Religion in New Zealand - Religion in Politics

Religion in Politics

Religion has played and continues to play a 'significant and sometimes controversial role' in the politics of New Zealand. Although most New Zealanders today consider politicians' religious beliefs to be a private matter, a large number of New Zealand Prime Ministers have been professing Christians, including Jenny Shipley, Jim Bolger, Geoffrey Palmer, David Lange, Robert Muldoon, Walter Nash, Keith Holyoake, and Michael Joseph Savage. However both the current Prime Minister John Key and his predecessor Helen Clark are agnostic. The current Deputy Prime Minister Bill English is Roman Catholic and has acknowledged that religious groups should contribute to political discourse. Sir Paul Reeves, Anglican Archbishop and Primate of New Zealand from 1980–85, was appointed Governor General from 1985–1990.

Christian political parties have never gained significant support, and have often been characterised by controversy and public disgrace. Many of these are now defunct, such as the Christian Democrat Party, the Christian Heritage Party which collapsed after leader Graham Capill was convicted as a child sex offender, Destiny New Zealand, The Family Party and the New Zealand Pacific Party whose leader Taito Phillip Field was convicted on bribery and corruption charges. United Future has been more successful, which although not a Christian party has had significant Christian backing. The two main political parties, Labour and National, are not religious, although religious groups have at times played a significant role (e.g. the Ratana Movement). Politicians are often involved in public dialogue with religious groups. The Exclusive Brethren gained public notoriety during the 2005 election for distributing anti-Labour pamphlets, which former National Party leader Don Brash later admitted to knowledge of.

Murray Smith was a member of the New Zealand Parliament from 1972 to 1975. His interest in governance continued when he later enrolled in the Bahá’í Faith and contributed in national and international roles within the Bahá'í Community.

New Zealand has no established religion, although this is not stated formally in its constitution. The Treaty of Waitangi, which itself has a complicated status within New Zealand law, contains a last-minute addition concerning freedom of religion (sometimes called the 'fourth' article). In 2007, the government issued a National Statement on Religious Diversity containing in its first clause "New Zealand has no official or established religion." The statement caused controversy in some quarters, opponents arguing that New Zealand's head of state Queen Elizabeth II is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. However, the Queen does not act in that capacity as the Queen of New Zealand; although she retains the styling of Defender of the Faith within her official title in that role. A poll of 501 New Zealanders in June 2007 found that 58% of respondents did not think Christianity should be New Zealand's official religion.

However, there has been increasing recognition of Māori spirituality in political discourse and even in certain government legislation. In July 2001 MP Rodney Hide alerted parliament to a state funded hikitapu (tapu-lifting) ceremony at the opening of the foreign embassy in Bangkok. It was revealed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had a standard policy of employing Māori ritual experts for the opening of official offices around the world. The Resource Management Act 1991 recognises the role of Māori spiritual beliefs in planning and environmental management. In 2002 local Māori expressed concerns that the development of the Auckland-Waikato expressway would disturb the taniwha, or guardian spirit, of the Waikato River, leading to delays and alterations to the project.

In New Zealand blasphemous libel is a crime, but cases can only be prosecuted with the approval of the Attorney-General and the defence of opinion is allowed: "It is not an offence against this section to express in good faith and in decent language, or to attempt to establish by arguments used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, any opinion whatever on any religious subject." The only prosecution, in 1922, was unsuccessful.