History
The Labour Party was established on 7 July 1916 in Wellington, bringing together socialist groups advocating proportional representation and "the Recall" of Members of Parliament, as well as the nationalisation of production and of exchange. Its origins lie in the British working-class movement, heavily influenced by Australian radicalism and events such as the Waihi miners' strike. It is the oldest surviving New Zealand political party. Despite its Wellington origins, the West Coast town of Blackball is often regarded as the birthplace of the party, as it was the location of the founding of one of the main political organisations which became part of the nascent Labour Party.
Read more about this topic: New Zealand Labour Party
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)