New Zealand Liberal Party - Gradual Decline

Gradual Decline

Slowly, however, the Liberal Party's dominance began to erode. The "reforming fires" of the party, the basis of its original success, were dying, and there was little innovation in the field of policy. In 1896, a splinter group formed the Radical Party, to advocate more "advanced" policies than Seddon's. In 1905, a similar group formed the New Liberal Party to push for more "progressive" policies, but this group was defunct by the time of the next election in 1908.

In 1906, Seddon died. Joseph Ward, his replacement (after a period of stewardship by William Hall-Jones), did not have the same charismatic flair. Increasingly, the Liberals found themselves losing support on two fronts — farmers, having obtained their goal of land reform, were gradually drifting to the conservative opposition, and workers, having become dissatisfied at the slowed pace of reform, were beginning to talk of an independent labour party.

The Liberals were aware of the problem facing them, and attempted to counter it. As early as 1899, Seddon had founded the "Liberal and Labour Federation", an attempt to relaunch Ballance's old Liberal Federation with more support from workers. Later, Joseph Ward declared a "holiday" from socially progressive legislation, halting any changes that might drive away conservatives. The party also introduced runoff voting (second ballot), hoping to reduce the chances of labour-aligned candidates from splitting the non-conservative vote, but this only applied in the 1908 and 1911 elections, being repealed in 1913.

In 1909, the conservative opposition (led by William Massey) established the Reform Party, a united organisation to challenge the Liberals. At the same time, the first noteworthy labour-orientated parties were appearing, saying that the Liberals were no longer able to provide the reforms that workers needed. The Liberal Party found itself torn between its two primary constituencies, unable to satisfy both. This coincided with a gradual decline in the organisational standards of the Liberal Party, with the situation having reached the point where in some cases, multiple "Liberal" candidates were contesting the same electoral race.

In the 1911 elections, the Liberal Party won four fewer seats than the Reform Party, but managed to remain in power with the support of some labour-aligned MPs and independents. In 1912, Sir Joseph Ward stepped down and was replaced by Thomas Mackenzie, who defeated George Laurenson by 22 votes to 9 (John A. Millar did not stand in this leadership ballot on 22 March). In July, coupled with the defection of some Liberal MPs like Millar, this arrangement collapsed, and twenty-one years of Liberal Party government came to an end.