Social Credit, an analysis of New Zealand’s perennial third party

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to provide a history and political analysis of the organisation, policies, membership and leadership of the Social Credit party between 1953 and 1986. The introductory chapter describes the methodology and reviews the literature on third parties in general and Social Credit in particular. Chapter Two provides a prelude to the formation of the Social Credit Political League in 1953. It traces the movement's decline as an education and pressure group under the first Labour Government. Chapter Three examines the debate surrounding the decision t o engage in direct political action and describes the process by which the Political League was formed. Chapter Four considers the reasons for and the findings of the Royal Commission on Monetary, Banking and Credit Systems (1956) and accounts for the growing internal debate culminating in the removal of Mr Wilfrid Owen as Leader in 1959. In Chapter Five the impact on the party of Mr Vernon Cracknell's victory in Hobson in 1966 is considered, along with an assessment of his role in Parliament as the sole third party representative. The reasons for his defeat at the 1969 general election and replacement as Leader some six months later are investigated, and Chapter Six is devoted to the brief but stormy experiment with Mr John O'Brien as Leader, followed by his split from the League in 1972 and the formation of the New Democrat Party. The early Beetham years, including attempts to revise the party's monetary reform dogma, broaden the scope of its message, and to give it a more professional organisation are considered in Chapter Seven. I n Chapter Eight the reasons for and the internal consequences of the party's rapid rise in popularity from early 1978 and its decline after March 1981 are analysed. The chapter ends with an account of Mr Beetham's defeat as Leader in 1986. The thesis concludes that Social Credit's history as an electoral organisation has been conspicuously cyclical, that its progress has been regulated largely by the electoral performances of the two major parties and by the presence or absence of minor party competition, that its leadership has been distinctly oligarchic, and that Social Credit has not been one, but several different parties. Why has the party not been more successful? And why has it lasted so long? These questions are addressed in the final chapter.