure prominently in the election campaign. The day before election day, the Otago Daily Times editor felt confident to state that "parties rather than personalities decide the vote, and this is so entrenched a characteristic of the New Zealander that television is unlikely greatly to influence it".

The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation was reluctant to air programmes with political content and discussion in case it was accused of bias. It allocated two hours of coverage to the parties with 50 minutes each for National and Labour and  20 minutes for Social Credit. There were no leaders’ debates (the first of these came in the 1969 election) but there were three "election forum" programmes in which the party leaders were interviewed for half an hour each by journalists using questions sent in by viewers.

In place of television, the parties campaigned through newspapers and, to a lesser extent, the radio. The Otago Daily Times, which had long defended its editorial bias in support of the National Party, was beginning to soften that stance by the late 1960s and by the 1970s it was not unusual for the ODT editorials to show ambivalence towards both parties. But in 1966, the paper explicitly supported the National Party, boldly claiming in its headline the day before the election (with no polls to support the claim) "National selected for third term".

But there was considerable face-to-face campaigning at public meetings in 1966 which drew large crowds, especially for the party leaders. These meetings were not the sanitised, "preaching to the converted" occasions we see in 2017 through television and social media. For example, during the 1966 campaign,

Holyoake addressed an audience of 1500 at the Auckland Town Hall. He was heckled, booed, slow handclapped, and had paper darts thrown at him. After the event, a group of young men reportedly rocked his car before he was able to drive off to his hotel.

Leadership was an issue in 1966 just as it  has been  in 2017. The National Party leader,  Holyoake (just like Bill English) had an established ministerial reputation before taking over as prime minister; while his opponent,  Kirk (like Jacinda Ardern) had only been Labour Party leader for a relatively short time and was the third leader Labour leader in as many years. The Labour campaign built the image of Kirk as a "young man in a hurry".

There was very little campaigning focused on the private lives of the leaders in the 1966 campaign. Instead, the focus was on the public leadership qualities of the two main party leaders: was Kirk too inexperienced? Would his ties to the trade union movement cloud his vision? Would Holyoake’s previous experience see New Zealand through the turbulent economic time ahead?

In 1966,  the state of the economy was a major issue in the campaign with debates over overseas borrowing and government spending. Labour was criticised for promising "extravagant handouts" and being coy on whether it would increase taxes, while National was proud of its record of reducing tax rates in 13 of the 14 years of National governments.

There was still no systematic opinion polling during election campaigns in 1966 (this would not be introduced until 1968). Surveys in Dunedin and Christchurch, however, did clearly indicate that voter volatility overall was much lower than today. Not only would voters have been able to tell you whom they would vote for well in advance of the 1966 election, but  most would also have confidently told you whom they would vote for at the next election also.

For  50  years, the Department of Politics at Otago has been teaching and researching New Zealand politics, and the study of the three-yearly elections has always been a keen focus.  Comparing  2017 with 1966, the focus of scholarly attention to the competence of leaders and the importance of the health of the economy,  has been remarkably similar. But what has dramatically changed, for better or worse,  has been the attention now given to the role played by the media in election campaigns, especially television, and related to this, the preoccupation with the personal lives of those running for elected office.

- Janine Hayward is professor and head of the department of politics and Chris Rudd is a senior lecturer in the  department.