Abolition of The Property Requirement
After considerable controversy, Parliament decided in 1879 to remove the requirement of property ownership. This allowed anyone who met the other qualifications to participate in the electoral process. As the restrictions on suffrage in New Zealand excluded fewer voters than in many other countries, this change did not have the same effect as it would have had in (for example) Britain, but it nevertheless proved significant. In particular, it eventually gave rise to "working class" politicians, and eventually (in 1916) to the Labour Party.
From 1908, several legislative amendments extended voting rights to seamen who lived on their ships so did not have a residential address to qualify as an elector; subsequently several electoral rolls had "seamens' sections" with many addresses shown as their ship.
Read more about this topic: History Of Voting In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words abolition of, abolition, property and/or requirement:
“I am gradually drifting to the opinion that this Rebellion can only be crushed finally by either the execution of all the traitors or the abolition of slavery. Crushed, I mean, so as to remove all danger of its breaking out again in the future.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.”
—John Major (b. 1943)